Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

xda-developers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 325 posts

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

#191

Post by drnick1 »

vrganj wrote: post #165
slibhb wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performative anti-Americanism has become one of the major features of European culture (and especially French culture).

As a European, the Anti-Americanism is not performative. It's a deep disconnect in values, brought to the forefront by the current administration and the oligarchs running wild. America used to be seen as an example, the big brother watching out for us. Now it's a cautionary tale of greed, hubris and societal decay, as well as an increasingly antagonistic actor of global instability. Y'all ruined your reputation and…

> It's a deep disconnect in values

So, it's performative. While they complain about American hegemony, Europeans buy iPhones (or Android), drink Coke, scroll Instagram, and listen to Taylor Swift. And while they might object to NATO spending, decades of inadequate military spending have left Europe with no real alternative to buying protection from America.

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

#192

Post by sveme »

bertil wrote: post #189
slibhb wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Performative anti-Americanism has become one of the major features of European culture (and especially French culture).

Some big moneyed interests are trying to split Europe and the US. The current US administration is definitely not helping, but every ad I see on the Reddit main feed is a blatant attack on the relation, from brand new subreddits, pointing at magazines I’ve never heard about before. I’ve been reporting them, but it keeps coming, from constantly different sources, different names, subreddits, but always the same vague…

Trump is all that‘s needed for that. The Greenland saga alone was sufficient. And then he attacked Iran.

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

#193

Post by MaxPock »

znnajdla wrote: post #127
cmiles8 wrote: post #114

They’re still going the almost certainly end up running this on US designed chips, with US designed networking equipment and a bunch of other assets tied back to US companies. They should do what they want, but it’s “sovereignty theater” at best.

The US or Trump can’t switch off your chips or your networking equipment on a whim - and if they ever designed hardware that could do that, no one would buy such hardware as soon as that capability became known. Using cloud software is a much bigger risk - your access can be turned off anytime and data access is part of the deal. Sovereignty is not about building everything yourself. Division of labor advances civili…

Trump just needs to ask them to jump and they will ask how high.

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

#194

Post by sveme »

YZF wrote: post #188
stephen_g wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it’s not just that, the current administration have destroyed a bunch of the US’s oldest and most important alliances… I’m not in Europe but in another allied country, the feeling amongst people here is that the US is not able to be trusted as a partner anymore. And with ways the Government can apply pressure to US companies (CLOUD Act etc.) that extends to IS companies too.

Curious where you are. I am in Canada and it's certainly mixed feelings but I think there are plenty of Canadians that understand that despite the current craziness we're in this together for the long term. Similarly in the US there are plenty that understand this. In relation to Europe vs. the US. Even before the current administration Europe has been at odds with American companies: "The European Union Renews Its O…

Interestingly, China is succeeding because it isolated itself partially from US big tech. That enabled them to build their domestic companies. If you give free reign to US companies, they‘re going to swoop up any competition early on.

The US relies on being attractive for smart people. There are still smart people going to the US, but the general mood seems to be that it‘s increasingly less attractive. Mid term, little will change, long term the cultural hegemony of the US will be replaced by multipolar influences.

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

#196

Post by swiftcoder »

watwut wrote: post #151
swiftcoder wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a civilised society, we don't typically regard 15 year olds as responsible for their own radicalisation at the hands of adults

There is no civilized society that treats 15 years old not responsible for joining terrorist groups and for actively working with them.

15 year old being radicalised into terrorism is a societal and parental failure, not the moral failure of an individual child. We don’t treat 15 year olds as adults in other legal proceedings, we should not do here either

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

#197

Post by YZF »

sveme wrote: post #194
YZF wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious where you are. I am in Canada and it's certainly mixed feelings but I think there are plenty of Canadians that understand that despite the current craziness we're in this together for the long term. Similarly in the US there are plenty that understand this. In relation to Europe vs. the US. Even before the current administration Europe has been at odds with American companies: "The European Union Renews Its O…

Interestingly, China is succeeding because it isolated itself partially from US big tech. That enabled them to build their domestic companies. If you give free reign to US companies, they‘re going to swoop up any competition early on. The US relies on being attractive for smart people. There are still smart people going to the US, but the general mood seems to be that it‘s increasingly less attractive. Mid term, litt…

Top 3 CS programs still seem to be in the US. MIT, Stanford, CMU.

The US has its geography, weather, etc. which are not going away.

China has massive scale industrial espionage and learnt a lot by being the cheap place where things are made and stealing western companies processes. They also invested a lot in education and naturally they have a lot of smart people. I still think that as long as they have an oppressive regime the really smart people will prefer not to be there since the second you become successful you also become a threat to the regime. Their work culture is also pretty toxic.

https://monitor.icef.com/2025/11/there-were-more-internation...

It's hard to predict long term but the US has a culture of innovation going back maybe hundreds of years, it has relative freedom, it has capital to invest, land and resources, and overall it has good people (and crazy people which was always true). Most of the conditions that made the US what it is are still there and most of the conditions that made places like Europe unable to compete are also still there. The US is a lot more diverse than it used to be as well.

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

#198

Post by x3ro »

YZF wrote: post #186
x3ro wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's performative about not wanting to go down with a sinking ship? Or are you under the illusion that the U.S. is doing particularly well right now? It appears that the "we have the bigger stick" strategy is finally meeting some resistance, and I am happy to see it.

Well said on the site of Y-Combinator. A US company ran by Americans that mostly funds startups in the US. Clearly the US, the home of Apple, nVidia, Anthropic, Open AI, SpaceX, Google, Meta, Amazon, Tesla etc. is sinking while the EU the home of (? ... well, there is ASML) is going to be running the world. Linus works on Linux from ... Portland, Oregon. And oh, look at where Linux contributions are coming from: http…

Yes exactly, just like the.. uhm.. the British Empire could not have possibly declined? Your point is that, because the U.S. has big companies and wealth, it can't be a sinking ship? Because to me this seems like a straw-man.

What I'm saying is that the U.S. is currently in decline, and many will agree with me. Where this leads your (I'm assuming) country, nobody knows. But to me, it doesn't look great.

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

#199

Post by peyton »

YZF wrote: post #186
x3ro wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's performative about not wanting to go down with a sinking ship? Or are you under the illusion that the U.S. is doing particularly well right now? It appears that the "we have the bigger stick" strategy is finally meeting some resistance, and I am happy to see it.

Well said on the site of Y-Combinator. A US company ran by Americans that mostly funds startups in the US. Clearly the US, the home of Apple, nVidia, Anthropic, Open AI, SpaceX, Google, Meta, Amazon, Tesla etc. is sinking while the EU the home of (? ... well, there is ASML) is going to be running the world. Linus works on Linux from ... Portland, Oregon. And oh, look at where Linux contributions are coming from: http…

It is admittedly pretty goofy to get exactly what you want—an army of people making rules for everything under the sun—and come on here and complain about what we’re doing.

Even TFA, which is about yet another rule, has a goofy quote from the Minister of something or other about breaking free from American tools. Linux seems pretty American to me [1]. Maybe they’ll fork. Would be cool.

[1]: https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributo...

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

#200

Post by pessimizer »

drnick1 wrote: post #187
vrganj wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must live in a different reality from me. The EU has closed trade deals with India and Mercosur this year alone, recentering the global economy around itself. Meanwhile, the resentment seems to radiate from the White House as they increasingly realize how their moves are making them irrelevant on the global stage. We're not upset. We just don't think you matter anymore.

> recentering the global economy around itself. Wishful thinking.

Wishful to the point of delusion. Europe is a stagnant backwater in a deep energy crisis that's about to get significantly deeper, and comforts itself on an completely unearned sense of moral superiority that it can't feed itself with.

This is also a self-inflicted wound. There's no reason that Europe should be in the situation that it is in other than it is run by elites that are, like everyone else, invested in the success of US companies, and have no particular loyalty to Europe. When they retire, they move to the US and get board seats, advisory positions, lobbyist jobs, and cushy university spots.

Europeans need to start engaging in rational thinking and to stop letting their politics revolve around zombie US institutions (like NATO) and electing functionaries from tiny little countries who have made an industry of covertly advocating for US interests in Europe. They also need to seriously rethink their relationships with Russia and China, and realize that when it comes to Russia, they were the bad guys so destroying their economies and futures over manufactured grudges and fantasies of invasion is an indulgence that their children can't afford.

Independence from the US means getting rid of their elites that work for the US, and getting rid of victimhood narratives about Russia (who at least occupied part of Europe) and China (who have never done a thing to them.) They should make BRICS EBRICS. If Europe doesn't wise up, they're just going to start killing each other. Thank God that France has nukes and can't be invaded again.

Post reply on HN