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France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk

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Re: France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk

#81

Post by Aerroon »

pseudony wrote: post #24
skillina wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to do a bit more reading on why European intellectuals migrated en masse to the US in the 1930s.

Definitely. And then one could start wondering if the direction might reverse.

It would take something miraculous for the direction to reverse towards Europe. People have been complaining about European tech, economy, and freedoms (as in free speech) for decades now. Things have become worse on all of these fronts.

I think the AI act is a great example here. The EU came up with regulation for an emerging technology that basically killed the chance for Europe to compete. Lots of people disagreed with this criticism when the act was debated, but it turns out the critics were right. Europe will be buying AI services from elsewhere because Europe wasn't able to compete.

This entire way of thinking in Europe would need to reverse for there to be a chance that the brain drain changes course.

Re: France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk

#82

Post by embedding-shape »

japanoise wrote: post #74
Mindless2112 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The demonym for France is "French," so it's not wrong (even if it doesn't sound right.)

It's not completely wrong, it will be understood, but it is ungrammatical and a clear marker that the speaker is not native, similar to getting adjectives in the 'wrong' order ('a big tasty sandwich' sounds more natural to a native speaker than 'a tasty big sandwich', even though the latter makes sense and will be understood). Demonyms for historical neighbours of England have irregular forms when speaking of a parti…

> but it is ungrammatical and a clear marker that the speaker is not native

You mean a native speaker might be ungrammatical when using their non-native language? That makes sense to me.

> Spain has 'Spaniard'.

Even so, you'll hear a ton of native Spanish people saying "As a Spanish person" or "As person from Spain" instead of simply "As a Spaniard", I'm not sure this is very surprising. If anything, that mistake makes it more likely they're a native than not, in the case of Spain, as the level of English outside of metropolitan areas is lacking at best, compared to other European countries.

Re: France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk

#83

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

bootsmann wrote: post #39
ajross wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't have "Europe is antisemitic because of the Spanish Inquisition" on my bingo card today. No one expects it, indeed.

The other two are ok-ish (though notably Reform is not in government and the elections are 4 years away) but yeah leading with a source from the 15th century really doesn’t support the argument.

The UK Home Office decision about settled status is the fault of the UK, not the EU.

The FT piece is paywalled. But two prominent members of Reform are currently in jail - one for domestic abuse, and one for treason (!) - so the party is not famous for a steely dedication to the moral high ground.

Re: France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk

#84

Post by evanjrowley »

japanoise wrote: post #74
Mindless2112 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The demonym for France is "French," so it's not wrong (even if it doesn't sound right.)

It's not completely wrong, it will be understood, but it is ungrammatical and a clear marker that the speaker is not native, similar to getting adjectives in the 'wrong' order ('a big tasty sandwich' sounds more natural to a native speaker than 'a tasty big sandwich', even though the latter makes sense and will be understood). Demonyms for historical neighbours of England have irregular forms when speaking of a parti…

When speaking English, the French side of my family refers to themselves like that often, however, they're from Bretagne, so exactly how French they are is up for debate.

Re: France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk

#85

Post by Symbiote »

roblabla wrote: post #27
rzerowan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough there is some level of control that can be exerted by the US gov via the distros (at least the major ones - see legalese restrictions on Redhat/Ubuntu etc when you want to download , stating the various US gov laws/sanctions that they follow) and also via the kernel - i think some time back Russian kernel maintainers were removed. So Open source it may be , however there are still pressure points that…

Europe has a major distro in the form of SUSE, so that’s not too worrying. Even if upstream linux banned european contributors, there are enough european contributors that a fork would just emerge. So I’m really not too worried about that happening.

Two if you mean Europe more generally, as Ubuntu is British.

Re: France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk

#87

Post by MarceColl »

traceroute66 wrote: post #75
mistrial9 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a French; an American; a Brit, or a British sounds casual but correct to me

> sounds casual but correct to me I don't care if it "sounds ok to me". If you're going to make statements like that to go against what I've written then at least come up with some viable citations to grammar literature. Honestly, in all my years on this earth I have never, ever heard anybody in any English speaking country I've spent time in say "a French" "a American" "a British". And that amounts to a lot of time…

The reason you can say "an American" has nothing to do with a vowel or not, there are just some demonyms that for some reason can be used like this, and some that can't.

For example:

* German is countable: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis... * French is uncountable: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis... * American is countable: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis... * Spanish is uncountable: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis...

But your explanation about why it is correct is bullshit, has nothing to do with "an" vs "a", the English language is just inconsistent as fuck and some demonyms can be used like this and some can't.

Re: France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk

#88

Post by traceroute66 »

woodruffw wrote: post #76
traceroute66 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. "French" is adjective or a collective noun, but don't use it as a countable noun. Trying to say "as a French" makes about as much sense as thinking "as a American" is correct. As has already been said ... "a French (wo)man","a French person","a French citizen" is the correct way to go. The reason you can say " an American" is because America starts with a vowel. Same reason why you would not say "a British" but y…

Demonyms don’t use the same rules as countable nouns. Both “French” and “British” are acceptable demonyms, they’re just not particularly idiomatic in American English (which likes to overcorrect with “person” like you’ve noted). (There’s no particularly consistency with this, it’s just what sounds “good” to American ears. We’re perfectly fine with “as a German” or “as a Lithuanian.”)

> Both “French” and “British” are acceptable demonyms

No they are not.

The Oxford English Dictionary, for example makes it quite clear re. 'French':

    "With plural agreement, and frequently with 'the' French people regarded collectively ..."
I draw your attention to the first three words ... "with plural agreement".

It is explicitly telling you that "French" is a collective plural noun and hence cannot be used as a singular countable noun.

Re: France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk

#89

Post by erikerikson »

embedding-shape wrote: post #70
drstewart wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Japanese internment worried you, you should see Europe's treatment of perceived outsiders [0] and get reallyyyy worried about the ongoing attacks [1] and rhetoric [2]. I would urge extreme caution to anyone in Europe that is at risk. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Jews_from_Spain [1] https://www.ein.org.uk/news/home-office-remove-euss-pre-sett... [2] https://www.ft.com/content/0e29224f-9d06-4315-a8…

> Expulsion of Jews from Spain [...] On 31 March 1492, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile, issued the Alhambra Decree, ordering all unconverted Jews to leave their kingdoms and territories by the end of July that year, unless they converted to Christianity Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but we (I live in Spain) have come a long way since 1492 (534 years ago)…

In the UK two decades ago (admittedly not the shortest time) I heard plenty of terrible words and treatment of Pakistanis (which seemed to be used as a good enough bucket for all brown skinned people) and people with red hair. A general disdain for Continentals was a little more subdued. When I was younger France was famous for it's poor treatment of foreigners and non-francophiles. Consider all the politics and anger towards those that continue to try to cross the Mediterranean on makeshift boats or the constant complaints about "benefit thieves" who emigrate from the Eastern bloc. There are many examples and some of them are not without basis but while things have gotten less stabby-stabby there's some fairly brutal attitudes and behaviors.

Re: France's government is ditching Windows for Linux, says US tech a strategic risk

#90

Post by gib444 »

Toine wrote: post #50
selfsigned wrote: post #29

Really proud as a French, I think the government has had some success with moving to something matrix based for the public sector too. https://tchap.numerique.gouv.fr I just hope we end up having more wins at the EU-level, instead of massive fails like GAIA-X...

"As a French" ne veut rien dire en anglais. Il faut rajouter man, person ou quelquechose. Frenchman, French person, French citizen.

Nor "Frenchie" while we're on the topic. It sounds really weird. It's also commonly used to refer to a french bulldog !
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