France to ditch Windows for Linux to reduce reliance on US tech • Hacker News Board

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

#441

Post by mixmastamyk » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 4:13 PM UTC

WaryByDesign wrote: post #432

mixmastamyk wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they only diverted 10% of the budget from MS to solving issues they’d have had a solution a decade or two ago.

I'm... not so sure? The French government has, widely seen, 6M employees. Given retail pricing of EUR200/seat/year (and they definitely have a better arrangement), that's 1.2B, and I'm not sure that's enough to provide an identity management plus office apps plus file storage solution? And at 10% of that? Absolutely forget it...

All of that came about without them spending anything. So the extra is just to fix bugs and do integration work. StarOffice (LibreOffice ancestor) existed in the 90s—I used it and it was fine for government work.

File storage? Cheap by Y2K as well.

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

#442

Post by ezst » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #394

I’ve commented on this before but you’ll know France is serious when there are Linux ports of Solidworks and Catia. France has a real edge over American companies by being the dominant player in the CAD world, it’s always surprised me that they nerfed that advantage by tying to an American operating system.

Wasn't CATIA running on unix even before it ran on Windows?

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

#443

Post by yibers » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

lithos wrote: post #418

yibers wrote: post #405

I am saying this as a very long time Windows user, and it saddens me. Politics aside, from a pure technichal, functional, privacy and UX perspective, the case for changing over from Windows to Linux is getting stronger by the day.

If you picked XFCE as your front end you get WinXP functionality, with the nice things from win10/11 (start menu search that's actually local only, multiple desktop workspaces, and graphical settings/updates I've only needed to go to command line twice in four years).

How does XFCE compare to KDE and GNOME? Also, does it has all the nice window snapping features that I'm used to fron Windows?

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

#444

Post by bornfreddy » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC

WaryByDesign wrote: post #420

It's... an admirable goal, but it pretty much remains to be seen if "France"[1] follows through. Previous attempts to "ditch Windows" have not ended that well. Munich in 2003, the entire Federal German government in 2009, Munich again in 2013, Munich again in 2021, and so on. Most common end-result: back to Windows. Breaking points are typically the lack of an "Office 2016" compatible suite, lack of "Adobe PDF" tooli…

Motivation matters.

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

#445

Post by samsk » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

WaryByDesign wrote: post #420

It's... an admirable goal, but it pretty much remains to be seen if "France"[1] follows through. Previous attempts to "ditch Windows" have not ended that well. Munich in 2003, the entire Federal German government in 2009, Munich again in 2013, Munich again in 2021, and so on. Most common end-result: back to Windows. Breaking points are typically the lack of an "Office 2016" compatible suite, lack of "Adobe PDF" tooli…

Earlier attempts were mostly about money and ideology. Now its a question of security, thanks to one 'clever' 'businessman'. So thanks to his _great_ efforts, it might actually work out this time.

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

#446

Post by carefree-bob » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

Teever wrote: post #436

carefree-bob wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autocad has 39% market share in CAD, Solidworks has 14% market share, and Fusion 360 has 9%. None of this is a major national advantage for any side. It's bizarre to think that the US or France would treat this as some kind of mark of national influence, since if anything happens to these top three vendors, there are lots of other vendors waiting in the wings. It's not like a national oil reserve, where it's importan…

But what kind of projects are people using these different pieces of software for? Are people designing aircraft carriers in Fusion? Don't get me wrong, I understand that AutoCAD is extremely important for architecture and the death grip that AutoDesk has over that industry needs to be broken for the benefit of all of us, but from my understanding Dessault Systems makes software that is used for totally different pur…

I doubt that the US military itself is using commercial CAD software, most likely they are using something in house. Again, CAD software is not Extreme Ultra Lithography, where it is a marvel of engineering and can only be produced by one firm. The netherlands can rightly be proud of ASML as a national achievement. But CAD software? Now that's just goofy.

Check out: https://www.army.mil/article/249241/armys_powerful_open_sour...

But I would assume defense contractors -- the private firms like Lockheed -- are probably using commercial software. The US military is pretty bureaucratic and is filled with bespoke stuff, whereas the contractors are basically businesses and would use whatever is common in commercial business world.

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

#447

Post by lithos » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

yibers wrote: post #443

lithos wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you picked XFCE as your front end you get WinXP functionality, with the nice things from win10/11 (start menu search that's actually local only, multiple desktop workspaces, and graphical settings/updates I've only needed to go to command line twice in four years).

How does XFCE compare to KDE and GNOME? Also, does it has all the nice window snapping features that I'm used to fron Windows?

My personal PCs have enough screens that I haven't tried. Though I do really like Windows snapping features on my work laptop (can't change OS there).

I haven't played with other windowing systems to judge too much. And just picked right from screen shots/gifs to not need to try.

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

#448

Post by onraglanroad » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 4:22 PM UTC

astrobe_ wrote: post #104

sgt wrote: post #2

That might work for government employees using webapps all day. But for power users it is unlikely to be friction free.

There's a negligible amount of "power users" among government employees; I think the majority of them are trained in reading and applying laws, and given the strong scientific/literary divide in the French culture, they usually think of themselves as inapt with computers (and the erratic behavior of MS products didn't help, if you ask me). But knowing France, what to really worry about is execution, in particular for…

85% of cloud servers are Linux. It's not a niche product for people who work with servers.

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

#449

Post by ricw » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

WaryByDesign wrote: post #420

It's... an admirable goal, but it pretty much remains to be seen if "France"[1] follows through. Previous attempts to "ditch Windows" have not ended that well. Munich in 2003, the entire Federal German government in 2009, Munich again in 2013, Munich again in 2021, and so on. Most common end-result: back to Windows. Breaking points are typically the lack of an "Office 2016" compatible suite, lack of "Adobe PDF" tooli…

Munich is a bad example - they were effectively „bought out“ by Microsoft by investing hugely into the local economy in the form of offices and employees. It was also two parties that kept flip flopping with different priorities. Linux itself had some hiccups but was fine from what I recall.

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

#450

Post by fxtentacle » Fri, Apr 10, 2026, 4:24 PM UTC

WaryByDesign wrote: post #420

It's... an admirable goal, but it pretty much remains to be seen if "France"[1] follows through. Previous attempts to "ditch Windows" have not ended that well. Munich in 2003, the entire Federal German government in 2009, Munich again in 2013, Munich again in 2021, and so on. Most common end-result: back to Windows. Breaking points are typically the lack of an "Office 2016" compatible suite, lack of "Adobe PDF" tooli…

Munich led to "all of Schleswig-Holstein" in Germany. 44,000 Exchange mailboxes replaced with Open-Xchange. 25,000 Windows+Office desktops replaced with Linux+OpenOffice.