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European Alternatives

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Re: European Alternatives

#41
post #34
post #8

Categories missing: - Operating systems, for various kinds of workloads - Programming language toolchains - Hardware vendors

Open source generally meets the needs of the first two. There's barely any proprietary toolchains left in common use; maybe Oracle Java is one of the last? Hardware you can buy from China. Distant, predictable authoritarianism that doesn't make annoying social media posts is sadly preferable to .. whatever is going on over there.

Only if there are European resources to keep the lights on.

Java is FOSS by the way, however it is also a good example, its runtime capabilities isn't the product of long nights and weekends.

Re: European Alternatives

#43
post #39
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that European alternatives are still in English, when no European country (since the departure of the U.K. from Europe) actually uses that language.

The amount of things wrong is impressive You're confusing Europe and the EU You're forgetting about Ireland and Malta You're thinking that because the UK left the EU it will change the main language countries use to speak to each others

> You're forgetting about Ireland and Malta

In both countries English is only one of the official languages.

Re: European Alternatives

#44

Isn't it sad that we now have Russian, Chinese, American, European, etc alternatives? I mean I get it, Sept 11 paved the way for FISA orders and NSA overreach, Russia and China reverted back into dictatorship, but Europe is also at the edge. Shouldn't we rather fight that nationalistic power grab that just makes us all poorer and less free? And instead propagate global alternatives that are not subjected by some powe…

> Sept 11 paved the way for FISA orders and NSA overreach

It's not even that. We euros were more than willing to look the other way (see the umpteen attempts to reconcile our privacy-friendly legislation with the free-for-all of American services, ongoing for decades) in the name of convenience and fundamentally shared values. The turning point was really in 2024/2025, when those shared values were summarily swept away on the other side of the Atlantic.

Besides, the "global alternatives not subjected to power-hungry overlords" are actually very much subjected to the worst of humanity, and wide open to exploitation from such overlords.

Re: European Alternatives

#46
post #37

Last time this came up I decided to try Scaleway which is at the top of their "cloud computing" list. "European alternative" that doesn't know that European addresses have non-ASCII characters: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1835649083345649780

I'm sure there are much bigger and more worthwhile criticisms to be had than this.

It's something they should fix and if they did would you suddenly switch to Scaleway? I think you would consider other factors first.

A good critique for example is OVH lost a lot of customer data due to a fire. Where was the redundancy? That would make me think twice before switching to OVH.

Re: European Alternatives

#47

Isn't it sad that we now have Russian, Chinese, American, European, etc alternatives? I mean I get it, Sept 11 paved the way for FISA orders and NSA overreach, Russia and China reverted back into dictatorship, but Europe is also at the edge. Shouldn't we rather fight that nationalistic power grab that just makes us all poorer and less free? And instead propagate global alternatives that are not subjected by some powe…

I think the opposite as you. These global companies often act as a nation with laws unto themselves. Most of them don't actually have real support that can do anything unless you make a lucky Twitter post or something. Having a local company that is realistically beholden to local laws and local politicians that you can actually potentially go and talk to if needed is a major feature.

Re: European Alternatives

#48
post #38
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scaleway is slick. It's like a European Digital Ocean.

Last time I wanted to try it it was nowhere near DO: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1835649083345649780

You've posted that twice in this thread. I don't think it's as damning as you think it is.
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