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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

#231

Post by bigfudge »

breppp wrote: post #223
bigfudge wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How has Europe actively hindered the war effort? Not volunteering for demining duties under fire in a very narrow straight, and preferring diplomatic solutions seems eminently sensible, and not at all the same as 'getting closer to Iran'. Why doesn't the US send frigates and destroyers into the straight to open it and escort ships out? The answer is that it's pretty high risk, and not one worth taking (unless you are…

Generally speaking: Spain, Italy, Austria, France and Switzerland prevented the US from using its airbases or airspaces to transit their planes to the Middle East. The UK at times also blocked use of its air bases. France probably cut a separate deal with Iran, evident from the release of the French hostages, the call Macron had with the Iranian FM and the fact Iran lets their ship cross

At the beginning it was fairly clear to everyone outside the US that this was an illegal war of aggression. That we waited until Iran had struck Israel and gulf countries was at least a fig leaf for the pretence we were doing something reasonable.

What source do you have for French ships being allowed to pass?

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

#232

Post by slibhb »

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…

> Mid term, little will change, long term the cultural hegemony of the US will be replaced by multipolar influences.

Everyone's been saying this for like 20 years. It just hasn't happened.

At some point you realize that the people constantly pushing "multipolarity" just really don't like the US. It's wishful thinking

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

#233

Post by Rexxar »

slibhb wrote: post #153
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.

France deciding, in principle, to come up with a plan for not using Microsoft is performative. It stops being performative when they actually do it. At any rate, is there a good reason for France to stop using Microsoft? I'm doubtful. It's a bit like the DoD declaring Anthropic a "supply chain risk"; basically performative. To respond to the rest of your post: while the Trump administration's behavior has diminished…

There is already 100000 workstations in a branch of the police with this Linux distribution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

It's not performative.

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

#234

Post by overfeed »

bertil wrote: post #217
overfeed wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some big moneyed interests are trying to split Europe and the US. The current US administration is definitely not helping Did you listen/read Vance's recent speeches in Hungary? Or read the US policy document put out months back? It goes way beyond merely "not helping" - the US administration is in turns provoking, alienating and separating itself from center/center-left European governments in pursuit of exporting…

I’m not saying that Vance is not doing that—God knows that man’s ethics has no floor. I’m doubtful he paid for ads to make his disdain better known. So I suspect someone else is trying to make that happen beyond what Vance can with his speeches.

> I’m doubtful he paid for ads to make his disdain better known.

They are not separate efforts - the administration is working hand in glove with the said interests that Vance worked for in his VC days, sponsored his Senate campaign, and parachuted him onto the Trump ticket.

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

#235

Post by hdgvhicv »

watwut wrote: post #118
hdgvhicv wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A more relevant recent example would be the shameful stripping of British citizenship from a girl who had been trafficked to the Middle East

They got radicalized and went there voluntarly

Civilised societies tend to blame the groomers, not the victims.

I thought the right wing supported that view.

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

#236

Post by bigfatkitten »

Even if you don’t view the US as a strategic risk, it is wise to have a plan to not be in Microsoft’s ecosystem.

Microsoft has all but abandoned their self hosted products in favour of cloud, and their cloud services are a security dumpster fire.

Microsoft’s cloud was described as a “pile of shit” but it achieved FedRAMP ATO only because so many agencies were already using their services.

https://www.propublica.org/article/microsoft-cloud-fedramp-c...

Entra ID is full of disastrous design-level bugs like this one.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/19/microsoft_entra_id_bu...

Microsoft has deep rooted cultural problems that make the company structurally incapable of fixing their platform.

https://isolveproblems.substack.com/p/how-microsoft-vaporize...

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

#237

Post by vrganj »

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.

Europe is now at the center of the world's largest free trade zone of two billion people. That is objective fact, not a wish.

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

#238

Post by sizzleflip5000 »

mancerayder wrote: post #179

Has anyone noticed an increased of one-liner controversial commentary, usually assertions, with a bunch of replies, sometimes, "No and no" or something like "this is the right answer" or a bunch of greyed comments? HN is not Reddit, and that's a Reddit pattern. It's an anti-intellectual pattern because it's a popularity/anger contest and there's nothing of substance. I'd love to hear the pros and cons and even likeli…

[dead]

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

#239

Post by ddtaylor »

mancerayder wrote: post #179

Has anyone noticed an increased of one-liner controversial commentary, usually assertions, with a bunch of replies, sometimes, "No and no" or something like "this is the right answer" or a bunch of greyed comments? HN is not Reddit, and that's a Reddit pattern. It's an anti-intellectual pattern because it's a popularity/anger contest and there's nothing of substance. I'd love to hear the pros and cons and even likeli…

The amount of money and time wasted because people want to run Windows is staggering. There are organizations and governments running tens of thousands of machines, having highly sensitive data stolen, and much worse and paying for that "privilege."

That's bad enough, but then you get to play the "tick tock" release game of a normal quality release, followed by whatever bizarre experiment comes after. Vista, Metro, and now 11. Features come and go, layers of complexity are added, abandoned, etc. You and your organization are a helpless passenger in a drunk drivers car.

But hey, they'll throw you a few credits sometimes or introduce you to a new predatory side hustle of theirs with a rebranded flavor of vendor lock-in. Maybe they'll help you take something you own and lease it back to you via a subscription.

Yes, I'm the Linux person. Yes, I've been saying these same things for decades. Yes, our system has flaws and could be better. But, what I have been learning that is new over the last few years is that when centralized and crappy systems are a combination of cheap and simple, people don't care about alternatives. Then once people are dug into a hole that only gets deeper it begins to be a much easier sell to just be at ground level looking down asking "You okay there buddy?"

Virtually every problem I read about or hear people complaining about has a direct and simple solution that we in the FOSS community are already doing. Use free and open source software from the repository. Use sandboxing techniques like Flatpak. If you have the need, use something like Qubes. For most cases qemu is so good you can run a separate VM per task! KVM is very good. There are so many solutions and the landscape is wide open.

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

#240

Post by ddtaylor »

The negative view of this and framing that it will be abandoned is interesting. France has already transitioned over 100,000 of their machines from Windows to Linux for their police force. They run a modified version of Ubuntu. Yes, it took them near a decade to do it.

There are roughly 80,000 more systems currently in transition at varying levels of complete.

Yes, this new directive is to move towards a goal of 2.5M systems. Yes, that's a lot more than their current number. They are making progress and now have a clear directive that guides them.

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