US sanctions force The Netherlands off Microsoft and toward alternative NixOS | Hacker News Reader

US sanctions force The Netherlands off Microsoft and toward alternative NixOS

tomshardware.com

384 pointsmywacaday390 comments

Several International Criminal Court (ICC) judges have been unable to access their bank accounts or receive routine salary payments and financial transfers due to financial blockages triggered by United States sanctions. In the country where they live

ICC judges getting the right wing activist treatment, except the activists get it from their own government.

Concrete examples to verify such claims please? Also in civilized countries such things are decided by the justice system, not the government (which to the surprise of many simple minded people - like a certain US president and his fanbase - is independent from the government).

In what universe is the judiciary not part of the government?

Government is a term with multiple senses.

In the US it’s common to only use it to describe the entire apparatus for holding, administering and enforcing state power.

But it can also be used to mean the current ruling power in a parliamentary system together with the administrative bodies under its direct control. So something more akin to just the executive branch in the US system. And then certain state agencies such as the judiciary are meant to be independent of the government under that meaning of the term. I believe this is the most common understanding of the word outside the US.

Its a really weird use of the word government to not actually refer to the government but to the executive and saying the “courts are outside of the government” makes it seem like they aren’t a part of the state.

The important point is that courts have the power to overrule unconstitutional or unlawful government decisions.

Why is it so weird that a language as widely spoken as English should have dialectical variation?

Wait ‘til you find out what some of my friends mean when they say “pavement”.

Consider though system like the Swedish system which existed in the Viking age with Things and a king.

Things were courts with huge power, and consisted of a gathering of all free men and had basically unlimited power, because they were the people. Meanwhile, the government was the person of the king.

I think that's an example of a system where the courts (Thing) is clearly not part of the government.

I'd say it's weirder to conflate state and government.

The Judiciary is one of the 3 branches of the US government. Perhaps English isn't your 1st language, but the courts are always part of the government and the word government would include the courts in English. No, there is no other interpretation of the word government in English.

Germany for instance? Google "Bundesverfassungsgericht". I don't think such a separated checks and balances system is all that unusual in democratic countries. A major task of a "proper" justice system is to keep the government in check.

The judiciary is always a part of the government. It may be notionally separate from the executive, but that's (a) a different thing and (b) not always meaningful from the perspective of normal citizens. And it's not at all standard that the judiciary is meant to keep the government in check. Historically that's not been the case at all, and the growth of US Supreme Court style powers to invalidate legislation is a relatively recent phenomenon that governments can decide to end or restrict arbitrarily at any time.

The word "government" seems to be used differently depending on language and country.

For instance in Germany, the specific words "Bundesregierung" (Federal Government, or just short "government") and "Landesregierungen" (State Governments) explicitly describe the "executive part" of the "political system".

The Federal and State Parliaments are the "legislative part" and the courts are the "judiciary part" (with the "Federal Constitutional Court" at the top). This whole idea of strict separation of power is the most important foundation of the German political system.

When talking about "the government" in Germany, people mean the institutions of the executive (mainly the chancellor and ministries, sometimes also including the president, but never the parliaments and courts).

And tbh, I would also have a hard time describing the US Democratic Party as the "current US government" just because they're sitting in the Congress.

The term government is ambiguous in English as well, which is why people who want to talk precisely about statecraft use the words "executive" or "administration" to refer specifically to the part that isn't the parliament or judiciary. Sometimes people use the word "state" to refer to the combination of all of them, but in common parlance the word government can be used interchangeably with the word state and people who aren't especially political would normally do so.

It is, but in casual conversation, “government” often means the people/party currently in power (of the executive and/or legislature).

You can see this when people say “[X] is unable to form a government”. They don’t mean unable to form a judiciary.

The concrete example would be Canada "debanking" the truckers who protested in Ottawa for exercising their GOD given right to free speech. Another concrete example would be Germany having banks close accounts for the AFD and AFD related people.

Some basic googling would tell you that:

1. the AfD thing was the decision of individual banks, not of the German government. Basically, in a free world companies can decide who they want to do business with.

2. the Canadian trucker "debanking" was quickly resolved because the Canadian justice system did their job and overruled the unlawful "emergency" government order

After being heard to exclaim "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?", Henry II subsequently explained that the 4 knights each came to their own individual decisions about how best to deploy their swords.

A poor analogy for democratic countries (spot on for Putin and his merry band of oligarchs though).

Being a democracy does not make countries immune from the phenomenon where under their own judgment, private actors decide with information provided to them in part by their own government, it’s more often than not in their best interest to be with them rather than against them.

What if the private company is "deciding under their own judgement because the VP's roomate from College is a chief of staff and they were told it would be really helpful if they decided in a beneficial way? We saw from the Twitter files that Twitter had an active relationship with members of the Democratic party and agents of the government to decide under their own judgement to ban or downrank certain people and ideas. This led to another concrete example of major outlets being effectively banned (The New York Post) due to the Hunter Biden Laptop issue. This behind the scene collusion is where the "they are a private company" line falls apart.

They are private companies. That doesn’t mean it isn’t in their best interest to maintain good relations with the people directing the nation’s sovereign power.

Never forget: sovereign power outranks corporate power. Corporations are better at making money. Sovereigns are better at violence.

Which _specific_ GOD gave that right and did any of the other gods concur?

There is only one GOD.

According to you. Others may believe in values ranging from 0 to some large N.

Off by one error.

Damn right! But I doubt the Flying Spaghetti Monster cares much about the indiviual rights of Canadian truckers (https://www.spaghettimonster.org/).

The obvious answer here is "the one that you hate." Or, the Christian god of Abraham.

The preamble is not subtle: "Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law."

Now, legally/philosophically speaking, the Canadian concept of free-speech is laughably weak, as is all Canadian rights. Specifically, section one clearly states that rights are subject to "reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society". Effectively, if the government decides that you're "not reasonable," you have no rights.

The American system is quite clear about their rights being absolute and derived from God, where the idea is that the government is to uphold the existing divine rights afforded to all human beings, as opposed to the British system of which Canada (and the rest of the common-wealth is based off of) is a part of, where the government _grants_ the rights.

Another example of this is the British crown, in which authority is given by God. Many of the older cities derive their local authority in the same way. If I recall correctly, I believe that the city of London is so old that they actually mixed it up, and derive theirs from "time immemorial."

Serious question: Why would I hate any god?

Serious question: Why are you pretending that you don't know which god the western world is referring to in its legal documents?

I don’t regularly read legal documents of nations I don’t live in. Why did you assume I hate any god?

Edit: the constitution in my country mentions no religion or god. Neither does the Lisbon Treaty or the Treaty on European Union.

> The American system is quite clear about their rights being absolute and derived from God

No, the legal system is not; there are non-legal documents which claim both of those things, but being subject to “reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society” is very much how the US elgal system treats them. There is even, in federal Constitutional case law, an established, gradated system of tests (rational basis test, intermediate scrutiny, and strict scrutiny) depending on which right is at issue and for whom it is being limited as to whether there is sufficient justification.

The same people who will tell you it's wrong to debank truckers for blocking highways will also complain that we don't debank climate protestors who block highways.

btw Germany doesn't have free speech. It is explicitly illegal there to deny the holocaust (the German one) or to spread racial hatred.

All men, being created by GOD, have certain inalienable rights, like free speech. Whether a country infringes upon those rights or not is a different story. Germany has a history in authoritarianism that seems to persist.

Personally, I was created by my parents.

Sigh, it's pretty depressing to have to read stuff like this on a place like HN that is otherwise pretty informed and mature.

This is only really true in certain countries that don't really do democracy. In Britain for example parliament is sovereign.

Farage was debanked. So was Trump and Melania, AfD politicians, Le Penn in france.

I may have misread the topic of conversation but he was debanked by a private bank - I was arguing against juristocracy but possibly incorrectly aimed

He was debanked by every bank in the UK, for entirely political reasons, and then they lied about it.

To what extent this was explicitly coordinated by the government versus people who are merely strongly ideologically aligned with it is unclear; in systems as totalitarian as the UK is becoming it's a distinction without a difference as anyone not so aligned is quickly removed for one plausible reason or another and replaced with someone who is.

Err, no, he was debanked by the flashy private bank Coutts. A bank that would refuse to give most people an account.

Err, no, he was debanked by Coutts and then denied accounts at every other bank. You apparently didn't read the statement he made at the time, so here it is:

> I emailed the chairman, a lackey phoned me to say that it was a commercial decision, which I have to say, I don’t believe for a single moment. So I thought, well, there we are, I’ll have to go and find a different bank. I’ve been to six, no seven banks actually. Ask them all, could I have a personal and a business account? And the answer has been no.

Denied accounts at seven banks, and in the end he was right - the reason Coutts tried to close his account was simply because some woke committee hated him, it was purely political. There are no legal or commercial reasons to deny him an account, yet somehow, every bank does so. With no bank in the UK he cannot make payments and without that ability he cannot live there, so the banks came very close to ensuring that the British people could not vote for him even though Reform is now the most popular party.

The British establishment is entirely homogenous on this, because they claim anyone who supports Farage is insufficiently committed to "diversity and inclusion" (leftism) and thus must be forced out. It's indistinguishable from the banks all being directly controlled by the Labour party. The only reason Farage was able to stay is because Coutts were impatient; it was the dying days of the Conservative administration and they suddenly realized what was about to happen to them if they didn't make changes sharpish, so they stuck the FCA on NatWest and some heads rolled. But if Coutts had waited a bit longer until the next Labour government, there would have been no help coming and British democracy would have become even more sickly and fake than it already is (I say this as a British citizen).

It's ironic because Farage would support every bank having the GOD-given right to deny people to have accounts.

He launched a (short lived) website and organization to try and support people who had been debanked, so no he wouldn't. Farage is not focused on libertarian politics, if he ever was.

As far as I can discover, we only have Nigel Farage's word for the seven subsequent refusals from other banks. The issue with Coutts is on the record, as there was subsequent legal and regulatory action, etc. I for one don't believe Farage here. He may have been turned down by some other fancy private banks, but that is not the same thing as being debanked. In fact, NatWest (owners of Coutts) explicitly offered him a standard bank account when they notified him of closure of his Coutts account: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/nigel-farage-says-set-lose-...

The notion that banking, of all industries, has been taken over by woke leftists (please supply your own scare quotes for the first of those appellations – I give up) is for the birds. As for the establishment, your own take on this is inconsistent, first saying that the establishment is entirely homogenous and aligned against Farage, and then pointing out that the government of the day helped Farage to get his Coutts account back.

Banking has been taken over by HR and regulators

>taken over by HR

Who hasn't?

> and regulators

Good! (I wonder why?)

This is quite different from the claim that Coutts, of all organisations, was in hoc to 'woke leftists' while the country was under a Conservative government.

You don't actually think the Tory party is right wing, surely?

Theresa May et al instituted net zero basically without a vote, huge liberalisation of various social matters, enormous spending on welfare, locked the country down, and then imported 4 million people!

I do not think that the Tory party is leftist, or 'woke' (whatever that even means these days).

They are or at least were in those years died in the wool woke. They minted coins with "diversity built Britain" on them, rishi held one up for the camera!

Again, we run into the fact that 'woke' is now a meaningless term of abuse. Most people would take it as an uncontroversial and largely apolitical observation that ethnic minority communities have made a significant contribution to the history of Britain (which was the point of the coin). If you think that's an example of woke extremism of some kind, it says more about you than about the Conservative party.

Sunak himself certainly didn't present as a dyed in the wool wokist in the lead up to his permiership:

> Whether it’s pulling down statues of historic figures, replacing the school curriculum with anti-British propaganda or rewriting the English language so we can’t even use words like ‘man’, ‘woman’ or ‘mother’ without being told we’re offending someone [... etc. etc.]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/29/rishi-sunak...

From what I can read on various news sites, not even LePenn blamed the government directly. All those cases were either business decisions of companies who can freely decide who they want as customers, or quickly overturned as unlawful by judges.

It would be good if you did at least a minimal amount of due diligence before spreading misinformation (but I guess spreading misinformation is the whole point).

And all were denied because of the same problem: laundering russian money.

Are you saying the US government been implementing sanctions to make right wing activists not be able to receive bank transfers? That sounds like friendly fire and backwards, are you sure you understood the "source" correctly?

Not from the US, but for example anti-lockdown campaigners in Canada had their bank accounts frozen IIRC

Wow, I think disagreeing with a lockdown in the face of a pandemic is pretty fucking stupid but even so, freezing people's bank accounts is even more messed up and should not happen over any sort of non-violent political actions in a modern democracy. Seems unblocked now, but still that seems like a bananas reaction.

For reference as I hadn't heard about it before:

> Isabelle Jacques, assistant deputy minister of finance, told a committee of MPs that up to 210 bank accounts holding about $7.8 million were frozen under the financial measures contained in the Emergencies Act. - https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergency-bank-measures-fin...

They were blocking highways with their trucks, and the same people who criticise this still want to debank climate protestors who block highways with their bodies.

Previous administrations have yes.

I’m trying to remember the last time an international criminal court judge came to my community and brandished a firearm while shouting slurs at me. It has to have been at least a few weeks now.

You mean right-wing terrorists? The ones that forcibly invaded the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 and attacked police officers in an effort to distrupt democracy?

The current admin views right-wing terrorists as brave heroes in service of Dear Leader.

Currently in the US, it's not criminal if it's done at the bidding of Trump, or if Trump approves of the violence.

The federal government is still stymieing the investigation of the ICE/DHS killings of Minneapolis citizens, violating their own policies requiring investigation.

There's no more federal rule of law until there's a full change in power, and that requires installing a functional DOJ and a new Supreme Court that is more interested in the law than in furthering partisan politics.

Frankly I think this is a good bit of hormesis for European countries. It's critical that we have domestic payment infrastructure.

what would be an alternative currently? i know of services like twint but this is a local swiss solution. any more EU wide established solutions??

Wero [1] is build on the Dutch iDEAL system and is currently on an upwards trajectory with both banks and retail [2].

1: https://wero-wallet.eu/

2: https://www.werotracker.eu/

I've never seen Wero before. Is it similar to Zelle in the US?

Edit: it looks like Wero requires Google/Apple device attestation [1]. So this is basically a non-starter in terms of "sovereignty" from the US government. Anybody on the wrong side of US sanctions still can't use this since they get their iOS/Google Android devices shut off too.

[1] https://support.wero-wallet.eu/hc/en-us/articles/25599098295...

It gives the Zelle UX to the underlying SEPA Instant infrastructure across the EU. The EU is using Wero to migrate off of Visa and Mastercard. Parent's werotracker tracks not only banks supporting it, but merchants as well.

Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48207004 - May 2026 (777 comments)

Wero – Digital payment wallet, made in Europe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47038965 - February 2026 (132 comments)

Europe's Banks Launch Wero Payments to Dislodge Visa, Mastercard - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41666833 - September 2024 (88 comments)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wero

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

> Edit: it looks like Wero requires Google or Apple device attestation. So this is basically a non-starter in terms of "sovereignty" from the US government.

You don't replace the entire stack at once, you replace it piece by piece. Each piece gets you closer to sovereignty. Payment infra, payment rails->tech infra and foundational systems next. If US Big Tech pulls the rug, that Jira ticket goes to the top of the stack. It will take time, but we're headed in the right direction for Europe to decouple from the US. You eat an elephant one bite at a time. Perfect does not exist, nor is there a quick fix, only reasonable efforts to continue to work over time towards success criteria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

Any revenue and capital that can be retained in the EU versus being sent to the US is capital that can be recycled into further decoupling and domestic EU investment, versus ending up as US shareholder profits and tax revenues.

(think in systems)

I've always used SEPA (even before it was instant) to buy event tickets. The flow is like this: you place your ticket order, then it tells you a bank account number, amount and reference code to send. I believe a newer system puts this in a QR code instead. The order remains open until payment is received and then emails you the tickets, or it times out usually after 14 days.

Seems a little risky for the seller. The advantage of credit cards is that you can charge the card synchronously during the order flow. I haven't used Wero yet but I imagine it's more similar to the QR code process than the credit card process.

Advantage of a push system is fraud is basically impossible, disadvantage is it takes so many steps. With a pull system you just scan or autocomplete your card and it's done.

Teething issues are likely unavoidable, but I assume they will end up like Pix eventually [1] (or close enough). It's simply the body of work between current state and target state. Tangentially, Europe is exploring integrating with Brazil's Pix instant payment system [2].

[1] https://whatispix.com/

[2] ECB to assess feasibility of interlinking with Brazil instant payment system Pix - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49846701 - September 2026

If Wero grandfathers in the existing iDeal flow, no cellphone is required. Just a bank card and a small gadget provided by your bank. Belgian Bancontact already works like that since the '80s. I never use my cellphone for payments.

Any links you can recommend that I would be able to cite in the future on this topic?

never seen this before and the adoption tracker shows my bank doesnt have it or announced a plan for it yet

i will keep it in mind! thank you

Cryptocurrencies in general are a good alternative. They're strictly unsanctionable and, depending on the currency selected, also untraceable, so secondary sanctions would be extremely difficult to apply with any kind of granularity. National-scale sanctions, evidently, would still be quite feasible.

Alas, that kind of anonymity runs counter to the very soul of the European bureaucratic ethos. They absolutely want to know in detail where every single cent goes, plus the power to block transactions at will, so they're looking into some magic solution that allows them full purview and full control while perfectly denying the US and its spy apparatus the possibility to also see into it, an impossible combination of requirements.

And I say all that as a fan of the EU. It's one of their many blind spots they need to overcome if they ever want to become a technological superpower.

7 transactions per second

Yes, that was a pretty big dealbreaker... in 2011

Still is one. I think visa processes more transactions now than in 2011.

Some new cryptocurrencies designed for interbank communication can do 20k transactions per second now, and can scale above that. It's just a matter of choosing the appropriate stack for the task.

Can they do it within ten seconds and completely decentralised, as well? Which ones?

I think the currently fastest is Hedera (HBAR), at 2 minutes per transaction or so, and that it's also the most decentralized, without that mechanism other crypto currencies have that the more you own, the stronger your power over the network. There's still some power at the nodes level though, in that if they all coordinate they can shutdown the network for whatever reason. I also read it's designed such that those metrics improve as the network grows.

But I'm not a specialist, I'm just interested in the technology and play with it a little, so take what I wrote with a grain of salt.

as a big fanboy of cardano back in the day, i have yet to see one that has managed to bridge the UX divide that has enough public trust.

i know of some mutual credit systems that can work, but also here, it requires the trust of a big enough amount of people to trigger network effects!

Well, SEPA? I know, I know, but you can get really far with just that / build on top of that.

Europe does have domestic payment infrastructure, that's in some ways more advanced than the US. That doesn't matter because US sanctions don't depend on control of the infrastructure itself. They have a recursive structure: if you don't enforce US sanctions, or you trade with a peer that doesn't, then you yourself become sanctioned. FATCA works the same way, as did the deployment of the global anti-money laundering system (a US invention, largely).

So someone could make a European bank for sanctioned individuals, and this would be allowed to exist but would never be able to transfer money to another bank except in cash?

Not even in cash. Also the executives would risk being arrested if they ever flew over the USA, etc.

The thing about cash is that you don't know where it came from.

My new vocabulary word for today: Hormesis is a two-phased dose-response relationship whereby low-dose exposures have a beneficial effect and high-dose amounts are either inhibitory to function or toxic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis

Let's get rid of US dependency for governement infrastructure as quickly as possible please.

In progress.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49632470

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49225112

Yeah, all tenders for any governement in Europe seem to prioritize EU hosting too.

Things are moving quick.

We can go faster. To not is a choice.

Killing the survivors of a shipwreck[0] is a textbook example of a war crime[1] and would explain why the liar-in-chief is so sweaty about the ICC.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/11/28/...

[1] https://www.mediaite.com/media/tv/cnns-elie-honig-points-out...

> would explain why the liar-in-chief is so sweaty about the ICC.

In what world do you think Trump even remembers about the double tap on a fishing vessel more than a day ago? He has no worry about anything, he has escaped prosecution for everything he's ever done, and I doubt he believes he might face a tribunal at the Hague, if he even actually knows what the Hague, or a tribunal, or the ICC actually are.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/trump-calls-all-icc-memb...

Trump isn't sweaty about the ICC. There is next to 0% likelihood that an American president would be sent to the ICC to be tried or something. Anyone who thinks that might happen or thinks the ICC might have the power to compel such a scenario is quite delusional or just misunderstands how the world actually works.

Trump has a lot of domestic enemies, and not just in politics. Unless he goes all-in and refuses to leave office, it must concern him that some future US president might decide to Milošević him to the ICC - either as score-settling or to simply get him out of the way.

Personally I'd love to see Trump on trial at the ICC. Along with Putin and Netanyahu. And Blair (the former prime minister of my country) and George Bush.

It'll never happen. He is not losing any sleep over this. It's just a fantasy about retribution.

The United States doesn't recognize the ICC. So there's nothing for him to be referred to. If the ICC wants to create a legal case against him, all the US has to do is point at Xi Jingping and is ethnic cleansing programs and ask why they haven't brought a legal case against him and tried to extradite him.

Everyday Americans would not tolerate it. Remember that while many don't like Trump and for good reason - me included - it would be viewed as a violation of American sovereignty which would not be tolerated. I would oppose it myself even though I think he belongs in jail over January 6th. But he'd belong in American jail, tried in our courts, under our legal system.

I also have to add it is always interesting to hear the things people proclaim to care about. I don't think everyday Americans even if they know about this alleged[1] double-tap, really care much or even think about it at all. I know I don't. Has anyone brought a case to the ICC? I know that South American countries referred Maduro to the ICC. :)

[1] It seems clear that it happened, and I'm not disputing that. But I say alleged simply because there has been no prosecution that I'm aware of. If there's a better word choice than alleged I'd be happy to use it, it was just the one that I thought fit the sentence best.

> The United States doesn't recognize the ICC.

Clearly. And I'm sure you're right about US public sentiment.

I was perhaps trying to make the point that powerful authoritarians like Trump always have to consider future threats because, unless they can stay in power forever, the future is where they are most vulnerable. Eventually they no longer have the energy to keep it going, and someone else is in charge - someone who then has more power than they do, and may not owe them any loyalty.

The usual work-around is dynastic power, but I don't see any signs of that this Trump's case.

> But he'd belong in American jail, tried in our courts, under our legal system.

For January 6th, sure. But the war with Iran, the Venezuela thing - they're international crimes the like of which a non-trivial proportion of the world considers the ICC to have jurisdiction over.

But anyway... if he doesn't die in office he'll realistically be too old to face justice in any court.

> I was perhaps trying to make the point that powerful authoritarians like Trump

He's authoritarian in many respects but he is still constrained by the rule of law. Where he loses legal cases he is forced to follow the law. He may have workarounds or gotchas or try again, but by and large I have yet to see any clear law-breaking violations. There is corruption which I see plain as day, but that's separate from this view of Authoritarianism since you can be corrupt without being an authoritarian.

> But the war with Iran, the Venezuela thing - they're international crimes the like of which a non-trivial proportion of the world considers the ICC to have jurisdiction over.

This is why the US doesn't recognize the ICC. Neither of these are international crimes. Maduro himself was referred to the ICC by other neighboring countries and there is an alleged sealed indictment by the ICC itself.

Should the US have referred the Iranian government to the ICC for funding terrorists in the Middle East? What about violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? What would the ICC do? Did the ICC indict and try to arrest the members of Hamas who killed all those people in 2023? Maybe they did, but what were they going to do about it?

I'm one of Trump's domestic enemies, I think we should imprison him and his minions the instant he's thrown out of the White House, and I'm still not sure it's realistic to send him to the ICC. It would radicalize a lot of people who have wrong but principled objections to it.

The many war crimes the US has committed are the main reason they don't want to participate or recognise the ICC. They don't like it when their people get punished for their war crimes and will threaten their alies with invasion to make sure nobody dares to try.

Murdering people on international waters is not even the latest war crime, IIRC the Hague Invasion Act was created because of the war crimes they were comitting in the Middle East 25 years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

The United States has never recognized the jurisprudence of ICC anyways. So to the United States these judges are just regular foreigners making decisions they don’t like. Sanctions are an appropriate tool for the United States to meddle in foreign affairs anyways. For countries that support ICC, avoiding United States is also appropriate.

Personally I don’t really have much faith in the ICC; its premise is flawed since great powers will never be deferential to a foreign court system anyways.

> The United States has never recognized the jurisprudence of ICC anyways.

True, neither has China, India, or Russia.

The list of the greatest countries, always the same.

Yes, the world powers didn't give away sovereignty to a foreign court while countries without a place on that list did.

And reducing exposure to US sanctions (for example by investing into alternatives to Windows or Visa/MasterCard) is an appropriate response for the affected countries.

Including Russia, right?

Sure, but that's nothing new. Russia has always been investing into domestic alternatives, even going to great lengths to build their own CPU architecture and such. But they've been a sworn enemy of the West so that's nothing surprising, and neither is China doing the same. The EU so far was considered firmly in the sphere of influence of the US, which is why this development is interesting.

Right - but American sanctions have a big effect. What happens when that power goes away? Who is going to sanction Russia?

You can complain about well America is sanctioning countries I disagree with, but it also affects countries you would agree with. When we don't have sanctions power perhaps military force gets used more.

Regardless of what happens both the EU and America are still within each other's spheres. That's not going to change anytime soon. We've gone through much worse.

No, your premise is flawed. According to your logic, all international treaties and bodies shouldn't exist either because great powers can ignore them at will just like how they ignore the ICC. The US for instance can ignore the Geneva Conventions willy-nilly and not be punished for it since to the US government, its own laws (which allow for war crimes) will always supersede foreign treaties, does that mean the Geneva Conventions shouldn't exist?

The ICC is a step in the right direction in the post-WW2 world, a shame though that repressive countries filled to the brim with war criminals cannot help but see it as an affront and such a threat to them.

> a shame though that repressive countries filled to the brim with war criminals cannot help but see it as an affront and such a threat to them.

I mean, they're right. International rules-based order is a threat to war criminals. The real shame is certain countries having the power to enforce rules-based order and not doing so (or failing to do so).

Most countries around the world have no problem extraditing their own criminals for crimes committed elsewhere (including the US), but it seems like countries like the United States and Russia fear that extraditing their war criminals would set a precedent that could cause their entire governments to collapse.

Is it the people that make up the system, or the system that makes the people? In a country with rule of law, any individual in the government should be extraditable (for valid reasons) without it being a threat to the overall system.

No. I’m not saying all international treaties and bodies shouldn’t exist. That’s a wild misinterpretation of what I said. I said that international treaties that establish a supranational court system should not exist. The emphasis is on court system. Conflicts between countries on anything including crimes should ideally be dealt with using diplomatic means, not a court trial. That’s why the United Nations Security Council works. It’s not a court.

Isn't this just another diplomatic mean? The ICC can't enforce anything, it's up to countries to care. The only difference between the ICC and the Someonebaggy Criminal Court is that the governments of places like France care slightly about what the ICC says.

Does it work, though? What is the standard for "works" here?

Wide participation by nations, even at the expense of occasional failure for the nations to reach a consensus.

That's an arbitrary statement to make ("I believe international treaties and bodies should exist, but make an exception for criminal courts"). I believe that criminal courts should matter even more than non-criminal courts such as the UNCLOS' court, mostly because even centuries ago, treaties related to war crimes have always been seen as a bigger priority for most empires and nations than other types of treaties have been. The ICC is our best way to enforce treaties like the Geneva Conventions.

The ICC is overwhelmingly popular with most countries and people, most people who oppose it are those from countries which harbor war criminals and try to make their opposition look like it stems from legal issues with international jurisdiction, and not the truth which is to protect their country's ability to commit war crimes unabated.

> The ICC is overwhelmingly popular with most countries and people, most people who oppose it are those from countries which harbor war criminals

We don’t have good enough contemporary global polling to confidently say that a majority personally supports the ICC.

However, I suspect you’re right that most people probably support the idea of the ICC but countries choose not to be part for a variety of reasons, other that “harboring war criminals”.

The following countries are not party to the Rome Statute, which is what established the ICC:

United States, China, Russia, India, Israel, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.

> international treaties that establish a supranational court system should not exist

ICJ and ECJ seem fine. I agree that the ICC is toothless (unless it’s investigating Africa for some reason). But if countries agree to its jurisdiction that’s basically glorified arbitration. The Philippine with Duterte show the benefits to a population to submitting to jurisdiction. I bet a lot of Americans being abused by ICE wish we had a check on our political leaders outside our own legal system.

The ECJ is very much not fine.

> ECJ is very much not fine

Sure. You know what, I don't know enough about it to argue if it is. What I can say is it isn't toothless. International treaties can create robust judicial systems.

> international treaties that establish a supranational court system should not exist

The first "supranational" court system was created with the USA fully on-board: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremburg_trials

In fact, they liked it so much that they re-enacted it at home: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsequent_Nuremberg_trials

> That’s why the United Nations Security Council works.

Saying the security council works is... A perspective.

During the general assembly there were plenty of comments as to how it's not representative at all. There are 5 members with veto power (us, Russia, uk, France, china), why these? Because they won the WW2? The whole southern hemisphere doesn't hold veto power.

The security council works very well, if you're one of the 5 permanent members.

This is partly true. There was never a country that didn't ignore international law whenever it was to its advantage.

you can just skip "international law" here. Any countries did what was to their advantage.

Even more broadly, anyone with military power. Which includes many cartels and mafias.

The principle of anarchy in IR still applies. Those treaties mean nothing as soon as any actor sees acting against them advanced their goals more than abiding by them.

International treaties and institutions are generally good to vertebrate and regulate the interactions between countries. But one must not forget they are make believe as they are unenforceable. So when you threaten to arrest and prosecute allies of the US outside the legal system of the US, you are declaring yourself an enemy of the US and treated as such.

"The US for instance can ignore the Geneva Conventions willy-nilly"

In many cases this is simply because we did not sign and ratify parts of the convention updates, thus we are not a signatory to those statutes. No way to truly punish those that aren't willing participants, except to make them unwilling participants.

Slippery Slope.

I do indeed wonder why do they care about ICC considering they did not recognized it. One reason is that in fact that some of this "great powers" are much more "weaker" than they pretend, and that someone exposing something bad that they do will still have some effect on them.

Or (not sure if better or worse), they the "great powers" are stupid and they did not hear of the "Streisand effect".

Because they know full well that even the existence of the ICC is a threat to them, it allows people to point out that they have not subscribed to the fact that this court exists and that should have a power that they've been denied. If the court did not exist at all they could pretend to be like every other country.

Because 165 countries are signed on to the Rome Statute and are required to arrest war criminals (as deemed by ICC) like Netanyahu if they step foot in their country.

That's not nothing.

The idea of foreign entities holding American leaders to account when Americans are unable to do it themselves is a fundamental emotional taboo for many.

We did have the Nuremberg trials to prosecute Nazis after their empire collapsed. The ICC is a formalization of that principle on more solid legal footing

Obviously its power is limited when it comes to prosecuting people currently in power or people that have favorable standing with their current host country. It can only make the live of those people a little less pleasant by issuing arrest warrants that limit their ability to travel internationally. But governments do fall from time to time, and when that happens the ICC provides a solid mechanism for prosecuting them for war crimes and crimes against humanity, in a way that is fair and has rules that were solidly established before the crime was committed

Too bad that such trials are often evidence based.

And in a certain sea-side part of a certain country, there's active bulldozing and paving over hard white leftovers of evidence of the misshaps that could later be prosecuted if they weren't so effectively crushed and hidden.

Still, some justice is still justice.

The only reason the US doesn't like the ICC is because we have leadership guilty of crimes the ICC was created to prosecute.

The amount of damage US is doing to itself to protect a genocidal regime is unbelievable.

Cash all of a sudden seems attractive

Will they accept Trump $1 coins?

I would like to thank the US for single handedly killing the EU cashless society plans.

I would like to request the US sanctions all members of the EU parliament asap.

Do you mean accelerate the digital euro plans?

talking about "digital currency" is always so frustrating because you never know what the other person means. Almost all money is already digital.

Well, that's that the European Central Bank calls it. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.ht...

Error 503?

Digital euro is an ongoing initiative by the ECB that aims to reach the whole European union.

Unfortunately no. The EU loves doing these kinds of sanctions itself and has spent decades withdrawing high value notes from circulation. There are thousands of people sanctioned by the EU:

https://data.europa.eu/apps/eusanctionstracker/individuals/

An example of the EU doing similar sanctions would be Jacques Baud, a Swiss general sanctioned for "promoting conspiracy narratives and false claims about the war in Ukraine". The sanctions left him unable to buy anything including food. As he had a wife and family, the EU sanctioned them as well to prevent them helping him.

The same batch of sanctions also added an American citizen to the list, basically for running websites the EU doesn't like and considers fake news, and a French citizen, for "spreading conspiracy theories":

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L...

Cash doesn't help because there is no notice and most people don't keep enough cash on them to survive long enough, especially as there is no way to get unsanctioned - the entire process runs outside the judicial system and depends only on the whims of the Commission. The results are utterly brutal:

> Baud spoke in particular about how the sanction restricted his daily life. The measure caught him completely unprepared; from one day to the next, his credit cards, insurance policies, and bank accounts—including those in Switzerland, even though it did not adopt the sanction—were blocked. He could no longer make payments, and even shopping was impossible. "I survived, that's the only way to put it, thanks to my neighbors. They delivered food to me," Baud said.

Under the sanctions regime, the Geneva resident, who lives in Brussels, is entitled to support intended to cover his basic needs. According to him, the Belgian authorities granted his application at the beginning of February, but three months passed before the banks implemented it. Baud is also prohibited from leaving Belgium and therefore cannot travel to his home country.

https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/ich-ueberlebte-dank-meinen-nachba...

The EU doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to complaining about sanctions. The ICC judges only lost access to some emails and other nice-to-haves, the US didn't stop them buying food or water.

Even crazier, they sanctioned a German journalist of turkish decent due to support of the palestianian cause / support of terrorist groups. [0] Even if you think he supports Hamas as a terrorist group (which is questionable), these sanctions are decided by executive committee, without a judge involved, and they make it impossible for the person to have banking, work, rent, or buy within the EU. It is essentially a social death sentence, worth than going to jail, and no due process whatsoever is involved.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCseyin_Do%C4%9Fru

Yeah they've done a bunch of Israel/Gaza related sanctions actually, in both directions. And there are way more sanctions like Baud's, for saying anything the EU thinks might be somehow advantageous to Russia. Only a few cases reach public attention. You can just scroll through the list and see.

e.g. https://data.europa.eu/apps/eusanctionstracker/subjects/1855...

> Daniella Weiss is the Director of the Nachala Movement (“Nachala”). Nachala has the aim of promoting Jewish settlements and illegal outposts in the West Bank.

or https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

> Nathalie Yamb is a social media influencer. Since the Sochi summit she attended in 2019, Nathalie Yamb has been an outspoken supporter of Russia, adopting Moscow’s language and targeting France and the West in particular, with a view to ousting them from the African continent. She has specific ties with AFRIC, an organisation linked to Russian private military companies.

She has links with an organization that has links. She "adopts Moscow's language".

or https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L...

> Through appearances at symbolic conflict sites, interviews with Russian television, publications on his X account (which has 18 100 followers) and contributions to Kremlin-funded outlets such as International Reporters, he amplifies Kremlin narratives that distort the realities of Russia’s war

or https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=OJ:L_202...

> [Thomas Röper, a German war correspondant] legitimises Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territory by serving as an election “observer”

Observing elections in Russia controlled territory might mean you can no longer buy food.

The ICC judge got sanctioned because he's trying to arrest a head of a US allied state. The EU does sanctions vastly harsher - outright deadly - against random nobodies, triggered by things as minor as posting opinions to X, or merely being related to someone who did. It's on a different level.

What are you referring to? Cashless is terrible so that would be good but I don't know what you mean.

It would be appropriate to mention what exactly the ICC judges were punished for. If it didn't come with such a high karma risk, I would have mentioned it myself.

Hope that curious will find out on their own accord.

They were sanctioned for investigating Israel's genocide of Palestinians.

They were sanctioned for doing their jobs.

> would be appropriate to mention what exactly the ICC judges were punished for

I’m personally critical of the notion of the ICC, and I can’t come up with a legitimate reason we’d sanction them. America isn’t party to the Rome Statute. And the ICC has never even remotely threatened to do anything to any American.

> If it didn't come with such a high karma risk, I would have mentioned it myself.

What worst case scenario are you envisioning that would somehow justify censoring yourself? The text of one of your comments will turn grey?

It took me 5 years to get above 500 and be able to vote on comments. Then I've learned that over 1k you can tell how much karma a comment has and it was my silly dream ever since.

Speaking out about Hague and Nuremberg invitees is important, but it comes with risk of becoming like them or people arguing for them. (When fighting monsters one must be wary not to become a monster themselves.) It's just more hate that doesn't bring back to life executed children.

> In the country where they live

When people outsource everything this is what happens

The more countries trade with each other and depend on each other, the better things are for peace and human advancement.

The zero-sum mindset that's de rigueur at the moment needs to die soon or the world that we'll inhabit is gonna suck.

But it would seem there’s a certain balancing act. Because that kind of economic integration can also create pressure points for an autocrat to exploit in ways that are contrary to peace and human advancement.

This is why many Enlightenment thinkers didn’t just view monopolies as an economic problem; they viewed it as a direct threat to free and just society.

We've gathered decades of evidence in support of this, with commerce and trade supporting global peace.

Though, it's nice to see in this particular case that a near monopoly player gets unseated and creates room for innovation.

The idea of "change through trade" mostly worked great (see most former socialist European countries), but sometimes not at all (see Russia and more recently the US), and China is kind of in the middle of both extremes and may swing to either side in the future.

For this to work all participants need to play along, not throw a tantrum & actively trying to sabotage the system. In such cases, you need to cut out the faulty participant & continue without them.

But now you are not playing along either...

Yes, exactly. Playing along with anti-cooperative and anti-progressive behaviour is not on the agenda. The goal isn’t to get along with everyone.

> The more countries trade with each other and depend on each other, the better things are for peace

I previously thought the same, with Europe and Russia doing lots of trade e.g. Germany buying lots of gas from Russia, and many western companies being present in Russia. It seems obviously true.

But Russia still started a war anyway, so I guess it's not actually true.

I think it's true but only in equitable societies.

Putin or Trump are totally isolated from economical and political consequences so they have no problem severing ties. If there are genuine co-dependencies, including for the leaders, they it's much harder to break peace.

I imagine the ideological aspect is the deeper motivation but it only matters with the right circumstances.

This don't make things better through.

Putin and Trump sits in the opposite side of the political spectrum, so as the country they lead, and yet they still managed to archive something similar.

It's not that hard to manage the country to a point where nothing in the country, even law, can hurt it's leader anymore. Sometime a bit of time and patient is all it takes.

I mean, we in europe did a a lot of trade with US too, and between other (then and still) EU countries, but the americans (and brits, and a few others) decided to attack Iraq for example ("Iraq has WMDs!"), and there were no sanctions and trade went on. And many other conflicts and bombings all around the world.

So it's not actually caring about the war and dead people (if we did, we'd do something about what israel is doing in gaza), but "us vs them", and russia is "them" while US was traditionally "us", until daddy Trump came along.

Someone probably told the EU politicians that russia will cave after a month or two of sanctions, there will be some kind of a "revolution" there, someone "pro EU" will be set there, and gas would be even cheaper.... A similar scenario was probably given to Trump for iran (just bomb the government, they'll cave, and you can set up a new pro-US leader there again).

You can never rule out irrational acts. Merkel was ignoring the writing on the wall for much too long, it was pretty obvious that russia was on the war path long before she was still happily inking contracts that financed russia's machinery. You can not get a country that is already waging irrational wars to change their way by trading with them. But I'm pretty sure that for instance Trump right now is restrained to some degree by the certain knowledge that the US economy is at the mercy of outsiders.

None of that stopped Trump raising the gas price to $10, or ending the petrodollar, either. It seems to have been empirically demonstrated that economics cannot restrain powerful idiots.

We can only live in one world, but I can easily imagine a much worse alternative where there had been no restrictions at all. The question here is a matter of degree, it isn't an on-off switch.

Yes, but we (in Europe) cannot afford all the digital infrastructure to be concentrated in one partner country. If you buy something from us and we buy something from you, that's trade. If we have to buy everything from you, that's a dependency, and we need to fix it asap

There's only one player with the zero sum mindset, maybe two if you count Russia.

Trump, Putin and Xi all seem to fit the bill and act like they can only gain at the cost of others. Some are more nuanced about it than others but none wants to cooperate with anyone else.

China seems inept at international relations, especially in building strategic alliances, but I wouldn't attribute that to a zero some mindset.

This is exactly what people thought pre World War 1 and yet the war occurred anyway.

We're getting there. There are fewer irrational actors and small man syndrome affected people in places of power every passing day (on average, I hope these las few years are jusg a bump on the road)

This was just another American cool-aid. The strategy was this: cultivate a hyper-consumerist, greedy and gluttonous population at home. Invite other countries to export and trade with the US. Build a dependency from which countries can't unwind themselves out of. Enslave the world and rule over them. Continue the aforementioned strategy while dispensing other cool-aids like "trade prevents war".

Yet, it seems like the enslaved nations still haven't gotten the memo.

The world we inhabit already sucks pal. You're just high up enough on the ladded that the suck hasn't hit your ankles yet. Don't worry -- it's coming! For us all!

You have to measure and compare the interdependence then aim for interdependence be balanced. Or you're back to where we are.

Related: "Dutch governments builds alternative for Microsoft based on NixOS (dawo.community)" 25.sep.2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49841563 581 comments

It is more like self imposed sanction against US made products. There are now tons of open source operating systems and applications that can replace Microsoft products, which are basically some old programs. The replacements cost vastly less for use and support.

Citation needed on the costs vastly less to support and use.

Very much. There are a lot of hidden costs in computers. What does IT cost you? If everybody already knows the other program how much productivity is lost before they figure out the slight changes with the new (they will learn but experts will need time to become experts).

That’s not a citation. Of course you want to have actual research to substantiate these statements.

Sorry, I'm saying the things I want a citation to look at. A lot of citations are too superficial.

What is citation; somebody else reporting it?

Here; they replacing windows.. the packages they have listed are open source aka typically free to use https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/04/germa...

That is exactly my point: what is the cost to those "free" to use things? There are a lot of costs that have nothing to do with the price to get them.

The other costs are the same or maybe less because they will in local currencies. The other costs are virus detection and updates. The updates are usually related to viruses or new interfaces that Microsoft is modifying for its own sake which is typically cloud related. There is competition in cloud delivery you know. Microsoft is not the cheapest solution.

> If everybody already knows the other program

Thankfully what you're describing is a switching cost, not a permanently higher operating cost. Once the monopoly is broken and the state is using open source tools, there's every reason to believe it will be cheaper - no expensive proprietary certifications etc.

It would be unbelievable that the US would rather continue facilitating a genocide than retain Microsoft's global enterprise software monopoly, had they not already destroyed the UN, the ICC, and the global economy for that goal.

All they had to do was make keep the other costs lower than the switching costs, and they could've continued setting terms forever.

No monthly fees and most software is available on opensource

windows -> linux mint OR reactOS OR OpenSUSE OR NIXos ( their choice) and many more

excel -> many of them as well as google spread sheet for free

Word -> Gazillion editors on open source; some much much better; and there is free google editor to boot

PowerPoint-> again Gazillion opensource replacements

Paint-> is a joke. Open source stuff is 10 times better

I don't want to advertise these products but you have access to search engines; look it up..

What is it that you think is so special? The only reason people are using the stuff is momentum carried from the past and PC being sold preloaded with windows.

In my opinion that is.

"I'd crawl over an acre of 'Visual This++' and 'Integrated Development That' to get to gcc, Emacs, and gdb. Thank you." -- Vance Petree, Virginia Power

Google is not a very viable alternative when you're trying to evade US sanctions

That is true but I mean individuals can use that stuff for free. The micosoft 365 has a zillion copies. Most of the stuff that companies use is applications they developed that they load on azure are probably java or C++ based applications about a decade or two old.

> reactOS

Not at all viable for daily use. Better you said ZorinOS (Linux distro with a very Windows feel; used it myself for a few months during my transition from Windows over 10 years ago).

Yup, whatever came to my mind I posted but you are right , Linux distro is a great choice and more recent ones Fedora, Ubuntu, Bazzite and Arch.. mint may have issues with some graphic cards apparently.. I couldn't update my post to add these.. sorry

Not to mention that with WINE you can install Microsoft Office - I could be wrong, but I think OS and Infra are the focus, Microsoft Office is orienting and tolerable. Its bloated but people know it. Besides office, everything important really is a web app now.

Microsoft is now charging monthly fees.. It is not about tolerance, it is like countries are paying rent to USA for something that their own people can provide at far lesser cost and there would be less bullying too and more independence to top it off. Once there is a momentum worldwide to transition away from Microsoft or American centric suppliers, the there would be more diversity too and more interoperating tools.

I do not know in this case, but I led migration and cost benefits analysis beforehand of very large Windows 3.11 to 95 to 2000; at the time there was nothing else that was considered useful and there still pain and massive cost. Later on we had to consider Linux as alternative; it just wasn’t close ; the stability (yep), easy of use etc was just not feasible. Now that Linux is good and easy to configure to basically be exactly like Windows and now that most custom applications of large corporates are web based and specific ones can be ran via Citrix for a few people who need it, I am guessing it finally is cheaper now. And 90% of users won’t even notice the difference; I remember when I was planning my first 3.11 to 95 migration that people were by far most stressed about users unable to open applications as they remember not the name or the icon but 2nd row, 3rd down is Word. Start, 5 up, 1 right, 3 down is internet. Etc. So as long as that’s the same, you are fine. It’s how most our clients still work so we take care never to move functionalities; only add, no delete.

> 2nd row, 3rd down is Word. Start, 5 up, 1 right, 3 down is internet.

That's crazy. There's no way that's the case today though as learning about basic computers+office (which implicitly includes how to run apps) is pretty standard in schools, and is a requirement for relevant positions. And the alternatives have a mostly similar UI, so the only differences people really need to deal with is ribbon vs traditional toolbar and a few other minor items, which can be covered in a couple of meetings for the more dense employees.

You'd be surprised. There are still quite a few 40-60 year olds working who never actually learned computers to begin with, and are still working by rote. On the other end of the scale are the 20~ year olds who never learned learned computers so much as they learned a tablet and a phone, and that trend doesn't seem to be turning.[1]

I had computer lessons in school, but I don't think those are universal any more, and that part of the curriculum has just been swallowed up by other lessons always using a tablet or Chromebook, meaning the kids never learn the foundation (to the extent there ever was one. It's not like I learned about common UI elements or anything back then. I figured those out by being interested in computers), but just learn what they have to by osmosis. This obviously varies depending on country and curriculum.

[1] https://futurism.com/the-byte/gen-z-kids-file-systems

There are still quite a few 40-60 year olds working who never actually learned computers to begin with [...]

Yeah but whatever the situation, if they're already working with an office suite in a work situation then retraining as needed should be an expectation and fairly straight forward.

> I don't think those are universal any more

In the Caribbean where I am, learning basic computer use and office is a requirement in high school, along with English and Math. It'd be strange and irresponsible if there are - reasonably functional - countries that don't ensure students get certain skills to be able to function in a modern workplace.

> It'd be strange and irresponsible if there are - reasonably functional - countries that don't ensure students get certain skills to be able to function in a modern workplace.

A non-zero percent of students come out of school not being able to read or write. A double-digit percentage of Americans are seemingly only being able to read at a level just barely above the absolute bare minimum level that could actually count as being able to read.[1][2] I know Americans are special, but I'd be surprised if the rest of the world is drastically different in this case (it's probably better, but my lived experience tells me many, many people are really bad at reading, and actually getting them to engage or try to extract information beyond the exact words that are on the page, is a really heavy task for them they have real trouble with). Going by the averages of the 2024 results of the PIAAC survey,[3] many places are better, but I doubt they've managed to eliminate that large bottom part which is close to illiterate.

If we already have trouble teaching kids to read, then there should be no surprise we're having even more trouble teaching them to use computers.

[1] https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/2023/national_results.asp

[2] https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp?section=1&sub_...

[3] https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/do-adults-have-the-skil...

Well, to keep this discussion in scope, the illiterate have limited job options, particularly near zero for jobs that require computer literacy. That automatically handles the issue in contention for this context: if someone can't get a job involving computers then retraining isn't even relevant in their case.

Many, many people who are on that level of literacy are in fact working with computers. Ask anyone in L1 tech support what kinds of tickets they get. Many involve people not reading the text directly in front of them.

That sounds highly problematic. Probably why there are so many tech support horror stories. Still, if they can fake it enough to keep that job, then they can fake it enough to adapt to tooling changes. Or wash out and get replaced by another who hopefully understands the tool that their job depends on them using to properly do said job. But again also if the pay is low enough the employer probably doesn't care much about performance anyway.

Obviously migration costs have given Microsoft the ability to collect rent on ancient software. But the younger population has stopped using a lot of these applications as well. There was sufficient motive to stop paying rent for old software and now there are more reasons that are piling up; one is self sufficiency then there is revolution in coding software as well as changing of what is a desirable office. Add Ai into this soup and what an office needs these days is not the same as decades ago.

It always was cheaper. The thing that made it more expensive was that usually through one backdoor or another you were still paying microsoft.

There's a strong case to be made that a lot of enterprise licensing is a roach motel model. Easy to get into and seemingly convenient, especially the case for support. Avoiding that trap will reap benefits.

Didn't Schleswig-Holstein switch and make back the migration costs within a year?

Yeah. Trump has been ripping out US infrastructure globally. Trumps administration and vance(GOP finance chair) elon(doge) thiel(owns vance) need to be removed ASAP.

Of course you would want to procure products that work for all of your employees. The idea that you could just cut off certain elements of a foreign government was really shortsighted.

There are indeed tons. But I think it's debatable whether they can replace Microsoft. But when forced to replace Microsoft, you'll try anyway.

Never again America.

All your negotiation power across the world, gone, because of one Orange person.

And not because he secretly took power, because you elected him, twice.

On the other hand, the US is still negotiating with lots of countries across the world, continuing to invest and be invested in, continuing to grow economically, and more.

Your personal point of view which primarily exists in a silo on the Internet does not match the viewpoints of most of the rest of the world, including folks in Europe.

So, yes again, America. That's how the world works.

Are you seriously suggesting America's influence is increasing?!

I guess you're in the 22%

22% of what?

> Are you seriously suggesting America's influence is increasing?!

I'm not sure. In some ways yes, in other ways no. It's also changing. Negotiation doesn't always look like two countries come together and have a handshake and photo opportunity and declare some thing. But the OP is implying "it's all gone". That's just incorrect. America by virtue of simply being America always has a seat at the table.

Classic HN. They flagged your comment for no reason. Classic Europeans.

"Classic Europeans."

Only a Trump fan could think that's a smart response.

"America by virtue of simply being America always has a seat at the table."

Nope, that's exactly what it has lost.

He won the popular vote the second time around, not the first.

The electoral college is deeply undemocratic.

Strong argument the States are neither democratic, nor republic; they're a plutocracy. Exacerbated by Citizens United.

Who cares? It shouldn't even have been close. The fact that enough of the country supports him that he could even get within 2.1% of the popular vote in 2016 is enough to show how morally rotten the whole nation is. The US empire deserves to collapse

Exactly, Trump isn't the cause, it's the result.

The American dream personified.

More than half of US tech industry revenue comes from outside the US. Tech industry CEOs kowtow to an administration that is destroying US soft power and trust in US technology. How smart was that decision? When and how does that decision get reconsidered?

So after reading your comment 17 minutes ago & doing a quick & dirty search to see if there were any tech companies having a particularly bad year in Europe, the net result is: not really, with the caveat that Europe often gets grouped in under EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, Africa) on financial reports.

Europe continues to remain one of America’s premier VIP Customers[1].

[1] https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2006/04/13/bofh-dear-val...

A lot of those Linux installations are going to be paying Microsoft licensing fees for at least a year or two after they've ripped out their last Windows machine.

The installed base of technology moves slowly. Check the consumer discretionary spending first. In tech that probably means Meta.

Meta is doing quite well in Europe. Q2 2026 they were up nearly $4 billion in Europe (their definition is Europe, but the footnote adds that they specifically include Russia & Turkey in this figure as well), and Q1 2026 they were up $6.5 billion in Europe.

https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001326801/abad205... (page 13)

They didn't have to go with NixOS...

Had to be a team of circle jerk external advisories that want to become rich by inflating the effort here

This is my fear.

I dont think Determinate Systems was involved, despite their proximity to the Netherlands (Eelco being Dutch). They work with American arms manufacturers, so I suspect that may play a role.

I'm glad online randos know better than people who get paid to do so. I wonder why theyre on the paid side..

They previously used openSUSE and then Fedora. But both have companies behind them, where-as NixOS does not. And with NixOS they are more sovereign.

> They previously used openSUSE and then Fedora.

Why did those not work out? Why do they think things will be different with NixOS?

Because it was suse and fedora

Fedora is connected to Red Hat which is a US company, which is exactly the dependence that is undesired

NixOS (or rather nixpkgs) in its current state heavily depends on GitHub/Microsoft at the very least, and switching to anything else is non-trivial.

Perhaps why they're forking it?

Nixpkgs is quite explicit about how to produce the distribution. You can rebuild the entire distro from source and backup the source code for every package.

As a normal NixOS user, I know how to do this. It would be quite some effort, but not especially difficult. Additionally, for a government they have the servers to set up a build farm.

I think it makes sense? You probably get an easier time reproducing a config on thousands of devices using NixOS?

Golden image deployments and netboot have been around for ages. If you want an unified system and control the infrastructure, it doesn't really matter which system you use.

I'm not sure why they chose nix. But it does make it easier to carry local patches than a lot of other systems. I hope they succeed.

The one that makes it trivial to carry over local patches is Gentoo. I carry a set of patches to every new computer and update them whenever neccesary. No overlay yet :P

I've never had a Nix user actually able to explain why they use it in a way that coherently makes sense because it's a cult. You buy into it before know anything about it.

On many operating systems you keep accumulating junk around your system which become ever harder to clean up. Many techy people re-install their system every few years to clean it up, many non-techy people simply watch their system become ever slower and filled with cruft until they end up buying a new device.

This is the main issue NixOS solves for me. I don't have systemd units or cronjobs or random config files spread across the system. I have one config file/directory, which contains everything.

You're overstating the problem to the point I have more doubts than before I read your argument.

My beef with nix is the arcane syntax to get anything done. Yes, it's documented. No, it doesn't help that it reads like one of those strict, convoluted standards written by a committee of experts.

It's not arcane. You're just unfamiliar with it. It's pretty close to any lazy functional language.

Also what causes problems for others may not be the same thing that causes problems for you. You could try accepting others' experiences.

it makes so much sense. a small team of experts maintaining a rock-solid base configuration providing the essentials, which can then be built on top of for agency/department or even personal specifics - all declarative, immutable, cachable, testable. I can't think of a better tool for the job.

As a downside, any change to software, version updates, keeping things secure now depends on the team is experts. Most are easy, some are hard (e.g. new software now requires a new Swift version - one person motivated enough to do that project has been pushing it for months), some are annoying (patch to libc means you're re-downloading your whole system).

As a positive thing, maybe at least nixos will get a serious security pipeline rather than the current best-effort community approach.

Well that was the whole problem to begin with! A lack of experts. Hence they went with IBM and MicroSlop. These guys are late.

buildroot

The NixOS foundation is Dutch, probably felt like a safe starting point (esp considering that the French has already gone that way).

Besides, technically, if you're chosing an OS in 2026, it sounds like a good plan to start with a system that has many reproducibility, correctness properties and separated packages designed in from the start.

Now, I'm not a NixOS user (altering mostly between win,fbsd,osX and some debians), maybe there's some horrible dragons lurking in using it in practice (do share in that case), but from reading about it sounds like a plan for a system used in a future where people don't need to curse too much about legacy decisions?

No, unfortunately NixOS will prove unworkable. It's a classic case of bureaucrats making decisions about things they don't understand based on random political factors like where the creators are based.

Nix has numerous properties that make it unsuitable for a normal desktop OS:

(1) It has no concept of libraries being backwards compatible, so if a 200kb core library changes in a backwards compatible way e.g. security hotfix, it will rebuild/redownload pretty much everything you have installed. This kills your ability to roll out security fixes quickly and ensures that updates are far more painful for end users than even on Windows.

(2) Nix advertises its main benefit as being that you can easily roll back bad updates, which is just false. It makes this false claim because Nix treats user state as being out of scope. Try upgrading Postgres across major versions with Nix and then rolling it back and see what happens, or really any program that stores stuff in $HOME and doesn't support rollback. It'll just die, make a mess, and Nix will wash its hands of the affair by saying it did the bit it wanted to do (change the binaries on your path) and the rest is just out of scope.

(3) It has no working concept of native plugins, related to point (1). If two plugins depend on slightly different versions of their host program, they'll just load incompatible libraries into the address space and things will crash.

(4) It cannot run binaries shipped for generic Linux without lots of fragile hacks like binary rewrites. But in the real world lots of important domain-specific programs are shipped as binaries, if they support Linux at all.

Huh.

I'm no Nix user, but I want to build an alternative.

Do you think these problems could be fixed?

I'm not sure. It's a philosophical issue: Nix defines itself as an implementation of a core theoretical idea. If you change that idea too much it may not be Nix anymore.

It's probably worth just going back to the drawing board and asking what the goals of a desktop OS should really be. You'd end up with something radically different to Nix, IMO, sort of like how how NeXT/macOS manages software is quite radically different to UNIX.

I actually have a little exploration of a new software distribution idea going on right now, but it's not trying to do the same things as Nix. It starts by asking what a desktop OS inspired by the success of the web would look like.

I'm okay dropping the philosophy and just making something that truly does what Nix claims: atomic upgrades, fully-reproducible environments, etc. In fact, dropping the philosophy is exactly why I am making my own.

Your idea sounds interesting and (by your bio) right up your alley. I'd be interested to see the result.

I'm still working on it but the gist looks like this.

Two new programs: `url` and `run`. I am creating reference implementations but they're simple and there's a spec, so they could be reimplemented in your language of choice.

`url https://...` resolves the given URL into a disk cache in $HOME and then prints the path. `url` understands archives and can resolve inside them:

    $ url https://a.b/program.zip/bin/program
    /home/foo/.cache/..../bin/program

It implements the HTTP caching spec, and - as browsers can do with HTML - can extract cache override headers from the given program if it's a script with hashbang. It does a few other things, like set +x automatically if the program is intended to be executable, sets quarantine bits on macOS and so on:

    $ open $(url https://downloads.mac-app.com/MacApp-1.2.zip/MacApp.app)
    (scanned by gatekeeper and then run)

The disk cache is cleaned up automatically as disk space falls low or the cache exceeds the configured maximum.

Running programs this way is possible, but not ideal. This is where `run` enters the picture:

    $ run cool-tool.org --help

or if you have the zsh integration set up, you can skip the `run` prefix and just treat URLs as program names:

    $ cool-tool.org --help

`run` resolves this to https://cool-tool.org/run.zip/ which is a small metadata archive containing instructions for how to start the app. The instructions come in the form of a JavaScript that's run inside a restrictive sandbox. It is allowed to resolve URLs into the disk cache, to learn the current host OS and CPU architecture, and to yield an execution plan (basically the path to the binary/script to execute + optionally transformed CLI arguments). So by publishing a small run.zip file to the root of cool-tool.org it becomes possible for users on any OS, including macOS and Windows, to start the program purely by domain name. The script can do hash locking and override cache headers for URLs if the file server isn't cooperative. The tools will keep the app up to date and optimize out cache checks to keep startup fast when the cache is fresh enough.

The run script has a few other options, like figuring out what system libraries are available and what their versions are, thus - if it wishes - it can choose to either download dependencies into the cache and use them (e.g. by setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH), or use the OS provided versions.

At the moment I'm also working on adding a form of sandboxing. The execution plans produced by run scripts can contain permission requests, similar in spirit to macOS entitlements. The permissions aren't tied to any specific sandboxing system or OS. The implementation of `run` may, at its leisure, use this information to sandbox the program before it executes it. The run script may also adapt the permissions requested based on things like what the host OS is, or even what the command line arguments are. For example:

    $ cool-app.org --input ./in.mp4 --output ./out.mp4

    $ dry-run cool-app.org --input ./in.mp4 --output ./out.mp4
    Requests permissions:
    1. Read $PWD/in.mp4
    2. Read/write $PWD/out.mp4
    3. Read ~/.config/org.cool-app/config.yml

The run script can look at the command line arguments for this invocation, then produce a permission set that only allows access to the in.mp4 and out.mp4 paths, and a config in an OS specific location, but nothing else. Whether the implementation of run actually tightens things that much will depend on things like what the host OS is capable of, but the information to do so is there. For example on Linux it might use landlock, on macOS it might compare the declared permissions against the entitlements in the Mach-O and abort if there's a mismatch, and so on.

run.zip files don't have to be produced by the upstream author of the code. They can come from anywhere and resolve URLs from anywhere. So if you are worried about the upstream code being malicious, you could use a run.zip from a third party app store or catalogue, and if you aren't, you can use the upstream's version which just sandboxes to limit the blast radius of compromises.

The goals here are deliberately modest, something like:

- Learn from the web, by making starting native CLI apps as convenient as starting a web app.

- Have a small spec that allows for cross-platform deployment without forcing a large declarative schema for how to assemble files and URLs.

- Don't require the user to manually manage installation/uninstallation.

- Experiment with a cross-platform declarative permissions schema that's computed imperatively, where the mapping to OS sandboxing primitives can flex and adapt over time as OS kernels change.

The web made many mistakes. Only thing it got right is HTML and convenience. JS is garbage, browsers bloated. The web is centralized forgetful and fragile. No thx.

I think it depends on what they want it for. I can imagine NixOS being perfect for user workstations for example, as an alternative to Windows workstations managed with Active Directory.

I imagine you have a lot more experience than I do packaging for NixOS and other distros given your product, but in the few cases that I've needed to run a binary, I just wrap it with a flake and it's done. I also stay on NixOS stable, so I avoid the sharp parts of "bleeding edge". In my experience as a desktop user, I've never had a failed rollback since using NixOS as my primary OS since around 2016. However, whenever I try to use it as a server OS, I often do hit the pain point you mentioned around statefulness. More specifically, the happy path is extremely happy, but once you need something off the happy path, you find yourself creating some really ugly glue to get it to interface with the happy path. The pattern I've settled on is using Podman quadlets for most services, but that isn't without pain either. Then you find that you've become a Unix sysadmin, managing different UIDs for rootless podman, different network domains, dealing with permissions issues, etc. I'm currently experimenting with microvm.nix to see if that will be cleaner, but no conclusions yet.

I think people are unfairly downvoting this comment, but I do want to drill into your point (1) a bit. You're right that you can't really do a delta patch in NixOS. But I feel like that is so so so important these days with active supply chain attacks. I don't want a 200kb change to a core library that is "claimed" to be backward compatible to be able to make its way into my codebase. In an ideal world sure, there would be some way to prove that the update doesn't break anything and isn't malicious, and that is certainly possible for some limited subset (provers like Rocq, OS functionality like BSD Pledge, etc), but for now this is mostly based on trust.

What does my codebase mean, though? A normal desktop OS doesn't require app devs to issue updates for any change to any library and it would be extremely insecure to do so. The OS is better maintained than the apps.

Redownloading everything doesn't protect against supply chain attacks. Those can still happen, no problem.

Reflecting on it, I guess my OS config has turned into a codebase. I have a single Nix closure that includes all my OS config, all the services running on it, and all the small utilities that need to be compiled from source (either because they are something I wrote, or something that isn't packaged in Nixpgs). I'm not sure whether this is considered best practice or not. To your point though, I would be unaware if an upstream maintainer released a security patch for something that I'm compiling from source, because I am pinned to a specific Git commit. On the other hand, I can just point an LLM at my Nix source, and ask it to scan it for security issues periodically. I do this from time to time with one of the smart models, but it might be an interesting experiment to set up a daily scan with an inexpensive or even a local model.

1: Sounds like something that could be improved rather than being something inherent, could be part culture though since slightly incompatible C/C++ libraries isn't an uncommon thing so unless there's proper testing channels the user-diskspace/time is a tradeoff (not perfect, but reasonable)

2: Doesn't really sound like a problem for most desktop stuff unless there's some components you use that depend on non-upgradable data. Users have their browser, word files, excel files, pdf files and so on.

3: Sounds annoying, but also like a fixable feature. How much common user software have native plugins ?

4: Binaries for Linux is a bit of a mess in general, I think someone in jest wrote that now that Wine has improved, win32 binaries is the preferable binary distribution format for Linux.

The problem with (1) is it's inherent to the design concept. Nix defines package identity to include the dependency closure. Fixing that would require introducing the concept of an interface export that blocks the recursion, and then having other packages depend on that. This is nothing radical and plenty of build tools do it e.g. Gradle has a concept of this, as does a private build system I built myself. But Nix doesn't have it, it's something that would have needed to be there from day one, and AFAIK there are no plans to add it. Also by the time you're done with this it doesn't look much different to a conventional package manager.

Incompatibilities can of course happen, but so can improvements. Nix throws the baby out with the bathwater. You can rerun CI of upstream (open source) projects against a new set of component versions if you want, it doesn't imply anything about how the distribution mechanism should work.

For (2) the issue is non-downgradeable data, not non-upgradeable. Apps basically never support downgrades. Consider your web browser changing the format of its HTTP cache or credentials store, consider your word processor adding a new feature that the user incorporates into their documents and then it's suddenly downgraded. There isn't even any way to downgrade Chrome via its normal user interfaces!

For (3) crashes aren't just annoying, they're indicative of a fatal design flaw. Native plugins were a common feature on other operating systems in the past and have historically been a feature of KDE and GNOME too. I don't know if there are new Linux-native apps of high complexity being written these days though. The dominance of Electron means plugins have moved server-side where the user's OS can't screw them up. Nonetheless, you can't have a serious productivity-focused desktop OS if apps can't be composed at all. You can at best maybe do a ChromeOS competitor.

For (4) sure it can be just defined as out of scope, same thing Nix[OS] does with lots of other important problems. It's embarrassing to present Linux as a solution if it depends on Microsoft to solve the hard stuff for you, though.

1: I think that's still a decision of the OS developers, you can have a purity-of-install to have functioning software (avoiding incompatible libraries), in the end though for all binaries it's just instructions with little knowledge moving around an instruction pointer, so is there anything fundamental that precludes an overlayed patch-stream where you have installed versions (nix world) but a runtime linker that silently replaces core libraries (that would cause extensive reloads, say OpenSSL) during link-time to have a functioning userland until the next release occurs?

2: I hear you, I still think it's a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, worst case administrators should manage for full user backups in case of breakage (people bad backups habits are more likely to cause havoc for other reasons like hardware failure than the occasional downgrade of system data).

3: only thing that immediately comes to mind is Blender, but there it's Python scripts and intentionally not supporting C++ plugins (last I checked you're supposed to rebuild the entire thing if you want C++ additions).

4: OSS unixy systems has always had tilt to the former in the conflict between the security/sysadmin view (no local binary searching due to security, binaries upgrade everywhere) vs users (who wants to run programs and don't care too much about what glibc version it was compiled with, even taking that big binary with all libraries bundled).

I see Nix as more like Windows SxS instead of just shipping everything like with flatpak,docker,etc. But it always boils down to the same dependency on absolute filepaths for everything that's hard to escape (because you can "just recompile").

flatpak exists though, doesn't it work well enough?

Not just the foundation, the inventors of Nix and NixOS are Dutch too, it came out Utrecht University. Even the name is from dutch "niks" for "nothing", the snowflake came later and is basically a retcon.

As for practical use, sure there are some rough corners (this is true for every Linux distro), but I don't think there's any horrible showstoppers. In fact it's particularly well-suited for use by organizations (as opposed to private individual use) because it's great for making highly customized but reproducible setups.

I was so disappointed that Valve chose Arch as their base for SteamOS. SteamOS is excellent, and all the work they do has gone back upstream to make Arch and Linux gaming better, but I feel like it was a missed opportunity. I've always thought that NixOS (and immutable distros like Fedora Silberblue etc) are perfect for embedded or consumer appliances. I feel like a bit of help from a company that actually uses NixOS in a mass market product would really push it over the edge in terms of usability.

I am confused, help.

Linux Foundation is HQ'd in SF. Linus lives in the US.

NixOS needs Linux. There are many US devs and corps that contribute. How can this be a clear-cut divorce? Is NL going to fork, ala Red Flag Linux?

What about WhatsApp? IG? (I don't use them, but everyone else around me does).

Man, this is all bonkers, the damage is done even if the next election goes a saner way.

Hopefully this will cause Denmark and its banks to issue more Dankort cards

Some people might consider not having access to Windows 11 as a blessing in disguise when businesses are "forced" to move from Windows 10, now they can see there are other viable options.

It’s a blessing, Microsoft has always been mediocre throughout their entire history. It’s a shame that so many American and European vertical tech companies gave up in the late 1980s, and 1990s.

If you haven’t noticed, Microsoft has trouble competing when the playing field is even remotely level.

Move on you won’t miss Microsoft and you will find new opportunities.

I still don't get why EU governments and agencies don't standardize around an already existing industry proven OS the EU already has domestically, which is SUSE, and need to each go reinventing the wheel their own way, which leads to higher costs and more fragmentation across the EU.

I heard the reason was that NL doesn't know if SUSE will be sold off again and might end up in the hands of some US PE, but here's the thing, you're the government, you can just block the sale of companies related to sovereign national security like those making operating systems. You can just do things when you want to. You literally have that power. Exercise it for once FFS.

Might be related to NixOS being strongly related to Netherlands and them picking local

Yeah well that's why the EU federal idea is and will be a failure. It wishes to be the challenger to the US and China hegemony in theory, but then every individual country wants to be its own special mini-boss in its own playground hoping they'll be at the top of the helm, that develops and uses its own separate things that will hopefully get adopted by the other EU members.

You have it in reverse. A federal EU enables EU countries to pool sovereignty and strength to protect itself from the US and China. It neither needs to or wants to challenge anyone. A federal system allows EU wide decisions to be made quickly and without petty parochial concerns.

Constituent states rightly can choose to make their own decisions in matters like this, it hardly effects anyone else, and they can choose to collaborate.

>You have it in reverse. A federal EU enables EU countries to pool sovereignty and strength to protect itself from the US and China.

How is that in reverse to what I said? I said the same thing, and explained why this isn't actually happening.

Is that why US failed while building CP/m, Unix a few, Dos, Windows, MacOs, OS/2,…? A successful market does not impose monopolies. The more, the merrier.

> A successful market does not impose monopolies. The more, the merrier.

Yeah but when it comes to national sovereignty you can't let your own products get steamrolled by the entrenched monopolies of your adversaries (Google, Microsoft, AWS, etc) just because you're gullible and still think you can play by the rules of idealistic 'free market' and come out on top, while your adversaries protect their monopolies to weaponize them against you on the "free market", suppressing or destroying your domestic industry and making you indefinitely dependent on them (US big-tech, Chinese EV industry, etc).

China has achieved a SW industry superior to the EU with much less money, simply because it has banned US big-tech from its market, preventing its own small domestic players from being crushed by US giants. It's also how countries like Italy, Japan and Korea built strong car industries post-WW2, as they banned superior import cars (often US ones) from their markets, till their own industry could catch up and be competitive internationally. India does the same.

Cooperation and competition can be partial. Google and Microsoft compete internally and then cooperate when fighting external forces. There is no reason why this cannot work for European companies too.

The problem has more to do with the weak sense of belonging to a supranational identity. Californians and New Yorkers both identify as Americans before they identify as members of their home state; the opposite is true of most Europeans still. Change is slow.

>Californians and New Yorkers both identify as Americans before they identify as members of their home state; the opposite is true of most Europeans still.

You don't need to completely erase and crush ethnic and national identities in order to standardize on technical platform for the common market.

No, but there has to be a sense of belonging strong enough to make it clear that, on any given problem, the approach should be "what is convenient to us as Europeans vs American companies" rather than "what is convenient to us as <state X> vs American companies". And Americans (and not just them) ruthlessly exploit this state through basic divide et impera.

>No, but there has to be a sense of belonging strong enough to make it clear that, on any given problem, the approach should be "what is convenient to us as Europeans vs American companies"

No you don't need that, that's why we have the EU & EC that just demands all members follow a fixed set of rules and regulation in order to solve a common problem. Operating systems could also be part of that problem to solve (amongst million other sovereignty problems we have to solve but will never get to).

You didn't need a shared sense of belonging for the EU to mandate USB-C on all gadgets sold in the EU. So you don't need a shared sense of belonging to demand all EU government systems transition to SUSE or compatible forks in the next 10 years, and each state can fork and modify it to its own liking by local companies and service providers to support its domestic market/industry if they wish.

If EU countries can build Airbus planes together, then they definitely can standardize on an OS, you just need to want to do it, but unfortunately, the politicians and policy makers who helped put Airbus together, were cut from a different cloth than the self serving useless rejects we have today at the EU helm.

It didn't ban US tech except in very targeted ways, when they already had a competent local competitor. There are, for example, iPhones and Androids everywhere in China.

When the market is as huge as US, there's lots of space for competition. Sadly in how EU is currently structured it would most likely be just german "Microsoft", spanish "Microsoft", french "Microsoft" etc.

I think NixOS is also just much better suited for this particular job than SUSE. We use NixOS for everybody at work even though we're a German company.

That's odd. Can I ask what you do for work that NixOS was the idea choice?

> I heard the reason was that NL doesn't know if SUSE will be sold off again and might end up in the hands of some US PE, but here's the thing, you're the government, you can just block the sale of companies

The Dutch government can famously prevent sales of German and Luxembourgish companies yes.

I meant the EU, at EU level, not the Dutch government. Also it's not like the Dutch government can't cooperate with the other EU members like Germany and Luxembourg on such vital topics. Unless of course trust inside the EU is so lackluster that the Dutch government can't be sure where Germany and Luxembourg will stand, in which case it's already over for the EU.

Does the EU have the power to block sales of companies on national security grounds? Or to get member states to standardise on software?

Its probably a good thing they do not have a standard, or at this point it would be Windows and pushing change through at the EU level would not be fast.

>Does the EU have the power to block sales of companies on national security grounds?

Not on defense and national security, that's up to individual EU member states, but the EU does veto corporate mergers and acquisitions on Competition Law (Antitrust). So just find a loophole in that and use it to prevent SUSE be taken over by non-EU nations.

The governments "just" doing this or that, are typically the tyrannical or unhinged variety you don't want to live under. If your law is written decently and you have a functioning judiciary, chances of a loopholes surviving scrutiny will be very low.

The European Commission could definitely ask governments (the European Council) to agree a new treaty or protocol that grants them veto powers on "federal security grounds", for sure. The European Parliament would likely rubber-stamp it too. Considering the current (and increasing) right-wing majorities across the continent, though, I find such scenario very unlikely.

As an American, EU politics is such a fascinating bizarro world. Imagine the right wingers being a bulwark against unhinged expansion of executive authority on grounds of national security! It would be like statehouse Republicans blocking the Patriot Act. Unthinkable.

Well, the same in the other direction: imagine the free marketeers by definition, installing an autocrat big on isolationist policies, the dismantling of judiciary separation, and on picking winners in the market... Absurd! And still, here we are. Humans are funny and inconsistent like that.

>Well, the same in the other direction

Right back at you: Imagine being a European getting fined/arrested for memes(UK), or that you called a politician a dick on facebook(Germany).

How are those rape gangs in the UK this time of year? Did the UK government ever get in trouble for covering that up that scandal and calling the whistleblowers pointing it out "racist white supremacists"?

No rape gangs in sight here, thank you very much. Not that it had anything to do with what was being discussed.

Politics really makes people rabid.

>No rape gangs in sight here, thank you very much.

What do you call this then? https://news.sky.com/story/grooming-gangs-scandal-timeline-w...

>Not that it had anything to do with what was being

What did your comment have to do with "what was being discussed"?

>Politics really makes people rabid.

"Shit, I'm losing the argument to my political opposition, better call them rabbid, *fobes, nazis, etc. "

By the way liberals in EU are center right to right :)

Yes, they are neoliberals, which are hardly left by international standards. European social-democratic parties, which are the traditional Euro center-left, are generally on the back foot right now.

Oh, I just looked the naming up. Apparently the US is still in the 18xx calling left wing liberals?

TBH this whole left-right thing is pretty new in the US. The political science term is "ideological alignment" (we didn't really have it for a long time due to our weird party system) if you want to read about it. This is changing now to an extent, but there was also a taboo for a long time against identifying as being a leftist, what with McCarthyism, COINTELPRO, etc.

I think it demonstrates the extent to which left and right are artificial groupings that owe more to tribalism than anything rational.

In the UK it was the right wing Conservative party which introduced same sex marriage. I am pretty sure the Republicans are unlikely to do that.

Of course some things are clear. Privatisation is right wing, nationalisation is left wing, but you never really had the latter in the US!

>but you never really had the latter in the US!

US postal service

Amtrak

State Lotteries

Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC)

Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)

>The governments "just" doing this or that, are typically the tyrannical or unhinged variety you don't want to live under.

You can always "just do things" whenever you want by interpreting or changing the laws first to fit your desired goal. And so there, now it's legal, because I just changed the rules to make it so.

Same how the "we'll now have to accept all those migrants illegally crossing our border without asking our voters if its what they want" was done, they decided overnight that its legal. Or how they can just block the right wing from winning elections in order to "just protect democracy".

We're already under tyrannical rule, except the system abuse just acts on the wrong topics.

They better learn. the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans do not sell anything close and dear and probably never will.

The EU level doesn't have enforcement mechanisms, EU law is applied through member states changing their laws.

For context, the US once prevented that a German company AIXTRON was sold to a Chinese investor in 2016 (perhaps for good reasons). To me it would sound like a good deal for the Netherlands and Luxembourg/Germany if Netherlands would uses SUSE and the Luxembourg/Germany would step in to keep in in the EU.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/12/02/us-blocks-chi...

Isn't it odd how Germany needed the US to stop them from committing a(nother) suicidal mistake regarding their industry sovereignty?

I wonder, is anyone left in the German government now (that isn't a paid lobbyist) that is even remotely interested on covering their industry sovereignty?

Every so often I hear about new footguns Germany used on itself.

> but here's the thing, you're the government, you can just block the sale of companies related to sovereign national security like those making operating systems

Last time I looked it was a Swedish owned German company. The government of the Netherlands has limited power there. Given its history and performance its quite likely to get sold and might end up in American or Chinese hands or anything really.

European bureaucracy has a thing for weird technology - Scala, Flatpak, now NixOS. But still better than being dependent on proprietary software not made in Europe

Why is it weird?

If I were to pick a distro for government services, I would go with something boring and reliable like Debian or openSUSE. NixOS is fun and nerdy and has its fan base, just not an obvious first choice for the task

How is that a sanction? seems like a blessing instead.

FAFO America

Make sure we find out then! Part of our problem is there are never consequences for fucking around.

There is a lot of inertia in the system, but US tech would be half the size without international customers. We've really slammed the door on our dick and the pain is going to be obvious.

I bizarrely (perhaps naively) believe that it will be good for the US in the long term. I think that we have coasted on our favored status for a long time and competition and consequences will help fix that.

Trump attacking the Netherlands means transatlanticism is really dead.

I think this has a lot to do with how the case against Putin was built and Trump used his influence to disrupt it.

It's because the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu for committing war crimes.

The US had issue with the ICC since it first began in 2002. Multiple administrations saw it as a problem.

The year the ICC was established, Congress passed a law providing enduring authorization for a full scale military invasion of the Netherlands should the ICC imprison any US service member, government employee, or those of allied nations (including Israel).[1] It even prevents any level of the US government (local, state, or federal) from working to assist the ICC. Americans do not want to be beholden to a foreign court.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...

Taking issue with accountability is a long lived American tradition enjoyed predominantly by those with wealth/power.

And because Trump and co don't want to have to deal with such warrants against themselves.

It's the ultimate expression of US corruption. There's not even a pretense of fighting for justice any more, just fighting justice.

I'm probably wrong but I could have sworn there was an article that came out when Trump was elected something happened with data on microsoft accounts/server huh. I guess it's ungoogable right now. Might have just been hosted by US gov. Must have been funding related.

Anyway I don't support ICC grabbing power it does not have over other countries who do not sign on.

If the ICC wanted to be consistent they should target Hamas leaders, Iranian leaders, ect

> If the ICC wanted to be consistent they should target Hamas leaders, Iranian leaders, ect

Iran is not a party to the Rome Statute and the court has not officially opened a case against Iranian leaders.

However, the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, Commander-in-Chief of Hamas' military wing for war crimes and crimes against humanity stemming from the October 7 attacks.

> Iran is not a party to the Rome Statute

Neither are Israel or Russia, so the point is moot.

But Ukraine and Palestine are, which is where the crimes are being committed. When you enter a country, you are subject to their laws, not those from your own country.

You'd be happy to know that ICC has also indicted three Hamas leaders (Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh). Granted all three were withdrawn because their deaths were confirmed, but you're presenting it as if ICC only indicted Israeli leaders, which is not the case.

I am happy to know they are at least somewhat consistent however unfortunately it still doesn't change my position on it.

I am wondering if every war time leader should expect an ICC indictment.

The ICC hasn't indicted "every war time leader" because they're not all committing an open genocide.

>I am happy to know they are at least somewhat consistent however unfortunately it still doesn't change my position on it.

NAZA

> I am wondering if every war time leader should expect an ICC indictment.

One can only hope. It may actually reduce the numbers of wars if our "leaders" knew they would have to justify their actions in court.

Which other wartime leaders are overseeing hourly war crimes and an ongoing genocide?

The EU is entirely subjugated to the US. No energy independence, militaries falling apart and out of date, no tech development or investment.

Maybe that's wrong?

The US can't even win a war in the middle east without NATO

What is the US going to do when China starts making their own moves?

Outside the US, NATO countries have very little power projection capabilities. A bit of france, a bit of UK and then nothing.

How's that power projection working in Iran/Yemen?

Would NATO change the equation?

The US has chosen not to project all the power they can. That is send soldiers - likely some to die. However the US has the ability to send them if they want, and could supply them if they did - nobody else has anywhere near that ability ready today.

Do you really think the USA has enough troops to take and occupy Iran without instituting a draft?

What does that have to do with anything? The need for a draft is one of several reasons why it is unlikely the US will escalate more. However that is a card the US could play quickly, and combined with the existing military would be enough. (Vietnam could have been won as well, but the US made political choices to not do what it takes)

That's a lot of winning... having to introduce a draft...

How well do you think a draft is going to go? forced on an armed populace that might not want to die in iran?

So power projection isn't working out as planned.

Could doesn't reopen hormuz.

Hormuz is mostly open last I checked. Iran is shouting, but ships are getting through again.

Though the point remains, the US has made the choice to not escalate farther, but there is plenty of power left behind that could be used.

>Hormuz is mostly open last I checked. Iran is shouting, but ships are getting through again.

Hormuz isn't open. Any traffic going through is a small fraction compared to before the war. The US can't even operate close to the Iranian shore for fear of anti ship missiles.

> the US has made the choice to not escalate farther,

They can't escalate further or they would. They can't even hold their bases or protect the countries they are supposed to. What power, short of a nuke, are they holding back on?

> US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated on September 27 that between 15 and 22 million barrels of oil currently pass through the strait daily, compared to the 20 million barrels of oil that passed through the strait daily before the war.

> The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy claimed that Iran has targeted 19 vessels that have attempted to transit the strait since September 25, though Iranian media provided no evidence to substantiate these claims.

From https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-updat.... Now I realize that both Scott Bessent and the ISW are biased sources. However they still are painting a picture of the strait mostly reopened.

Bessent is a liar and an idiot. May as well quote Trump tweets. Iran still being able to attack ships at will in the straight should further dispel any illusion it is open.

There are independent trackers which all show transit levels around 1-5% of what it was prewar. Even with some shadow fleet tankers going, it still isn't getting anywhere close to those levels.

Half a million soldiers and 57,000 dead in Vietnam did not win the war, when you have an adversary who is willing to fight and has a supply line. The same applied to Afghanistan and Korea.

Russia is currently learning that lesson again. After Afghanistan, in the Ukraine, for the US to have any chance of winning in Iran the US needs at least half a million people on the ground. With a trillion dollar bankroll?

The United States is reaching the end. When it comes to the amount of money needed, let alone the human cost, and to top it off, while we’re slogging around in the sand in Iran at every level, we will be getting weaker in relationship to China and the world.

And the George HW Bush administration used that power wisely in the first Gulf War. Every other time not so much.

The main concern for Europeans is accessible by truck over flat ground. They probably need more boats and submarines than they've got, but they don't need a B2 bomber or aircraft carriers.

The Gulf War was a lost at every level.

> The US can't even win a war in the middle east without NATO

That is false. The US could win a war in the middle east without NATO.

The US has consistently chosen not to attempt to do so, but there is every reason to think they could. It is good that the US mostly tries to work with NATO on the middle east (and bad that Trump has not).

The US has also consistently chosen to send minimal ground forces, and when they do send them they are very careful to protect the lives of their soldiers at the expense of winning.

However there remains every reason to think the US could make different decisions and win wars in the middle east alone.

Right now the US looks impotent vs Iran.

So? My comment was never about what things look like, it is about reality.

Reality: US is impotent against iran closing the straight

"We could win the wars if we wanted to"

The US has been getting their shit rocked by people in sandals for the better part of 70 years.

Again, because the US has chosen not to do anymore.

"the US could have won but have chosen to lose"

Why is the US chosing to lose basically every war they've been involved in since WWII?

That is an interesting question.

The other poster said "to distract from some other issue".

There are various people who point out that winning as most define it was never the objective in the first place, and the US doesn't care.

After WWII England (and to a lesser extent France) decided they didn't want to pay to be the world super power anymore. The US took over that roll, but to appease those who don't like that the US is willing to appear as a fumbling idiot despite meeting their objectives.

There are probably other reads, those are just the 3 I can think of right now.

You're probably right. The wars have served their purpose, i.e. distract voters from domestic issues. Who in power cares if they win or lose if they're still in power?

The US has lost every war after World War II, it is also lost in Central and South America when it comes to long-range infrastructure, having a rail system stuck in the 1950s is not gonna go anywhere, not leading the charge in Central and South America and getting that Pan American highway or Pan American railroad built from one end to the other?, and where is that highway or railway leading all the way to Nome, Alaska? The billions, trillions of dollars wasted, and US Steel which is now, owned by the Japanese.

By the way, if it wasn’t for the Russia’s ill fated war, the Chinese would have high-speed rail built out all the way to Europe, and would be making plans to build out all the way to South Africa, the Chinese have even taken the lessons of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and are gonna have Thorium up and running sometime in the early 2030s.

When it comes to Mercantile and Infrastructure China is one step ahead.

The US's objectives have rarely including a traditional win, so that isn't a useful think to ask about.

I don't know where your US rail system comparison comes from, but the US rail system is not stuck in the 1950s, the US rail system is the best in the world and has innovated. You might be thinking about passenger rail, but that is small subset of rail and not useful for most US needs.

Pan American highway or Pan American - these are feel good ideas of questionable benefit. They would sound good on paper, but they would not be useful for much: flying is faster (and probably cheaper) for things that need speed, while the nearby ocean is much cheaper for things that don't need speed.

The Europeans have some amount of leverage over the Americans, much smaller than the Americans have over them. But they use 100% of it to keep the Americans involved in the Ukraine War rather than to defend their own institutions / economies.

The tricky thing these days is trying to figure out whether messages like this are coming from Russian or MAGA bots ;) In any case, good work comrade! Here's your potato / Trumpcoin. Now back into your troll cave.

As a US citizen and FOSS lover, I am absolutely pleased about this. Tearing down and tearing out US tech giants will only be good for computing in the long run.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49841563

No problem. After the next election in the Netherlands, Microsoft only needs to promise to build a local headquarters there and the future government will roll back to Windows at twice the previous cost, which is exactly what happened in Munich.

Good thing the Netherlands isn’t the most critical single node for advanced chip equipment, cause that could become awkward.

Oh wait, it is.

But it’s ok because Us President has made it clear the the USA doesn’t need anything Europe has. So, not a problem.

USA and Netherlands (alone, and within EU) have signed an agreement concerning that about two months ago.

The US government already exerts extensive control over ASML's business. The Netherlands can't leverage it in any kind of strategic way because a large part of the technology itself is American and it's very hard to untangle. It's the true definition of a "multi national" company.

>a large part of the technology itself

A tiny fraction of the technology itself started as an ineffective "American" invention, copying a Japanese discovery/invention. In fact when ASML acquired the company, specifically because it couldn't do what they wanted and they needed to vastly improve it, a Japanese company had a superior product in the same space, but ASML saw the Japanese company as too much political baggage given how protectionist the Japanese often are.

How funny it all turned out, right?

Do they exert any physical control (i.e. parts are made and shipped from North America), or is it just "Intellectual Property" and legal agreements that can be ignored?

This is an honest question, I'm trying my best to word it to not sound like a troll.

Yes the EUV/DUV light source itself is researched, developed, and manufactured in California.

ASML was permitted to acquire Cymer in 2013 during the Obama administration under a strict technology sharing and export control agreement with the US government.

The R&D, technology, manufacturing, and all other operations had to remain in the US.

https://www.asml.com/en/company/about-asml/cymer

Thanks, very interesting!

Do you happen to know how they compare to Trumpf the German laser manufacturer?

ASML sold nothing in Europe in 2026, they would implode if they stopped selling to US companies

There is a lot of noise for public consumption but the reality is that the US control the Netherlands and most European countries, and in fact while this noise has become louder in recent years so has the dependency of Europe on the US...

The Dutch government let the USA store their nuclear weapons in the 60s in Vonkel already. We have long lost our sovereignty.

Don't worry. The more they slow ASML's progress, the closer it puts SMEE (China) to parity. Then we won't need to worry about sanctions ever again.

It was obvious from the start that Israel's killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians wasn't genocide. So why press charges against its political leaders? This move was purely politically motivated either by the DA (a Muslim) or the leadership of the ICC.

The U.S. is a hyperpower that does not want to be hindered by a politically influenced extra-judicial tribunal.

Trump obviously wants doesn't want his hands tied when he decides to bomb all the power plants in Tehran and Iran to force the country to its knees. The fact that this might be interpreted as a war crime has withheld him from ordering this up until now. Iran, however, is bombing civilian infrastructure almost on a daily basis yet I haven't seen any arrest warrants for its leaders being issued.

Wait a bit and the US government will try to say *nix is a communist woke OS and try to kill it...

NixOS... for now.

Couldn't have come at a worst time for the US and best for the rest of us. With Omachy (or however you write it), building decent OSes is about to be much easier.

Omachy := Arch + vibed dotfiles. It might as well be a single AUR package. Ie arch for newbies with AI

> [...] its chief prosecutor lost access to Microsoft services, including email

> [...] the program was aimed at refreshing the technologies used by the Dutch government in such a way that it would no longer be in a situation where it could lose access to critical systems at the whim of a foreign country

How does switching desktop OS help you retain access to email and payment services, neither of which care about your OS?

Because the ICC and Dutch authorities could no longer access their bank accounts or emails because of sanctions Microsoft chose to enforce .

OK, and how does changing your desktop OS help with that? Does NixOS grant you access to a locked bank account where Windows 11 doesn't?

It will help. because it will kickstart their native software industry and may even encourage others throughout Europe to get back to work seriously in that area and look to compete, because actually there was no real reason for them to give up in the first place. All you need to do is look at the Brits with what they lost in Acorn and Arm technology.

well, it's no longer possible to set up Windows with a local account without typing arcane commands in the command prompt during setup, so...

It doesn't in and of itself, but there's no clear reason why the US government could not instruct Microsoft that sanctions include a prohibition on granting OS licenses which are likely to be used by sanctioned persons. They're trying to get ahead of things rather than do the bare minimum.

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