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

I think you underestimate how much trump is undermining trust in the US.

Pulling out of agreements, unilaterally starting unnecessary wars (and then whining that nobody participates), screwing up the world economy and oil markets, threatening tariffs on a whim, threatening Greenland. Trying to push conservative values on the rest of the world (eg companies with inclusion policies get blacklisted)

And this distrust is not going to go away even when a sane government replaces him. The American people already elected Trump twice. It's very clear that another similar president can be elected at any moment. It's not just Trump, there's a whole movement behind him that's not going to go away, like the heritage Foundation. The long-term trust is gone. And it's not coming back unless something substantially changes in the US which is very doubtful.

Do you have anything substantial to add to the discussion? Right now it's just a shallow dismissal.

I'm an Australian and there isn't a single person I know that isn't anti-america at this point, that includes conservatives. This was reflected in the last election, where the party most aligned with the US got absolutely wrecked.

Defense against who ? Russia ? Or the US ?

> European skepticism of the US has its roots in the postwar era.

This is crazy. The Europeans fell hook line and sinker for the line that the US could be trusted to manage security for Europe and would always be a dependable ally. That suited everyone — Europe because we could focus spending on post war reconstruction, and the US because you made a shit tonne of money by being the world's arms dealer and policeman.

There was no resentment of the US. Europe was in love with US culture (weird French cinema rules aside). And especially Eastern Europe... who have now had the hardest of all disillusionments.

This administration has destroyed the goodwill and trust built up over 80 years, and the economic foundation which made you rich and powerful. Let's check back in 30 years and see if that was a good idea. I'm hopeful that French nukes and Ukrainian ingenuity (and MAGA incompetence) will see us through the next 10-15 years of transition as re right the past mistake of trusting the US.

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.

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.

> Also, far-right parties in Europe seem much more dangerous than the right in the US.

Our far right parties are dangerous because they might get elected at some point, US far right parties are dangerous because they already did.

It's not the current administration that started this process. The US has for decades gone against the Europeans, step after step, asserting policies that only favor US companies. In the past however, the US administrations sugarcoated this fact with the language of cooperation. The current US government is now laying bare the fact that they're creating a political system where all technology and resources are controlled by the US and their "allies" are mere observers that should not do anything about it.

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 Offensive Against US Technology Firms" (2022) - https://www.piie.com/sites/default/files/documents/pb22-2.pd...

The framing that this started now with the current administration is not correct. The current administration certainly heated things up so to speak and brought things to the surface but the tension has been there for a long while. Europe is not capable of competing with US tech in general for various structural reasons. Europeans tend to argue this is because of US power but we see countries like China and India succeeding where Europe fails.

The more interesting question is whether there is a large enough lasting change in the US that takes away its structural advantages. I don't think this is the case. If you look at AI the hub of world economic activity and innovation is still in the US including startups and incumbents. s/AI/anything/ . China is certainly trying, and arguably succeeding, in taking some of that but it's still not at the same level. Europe is not even a player.

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.

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...

Meanwhile, I believe your post proves my point. Funny how perspective works, isn't it?

It feels like the last tantrum of a dying empire from our vantage point.

Sad, but ultimately irrelevant.

Linguistic flexibility is a key part of the European identity :-)

Can we, like, not say stuff like "neck beard euros"? And this is less that two hours after your own complaint about Reddit-like discussions on this site.

It is quite silly to say things like that while armed paramilitaries patrol your streets and throw innocent people in torture campsm

do you still believe in democracy?

every election, americans make a big stink about how you belive in republicanism because democracy is evil, and that being a republic is somehow mutually exclusive with democracy

Trump is too cheap to have paid for those ads.

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.

a French; an American; a Brit, or a British

sounds casual but correct to me

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.”)

> "A Brazilian" or "a Spaniard" are acceptable.

Well, context is important on the Brazilian front. ;)

"I had a brazilian at my house" could have other connotations.

> or Frenchman if you're old and inconsiderate.

Or talking about a man that is French. Neither of which would be considered 'old', or 'inconsiderate".

> 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.

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.

> but wouldn't say 'a Thai', 'a Swedish', 'a Sudanese'

You also don't say 'a Japanese' but that is an extremely common error with Japanese English speakers when they are first learning.

I am looking for a citation, but I seem to recall the casual rule of thumb is something to do with the ending of the nationality (so '-ish', '-ese','-ch' etc. you can't put 'a' in front). I think the more formal explanation likely centers around rules relating to indefinite articles.

As a Welshman, I’d say North/South Walian are more common among the populace!

There are some suffixed with "-i" which sound natural to my (American) ears too: "an Israeli", "a Somali", "a Pakistani", "an Omani", etc.

> and a clear marker that the speaker is not native, similar to getting adjectives in the 'wrong' order

I would think that if you say you are French, then everyone know you aren't native anyway. Maybe it's actually a good way, it can distinguish between true natives and false natives

nah, "as a french" is perfectly fine english grammar.

english changes over time, and thats been a normal description for at least a decade

> I would think of using 'Frenchie' to refer to a person as being affectionate banter

Not sure about other English-speaking countries but I'm fairly sure we don't use that word in England. It's exclusively the dog. We usually call them a frog which is quite derogatory, or use a certain tone when saying e.g. "he's French" (implying "ugh"). We also don't call Canadians Canucks but certainly call USAians we dislike Yanks

We English don't really do affectionate banter with the French. We either like/admire them or hate them lol

I mostly admire them, for the record (but it can be testing at times – we find their arrogance quite annoying ;)

I'm not sure how happy they actually are about it though. I think most people have a bit of Stockholm-syndrome relationship with it, the highest tier of argument refutation in France might honestly be grammar-based :P

(And it did motivate me to go abroad.)

there is a time and place for everything. "Les règles de bienséance" matter more to me than the safekeeping of the exactness of English grammar, which as others have been keen to point out is hardly as strict as you seem to imply.

And no, no French person likes to receive corrections in grammar. Giving lectures on proper english grammar/pronounciation is generally a mark of (classist) pedantry since speaking proper english is generally the preserve of those lucky few that have had the opportunity of spending time in the Anglosphere, a tiny minority of the french population in fact, who are always eager to put their one upmanship on display, in a very crude, almost vulgar fashion.

I have been travelling through Japan for the past week, the grammatical and orthographical error would likely give you a nosebleed. Meanwhile, I just smile and move on, I got the meaning, it is what matters. Same for the OP.

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 Trump and looking to save face).

It would be the Cathedral if it made a 5 year plan to build the perfect solution (even more so if from quasi-scratch). But the EU is also known to offer (sometimes small scale) grants in specific domains. That's much more compatible with the Bazaar.

> and in the three years that followed everything possible was done to reverse the decision

News to me (as a Brit). Maybe my memory is hazy. Got any detail?

That's one interpretation of the irish refs. I think the more obvious one is that the first result was very close and needed to be clarified. That also fits with the second one being emphatic.

You're allowed to think that Lisbon warranted referenda in the member states, but it's a minority opinion.

On Brexit, you should question your sources:

> in the three years that followed everything possible was done to reverse the decision.

This is a disingenuous use of the passive voice. Lots of _Remain voters_ did everything possible - i.e. tweets and marches. The government didn't take a blind bit of notice.

The government triggered Article 50 and then called a snap election - a damming order of events. They rammed it through.

> A majority of the British people voted to leave

Not by a mile, lol. The turnout was 37% and the result was 52% leave. Less than 20% of the electorate voted Leave.

Weakest mandate since the hung parliament of 1912, which only lasted a few months.

The electoral reform ref of 2010 got a 60% turnout. For the status quo. On a fringe issue. 37% is pathetic.

"People like you amaze me, it’s the cattle" was obviously a personal attack.

I don't do exact definitions, but flamebait basically means tossing inflammatory language into inflammatory threads in order to vent aggression and indignation. That's the opposite of the curious conversation we want on this site, and your account has unfortunately been doing a lot of it.

e.g. "Sorry to piss in your corrupt government/military contract punch bowl" (personal insult), "I see the Germans are very upset and cannot believe that the marketing and propaganda people may be bullshitters" (nationalistic insult), "You mindless drones really love that peasant slop" (personal insult) - it just goes on and on. If you keep doing this, we will end up banning you, because it destroys what this site is supposed to be for.

These are not borderline calls - you've been obviously violating the site guidelines quite frequently.

As if Linux devs just sat and did nothing for the last 30 years... Linux today is the best they could do and it's not even at the Win95 functional level.

No, we don't want incompetent users on Linux. It's going to be something like eternal september.

Because they don't know (yet) that Linux just doesn't work.

to europe? hardly. maybe to east asia ...

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.

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

I have more evidence of European xenophobia if that isn't sufficient for you

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.

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.

Tbf theres a much more recent example of legitimate antisemitism in europe. One around the same time as us interment of japanese people

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

I, for one, have never needed AI for anything ever in my life.

AI has, however, made my life noticably worse. Especially when dealing with braindead robot driven customer "support". But also in making it financially impossible to buy more RAM or upgrade a GPU.

I think we'd be better off without yet another bubble.

As a learning tool to quiz you.

Turning designs into code is the bit I enjoy. I write all my best code when I'm driving my car. It's great - no-one talking to me, no-one phoning me, nothing to distract me, I can just sit and think about stuff.

Show me something that will somehow turn the code in my head into code on a computer, and I'll be interested.