France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech

Post by Tarmo362 » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 12:42 PM UTC

hug wrote: post #177

ChocolateGod wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's nuts Windows is still the go-to for anything these days despite everyone knowing what a parasitic Linux still doesn't have anywhere near as nice and cohesive as Group Policy, Active Directory etc. Plus you can pay Microsoft to host it all for you on Azure.

Group Policy and Active Directory are dead, for all intents and purposes. It's now Intune (via OMA-DM), and Entra. Both of those products are about as bad as you might imagine the "cloud" versions of GP & AD might be. They are better, in ways -- no longer having to care and feed for domain controllers is nice, and there's no longer an overhead for additive policy processing, so endpoints only get a single set of poli…

Post by spiderfarmer » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 12:43 PM UTC

specproc wrote: post #218

spiderfarmer wrote: post #17

Being dependent on US tech feels the same as when we were dependent on Russian energy: strategically unwise and avoidable. We have alternatives, they just need work.

This is so utterly urgent. The US is an increasingly-deranged, hostile actor, which is able to cripple our tech at will. I think we've been far too complacent about the direction of travel across the Atlantic. Trump and his crew are the new normal, and the key players in Silicon Valley are on board. Any European government not currently working towards independence from US tech is being almost criminally neglectful.

Post by samus » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 12:43 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #172

einr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't mentioned America or any other continent. It is the Europeans who are shouting about sovereignty right now. Well, no one has mentioned computer hardware until you did. Surely you understand how "all the motherboards are made in Taiwan" is less of an immediate risk to sovereignty than "all of our business and personal data is stored on American servers and subject to US law" It would be nice if Europe could…

Computing is the software and the hardware. So you're right, I feel that it is futile. Well, you can use the old hardware which you've already got if you get cut off from foreign suppliers. But the same is true for software. It's even more true for software. If the French government and other Europeans were serious about reducing or eliminating dependency on American cloud services, they should switch to older versio…

Post by WhyNotHugo » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 12:43 PM UTC

lunar_rover wrote: post #64

Jyaif wrote: post #19

Unless you need some windows-only software, using windows at this point is masochism. I was never a fan of Linux, but the Microsoft driven enshitification is so strong that Linux is now a better option. To win, all Linux had to do is stand still, and that's exactly what it did! Ubuntu in 2026 is pretty much the same as Ubuntu from 2006.

> To win, all Linux had to do is stand still, and that's exactly what it did! It is moving? Red Hat has been investing in containised apps and image based distros for years, Valve single handedly made Linux gaming viable. HDR development is mostly driven by Valve and Red Hat customers. And no Linux isn't good enough yet. UX is all over the place.

Post by otikik » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 12:43 PM UTC

ChocolateGod wrote: post #120

esskay wrote: post #12

Yeah good on them, everyone needs to do this. It's nuts Windows is still the go-to for anything these days despite everyone knowing what a parasitic, buggy mess it is. "Easy" shouldn't be the excuse in this day and age. Big orgs and especially government entities should be hiring the people that know what they're doing and get off that crummy platform.

> It's nuts Windows is still the go-to for anything these days despite everyone knowing what a parasitic Linux still doesn't have anywhere near as nice and cohesive as Group Policy, Active Directory etc. Plus you can pay Microsoft to host it all for you on Azure.