1. The French government announces its digital agency is to write a plan, by the end of the year, so that France could reduce its extra-European dependencies. The communiqué is wrapped up with minor facts (e.g. the digital agency is to switch to Linux on dozens of computers) and big promises from Ministers.
2. Various news sites state that "France is ditching Windows", at least in their titles.
3. On new aggregators, most people react to the titles. Some do read the articles. Very few realize it's about promises to act toward a vague goal, with an unknown calendar, and many political uncertainties.
I would have hoped for more cautious reactions. It's not a leading act, not a reason to be proud, not a example to follow. It's just words.
The French government already made similar promises in the past. Sometimes, it did happen, like the Gendarmerie (rural police) switching to a Linux distribution. Sometimes, it didn't, like the pact signed by the Army Ministry with Microsoft in 2022: many clauses are still secret, even the prices.
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/german-open-source-expe...:
> The German Foreign Office first moved over to Linux as a server platform in 2001... the Foreign Office of Germany made the announcement (translated news report) that it is migrating away from Linux back to Windows as its desktop solution.
https://interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-so...:
> By December 2013, the city concluded the migration, with over 14,800 desktops running on LiMux... In November 2017, nearly four years after the conclusion of the migration, the Munich city council adopted a decision overhauling the move. All equipment was to be refitted with Windows 10 counterparts by 2020
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wienux:
> WIENUX[2] is a Debian-based Linux distribution developed by the City of Vienna in Austria... until 2008 when the download page was taken offline.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST...:
> Birmingham City Council piloted OSS on hundreds of desktops in its public libraries in 2005-6. It originally planned to install Linux ... but this was over-ambitious for the time frame of the project and compatibility problems meant that the open source OpenOffice (office suite) and Firefox (web browser) were eventually run on Windows XP
It's good to be sceptical, but the US really does present a clear danger to the EU and UK now (and the rest of the world). I'm hopeful that this will actually materialise this time, and that Munich and Birmingham and the others will have paved the way and built some expertise.
Broadly, I've observed that there's way way way too little discussion of the extent to which money and power, somewhat behind the scenes, can be thrown at what feels like "tech decisions."
A while back, here in Florida, a state representative had a relative who was kind of into open source and had it explained to him. Representative was like "oh interesting idea, Florida should look into doing more of this"
And the suits from Microsoft came down swiftly to "correct" matters.
They'd need a strong software and tech industry and ecosystem but in general business and economic policy, especially in France, is as hostile as possible and harder to change politically.
I’m not in Europe but in another allied country, the feeling amongst people here is that the US is not able to be trusted as a partner anymore.
And with ways the Government can apply pressure to US companies (CLOUD Act etc.) that extends to IS companies too.
In relation to Europe vs. the US. Even before the current administration Europe has been at odds with American companies: "The European Union Renews Its Offensive Against US Technology Firms" (2022) - https://www.piie.com/sites/default/files/documents/pb22-2.pd...
The framing that this started now with the current administration is not correct. The current administration certainly heated things up so to speak and brought things to the surface but the tension has been there for a long while. Europe is not capable of competing with US tech in general for various structural reasons. Europeans tend to argue this is because of US power but we see countries like China and India succeeding where Europe fails.
The more interesting question is whether there is a large enough lasting change in the US that takes away its structural advantages. I don't think this is the case. If you look at AI the hub of world economic activity and innovation is still in the US including startups and incumbents. s/AI/anything/ . China is certainly trying, and arguably succeeding, in taking some of that but it's still not at the same level. Europe is not even a player.
The US relies on being attractive for smart people. There are still smart people going to the US, but the general mood seems to be that it‘s increasingly less attractive. Mid term, little will change, long term the cultural hegemony of the US will be replaced by multipolar influences.
The US has its geography, weather, etc. which are not going away.
China has massive scale industrial espionage and learnt a lot by being the cheap place where things are made and stealing western companies processes. They also invested a lot in education and naturally they have a lot of smart people. I still think that as long as they have an oppressive regime the really smart people will prefer not to be there since the second you become successful you also become a threat to the regime. Their work culture is also pretty toxic.
https://monitor.icef.com/2025/11/there-were-more-internation...
It's hard to predict long term but the US has a culture of innovation going back maybe hundreds of years, it has relative freedom, it has capital to invest, land and resources, and overall it has good people (and crazy people which was always true). Most of the conditions that made the US what it is are still there and most of the conditions that made places like Europe unable to compete are also still there. The US is a lot more diverse than it used to be as well.
The experiment with giving the crazy people unchecked power over every lever of government is new, however.
This is perhaps a shrewd move against China: they can't steal technology and scientific advances from the US if there aren't any to steal.
Historical US presidents:
Andrew Jackson -> threatened to hang his VP. https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/41212/did-andrew...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson had meetings while sitting on the toilet: https://historyfacts.com/famous-figures/fact/lyndon-b-johnso...
Richard Nixon - needs no introductions?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Presidents/comments/13yplux/crazies...
Also remember we had: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism and the requirement by Truman that all civil service employees be screened for "loyalty".
It's not hard at all if you can interpret charts and can observe trends. You do yourself no favors by intentionally misunderestimating an adversary, to borrow a Bushism.
To respond to the rest of your post: while the Trump administration's behavior has diminished US standing in the world, the US is doing well compared to Europe in many important dimensions (e.g. economic growth). Also, far-right parties in Europe seem much more dangerous than the right in the US.
But all of that is a side show. European skepticism of the US has its roots in the postwar era. It's fundamentally about resentment. Europe is geopolitically weak and depends on the US for defense which is galling, especially for France with its history as a global power.
This is crazy. The Europeans fell hook line and sinker for the line that the US could be trusted to manage security for Europe and would always be a dependable ally. That suited everyone — Europe because we could focus spending on post war reconstruction, and the US because you made a shit tonne of money by being the world's arms dealer and policeman.
There was no resentment of the US. Europe was in love with US culture (weird French cinema rules aside). And especially Eastern Europe... who have now had the hardest of all disillusionments.
This administration has destroyed the goodwill and trust built up over 80 years, and the economic foundation which made you rich and powerful. Let's check back in 30 years and see if that was a good idea. I'm hopeful that French nukes and Ukrainian ingenuity (and MAGA incompetence) will see us through the next 10-15 years of transition as re right the past mistake of trusting the US.
Charles de Gaulle didn't fall for it! I used to think he was an arrogant crank, but Trump has proven he was right all along to be critical of the US.
Meanwhile, the resentment seems to radiate from the White House as they increasingly realize how their moves are making them irrelevant on the global stage.
We're not upset. We just don't think you matter anymore.
Wishful thinking.
This is also a self-inflicted wound. There's no reason that Europe should be in the situation that it is in other than it is run by elites that are, like everyone else, invested in the success of US companies, and have no particular loyalty to Europe. When they retire, they move to the US and get board seats, advisory positions, lobbyist jobs, and cushy university spots.
Europeans need to start engaging in rational thinking and to stop letting their politics revolve around zombie US institutions (like NATO) and electing functionaries from tiny little countries who have made an industry of covertly advocating for US interests in Europe. They also need to seriously rethink their relationships with Russia and China, and realize that when it comes to Russia, they were the bad guys so destroying their economies and futures over manufactured grudges and fantasies of invasion is an indulgence that their children can't afford.
Independence from the US means getting rid of their elites that work for the US, and getting rid of victimhood narratives about Russia (who at least occupied part of Europe) and China (who have never done a thing to them.) They should make BRICS EBRICS. If Europe doesn't wise up, they're just going to start killing each other. Thank God that France has nukes and can't be invaded again.
Linus works on Linux from ... Portland, Oregon. And oh, look at where Linux contributions are coming from:
https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributo...
EU's GDP is so catching up with the US:
https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-has-the-economic-...
NOT
What I'm saying is that the U.S. is currently in decline, and many will agree with me. Where this leads your (I'm assuming) country, nobody knows. But to me, it doesn't look great.
The US has big companies and wealth because it has the right ecosystem to create those.
The US is in decline is a meme. Decline can't be measured over short intervals. Maybe it is maybe it isn't. We'll see in 5 decades.
One thing I'm pretty sure about is that this decline of the US that many seem to be excited for and wishing here, if or when it happens, is not going to end well for most of those people. Another way of saying this is that most of the people commenting here have benefited and still benefit from the dominance of the US and the technology and innovation coming out of it, including Y Combinator. What is the long term strategic thinking behind "let's attack the US and make it fail" -> the answer is none. It should be in the interest of most of us to see more US success. We whine as everything around us is an outcome of that success.
Warren Buffet's "Never bet against America" still very much holds in my opinion.
Thanks to the diligent efforts of Hollywood.
> The US has big companies and wealth because it has the right ecosystem to create those.
It also has giant homeless camps stretching on for miles, abandoned and collapsing old houses, factories, etc as far as the eye can see.
The so-called "wealth" of this country is highly concentrated and is so far beyond the reach of most people we might as well be living in a different country.
As we speak we are headed to a giant market collapse as the last dollars are shaken out of everyone's pocket, and we continue into a hard Depression. This will be followed by a World War. The outcome of that one will be much different than the last one.
> The US is in decline is a meme.
Wrong. The United States is in fact in decline, and has been for decades. It is the end of the American Empire.
Source: I am an actual American, who has eyes and ears and most importantly, has a deep understanding of history, both ancient and "modern." This ship is sinking. The only people who haven't figured it out are people brainwashed by the media. It's easier for that to happen when you don't have a front row seat to the circus.
> It should be in the interest of most of us to see more US success.
Nope. It isn't. If it were, then it would not be failing. Think about it.
It's said there are three types of people in the world:
1) Those who make things happen.
2) Those who watch things happen.
3) Those who look around in confusion asking, "What happened?"
That last one is you.
How do you measure decline and what in your opinion is rising vs. this decline.
There have certainly been some trends like globalization, climate change, social media, the pandemic, immigration etc.
Can you elaborate on how it's in the interest of a hypothetical French person commenting on Hacker News, typing on their MBP laptop, tuning in to NetFlix, asking ChatGPT for recipes, to see the US fail and what you mean by fail. Fail as in break up? chaos? become a third world country? Total collapse of US tech? What does fail look like.
This is not a zero sum game.
EDIT: you edited while I was replying which makes this a moving target.
EDIT2: The US has already survived depressions and world wars.
It's true that wealth inequality is historically high but not the highest: https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/SaezZucman14slides.pdf
But as I said this is not a zero sum game: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N real median household income is at all times high.
I'm not saying everything is great but I'm certainly not brainwashed by the media. Will there be economic trouble ahead- sure. There always are. Are there other places in the world with structural advantages over the USA? I'm not seeing them. Can the US lose its advantages - everything is possible.
Irrelevant.
> What are your political views?
Irrelevant.
> How do you measure decline
Countless ways. I use my eyes and ears to start.
> and what in your opinion is rising vs. this decline.
Poverty, destitution, illiteracy, and ignorance are all rising trends in the USA.
> Can you elaborate on how it's in the interest of a hypothetical French person [...]
Completely irrelevant. You don't get to wish for the world that you want. The FACT is, it is the end of the American Empire. And the end of France too in a lot of ways, based on what I can see from here. Especially if there's a lot of folks like you in the population.
How big is your farmstead and how much food can you produce? What skilled trades do you have that are of use in a World War type situation, besides holding a machine gun? Those are facts that will be of importance to you in the coming years.
> EDIT: you edited while I was replying which makes this a moving target.
It's OK if you sit back and wait for my thought to be completed before rushing to reply with your ignorant opinion.
Familiarize yourself with the essay "The Fate of Empires and the Search for Survival" by Sir John Glubb. Then I would recommend America's Secret Establishment by Antony Cyril Sutton.
There are many, many more books you will need to read before you understand anything about the present day, let alone what tomorrow holds.
Eyes and ears are not good enough. You might be seeing some local effects that are biasing your opinion.
I'm interested in your political views because they seem extremely left. Your political views are relevant because they shape your perception of reality and they also tell us what narratives you've exposed to.
I have pretty decent skills in various areas from mechanical, electronics, to woodworking, to music, to martial arts. not to mention software that's my day job. I can grow food. But from your predictions sounds like I need a nuclear bunker on a remote island.
EDIT: "The Fate of Empires and the Search for Survival" -> yeah I've read this a long time ago. This is a common argument about how the US done.
Well you're wrong. Again.
When your theories are consistently wrong, it's time to pause and reflect.
> I'm not young and I've seen processes as they happen.
You're wrong, but you've got your opinions though. Which you are sure are better than mine. The guy whose ancestors literally founded this country.
Please, Mr. Frenchman, tell me more about my own country.
> Eyes and ears are not good enough.
Wrong. They are the foundation of knowledge.
> You might be seeing some local effects that are biasing your opinion.
Wrong.
> I'm interested in your political views because they seem extremely left.
Wrong.
> Your political views are relevant because they shape your perception of reality and they also tell us what narratives you've exposed to.
Wrong. Not a word I can utter regarding my "political views" would help you in any way.
You're nowhere near the level of understanding necessary to have an intelligent conversation with on this subject. Worse, you arrogantly believe that your knowledge is better than mine.
Read the essay I took the time to recommend. Read the book I recommended. When you are ready to learn more, then we may have a conversation. Until then, you have nothing to add to this thread that is of any value to anyone.
Even TFA, which is about yet another rule, has a goofy quote from the Minister of something or other about breaking free from American tools. Linux seems pretty American to me [1]. Maybe they’ll fork. Would be cool.
[1]: https://insights.linuxfoundation.org/project/korg/contributo...
It's a deep disconnect in values, brought to the forefront by the current administration and the oligarchs running wild.
America used to be seen as an example, the big brother watching out for us.
Now it's a cautionary tale of greed, hubris and societal decay, as well as an increasingly antagonistic actor of global instability.
Y'all ruined your reputation and the fact you're trying to pin that on us is just another example of said hubris. Until you at least own up to it, there's no viable path to recovery.
It feels like the last tantrum of a dying empire from our vantage point.
Sad, but ultimately irrelevant.
Feels like the disconnect I described is real, doesn't it?
Might not be performative after all then...
So, it's performative. While they complain about American hegemony, Europeans buy iPhones (or Android), drink Coke, scroll Instagram, and listen to Taylor Swift. And while they might object to NATO spending, decades of inadequate military spending have left Europe with no real alternative to buying protection from America.
The current US administration is definitely not helping, but every ad I see on the Reddit main feed is a blatant attack on the relation, from brand new subreddits, pointing at magazines I’ve never heard about before. I’ve been reporting them, but it keeps coming, from constantly different sources, different names, subreddits, but always the same vague but incredible incredibly provocative titles
I suspect that some social-media-addled senior US officials are being fed the same crap because their reactions to non-existent European reaction are not grounded in reality.
Did you listen/read Vance's recent speeches in Hungary? Or read the US policy document put out months back? It goes way beyond merely "not helping" - the US administration is in turns provoking, alienating and separating itself from center/center-left European governments in pursuit of exporting extremist partisan politics in the hopes of getting far-right governments elected across Europe.
European citizens and politicians everywhere can see the actions for what they are. What was that about Greenland and annexing Canada? There's no big-money conspiracy, just a bully administration with no sense of second-and third-order effects.
I’m doubtful he paid for ads to make his disdain better known. So I suspect someone else is trying to make that happen beyond what Vance can with his speeches.
I just hope we end up having more wins at the EU-level, instead of massive fails like GAIA-X...
Demonyms for historical neighbours of England have irregular forms when speaking of a particular person from there. Scotland has 'Scot' and 'Scotsman'; Wales has 'Welshman'; Spain has 'Spaniard'. Other countries indeed need a second word, such as 'person' or 'citizen' ('a Chinese' sounds offensive to me; I would say 'a Chinese person' in all cases). The only country I can think of where using a bare demonym is grammatical when speaking of a single person from there is Germany with 'a German' - probably because it has the suffix -man.
Edit: A sibling comment pointed out that 'an American' is grammatical, and thinking about it, I think the suffix -an is what makes bare demonyms grammatical - you can say 'an Angolan', 'a Laotian', 'a Peruvian', 'a Moroccan', etc, but wouldn't say 'a Thai', 'a Swedish', 'a Sudanese', etc.
You mean a native speaker might be ungrammatical when using their non-native language? That makes sense to me.
> Spain has 'Spaniard'.
Even so, you'll hear a ton of native Spanish people saying "As a Spanish person" or "As person from Spain" instead of simply "As a Spaniard", I'm not sure this is very surprising. If anything, that mistake makes it more likely they're a native than not, in the case of Spain, as the level of English outside of metropolitan areas is lacking at best, compared to other European countries.
You also don't say 'a Japanese' but that is an extremely common error with Japanese English speakers when they are first learning.
I am looking for a citation, but I seem to recall the casual rule of thumb is something to do with the ending of the nationality (so '-ish', '-ese','-ch' etc. you can't put 'a' in front). I think the more formal explanation likely centers around rules relating to indefinite articles.
"French" is adjective or a collective noun, but don't use it as a countable noun.
Trying to say "as a French" makes about as much sense as thinking "as a American" is correct.
As has already been said ... "a French (wo)man","a French person","a French citizen" is the correct way to go.
The reason you can say "an American" is because America starts with a vowel.
Same reason why you would not say "a British" but you could say "a Brit".
(There’s no particularly consistency with this, it’s just what sounds “good” to American ears. We’re perfectly fine with “as a German” or “as a Lithuanian.”)
No they are not.
The Oxford English Dictionary, for example makes it quite clear re. 'French':
"With plural agreement, and frequently with 'the' French people regarded collectively ..."
It is explicitly telling you that "French" is a collective plural noun and hence cannot be used as a singular countable noun.
sounds casual but correct to me
I don't care if it "sounds ok to me".
If you're going to make statements like that to go against what I've written then at least come up with some viable citations to grammar literature.
Honestly, in all my years on this earth I have never, ever heard anybody in any English speaking country I've spent time in say "a French" "a American" "a British".
And that amounts to a lot of time surrounded by people speaking VERY "casual" English.
P.S. I said "an American" was ok if you re-read.. an NOT a
For example:
* German is countable: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis... * French is uncountable: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis... * American is countable: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis... * Spanish is uncountable: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/englis...
But your explanation about why it is correct is bullshit, has nothing to do with "an" vs "a", the English language is just inconsistent as fuck and some demonyms can be used like this and some can't.
In English, you have to disambiguate be adding a noun: French person, French citizen, or Frenchman if you're old and inconsiderate.
Similarly, we don't call people "a Chinese". That construction is considered derogatory, if not outright racist. Demonyms typically cannot be used as nouns alone without a suffix. "A Brazilian" or "a Spaniard" are acceptable.
As usual for English, the rules are vague and inconsistent.
Well, context is important on the Brazilian front. ;)
"I had a brazilian at my house" could have other connotations.
Or talking about a man that is French. Neither of which would be considered 'old', or 'inconsiderate".
Ironically most French people I know would be perfectly receptive and happy to receive corrections in grammar, English or otherwise.
The French tend to be particularly pedantic about the teaching of their own grammar. Most native French speakers are quite used to being swiftly and firmly corrected on grammar from an early age.
And no, no French person likes to receive corrections in grammar. Giving lectures on proper english grammar/pronounciation is generally a mark of (classist) pedantry since speaking proper english is generally the preserve of those lucky few that have had the opportunity of spending time in the Anglosphere, a tiny minority of the french population in fact, who are always eager to put their one upmanship on display, in a very crude, almost vulgar fashion.
I have been travelling through Japan for the past week, the grammatical and orthographical error would likely give you a nosebleed. Meanwhile, I just smile and move on, I got the meaning, it is what matters. Same for the OP.
(And it did motivate me to go abroad.)
French people have 'rosbif' to refer to the English and Australians have 'pom' or 'pommie'. You wouldn't call the prime minister that at a diplomatic event, but it's not offensive to call your friends that.
Almost sounds planned to fail...
HN is not Reddit, and that's a Reddit pattern. It's an anti-intellectual pattern because it's a popularity/anger contest and there's nothing of substance.
I'd love to hear the pros and cons and even likelihood of Linux in government, but I'm having trouble finding the smart commentary from the grey noise.
Help!
It's unrealistic for any nation to do everything themselves, but they can make some changes in response to the US starting trade wars, ditching foreign policy/climate objectives, etc...
Sovereignty is not about building everything yourself. Division of labor advances civilization, but it doesn’t have to come at the cost of sovereignty. Sovereignty is about designing the work contract such that you don’t become entirely beholden to another party. You build hardware for me, but after that it’s mine, not yours. I trust you to build the hardware to fulfill that contract, and if you ever break that trust I’ll find someone else to build that hardware. That’s sovereignty. I don’t have to build everything myself.
AI finding vulnerabilities and cleaning them up is going to be a budget problem for closed-source software, who have gotten used to ignoring vulnerabilities until somebody screams at them.
Closed source software isn't kept in a magical safe in a cavern deep beneath the earth, guarded by dragons. Half the people in your company touch it every day, and probably plenty of contractors.
EDIT: on a second read, this sounded too diminishing of this achievement than I intended. the point is that it's not fully done yet, although it is remarkable that there is, finally, a political will for such actions
[1]: https://www.schleswig-holstein.de/DE/landesregierung/themen/... (German only)
Europe has always managed to make the wrong choice historically, and that's how it still continues
The UK at times also blocked use of its air bases.
France probably cut a separate deal with Iran, evident from the release of the French hostages, the call Macron had with the Iranian FM and the fact Iran lets their ship cross
AI and cloud are another thing altogether. Mistral is alright, open-source AI models are alright, but overall I think they can't compete yet. And I don't think there are fully capable cloud alternatives to AWS, Azure and Google Cloud yet. EU pushing Nextcloud-based alternatives really doesn't fuel confidence honestly. I mean Nextcloud is fine, but that's not the big alternative push we need here.
Governments properly mandating that data be held in the EU, or even in orgs with proper EU entities and checks and balances against US interference in time of conflict would change the game. This is what the EU should be working on... a data residency regime that allows us to use AWS but creates a firewall that allows us to take operational control of the servers if the US continues on it's current path.
More countries and/or EU involvement could bring economies of scale: apart from translation, a lot of work on fixing bugs and adding features to the relevant open source projects can be done once and benefit all. So either get the same results faster, more cheaply per country, or both. Sure, that adds some bureaucracy and coordination cost too, but should be worth it overall.
It might be worth examining the word “countries” there.
Both France and the Netherlands rejected the proposed EU Constitution by referendum in 2005. It was then regurgitated as the Lisbon Treaty (with only superficial changes) in 2007, which was ratified with no public vote.
The Irish people initially rejected both the EU-empowering treaties of Nice and Lisbon, and a followup vote was considered necessary. You get two bites of the democratic cherry if you have enough power.
A majority of the British people voted to leave in 2016, and in the three years that followed everything possible was done to reverse the decision.
You might be spotting here a difference in desires and power between the governors and the governed.
News to me (as a Brit). Maybe my memory is hazy. Got any detail?
As a bit of an old-timer, I literally don't know exactly where to start a new conversation on this in a place like this; for me the obviousness of the theoretical and practical superiority of free and open source software principles are just always there for me; and it's quite obvious here that it's different for younger people.
So I'm dropping the names and the concepts. Perhaps someone else knows how to get this going?
[dupe]
Even if they could bring some bug reports... We have lots of those already! We have decades of ignored bug reports.
yup, at this point, nothing but cobwebs and IOU's left in the coffers over there and every little bit of saving helps.
There's literally no non-American general-purpose operating system.
Now on some level, the question makes less sense, because Linux as we know it now is an international proejct that thousands of developers from dozens of countries collaborated on. But perhaps most would agree that Torvalds, who serves as main integrator, has more say than others regarding the directions of Linux, as long as he is alive.
The open source property of Linux is more important to the question which OS a country's government should adopt: corporate systems are hard to scrutinize, whereas open source systems you can inspect and compile yourself, and it is a wise move of the French government to go in that direction. It will also save a lot of money, but that should not be the primary motive.
So Open source it may be , however there are still pressure points that can be used. I believe this is one of the main reasons RISCV foundation moved to Europe.
Even if upstream linux banned european contributors, there are enough european contributors that a fork would just emerge. So I’m really not too worried about that happening.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2026/01/16/nx-s1-5677685/as-focus-shifts...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Jews_from_Spain
[1] https://www.ein.org.uk/news/home-office-remove-euss-pre-sett...
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/0e29224f-9d06-4315-a89f-e334ffbc6...
Also, what nationality do you say Elon Musk is, out of curiosity? Let's test your consistency :)
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but we (I live in Spain) have come a long way since 1492 (534 years ago) and if that's the most recent example you can find of "Europe's treatment of perceived outsiders" I think you yourself know that stuff like that doesn't happen today, in Europe.
> Europe's treatment of perceived outsiders
Who'd've thunk it, people be tribal?
Yeah, I won't claim that everyone is treated equally or even fairly in Europe, and some places are absolutely worse than others, in many different ways.
I'd still claim we no longer do "expulsions" of entire ethnoreligious groups anymore in the 21st century though, which was the initial example of why Europe today is terrible.
> Europe's treatment of perceived outsiders
You seemed to be picking a rather narrow slice of the scope.
I'd suggest that in Europe also there's more than just bad thoughts for outsiders but bad words, bad treatment, and exclusion from thriving. Extreme cases include bodily harm and I'm fairly certain death but these extreme occur at a lower scale.
Lieutenant Torvalds on the other hand fulfilled his service duties.
Should the US and South Africa go to war it seems clear where musks loyalties would lie. Should the US and Finland go to war I suspect that Torvalds wouldn’t be as clear cut.
The FT piece is paywalled. But two prominent members of Reform are currently in jail - one for domestic abuse, and one for treason (!) - so the party is not famous for a steely dedication to the moral high ground.
Oh, the terror.
> Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland
> In 2004, Torvalds moved with his family from Silicon Valley to Portland, Oregon.
...what?
There's a big lesson for Europe there, everyone super productive and able to move to the US does so at the first opportunity.
I think the AI act is a great example here. The EU came up with regulation for an emerging technology that basically killed the chance for Europe to compete. Lots of people disagreed with this criticism when the act was debated, but it turns out the critics were right. Europe will be buying AI services from elsewhere because Europe wasn't able to compete.
This entire way of thinking in Europe would need to reverse for there to be a chance that the brain drain changes course.
On the IT and AI services: Europe hasn't really failed to compete in innovation, as much as scale of operation. That might change if we have a security imperative to protect our own markets for these things against an increasingly hostile US.
That might have changed somewhat, recently.
That is not the situation at the moment.
Astroturfing around this is getting suspicious.
It's perfectly possible for people to be passionate about the subject.
This move isn't just "Local French commune thinks about Linux", it's "French government agency that can mandate what others do, set hard guideline for agencies and magistrates to come up with a concrete plan for how to move to Linux", which is worlds beyond what we've seen before.
Nah, linux and "$curreant_year is the year of the linux desktop" is just something the hacker / maker / nerd scene is passionate about.
Over time, more and more work is going to be done by AI though. At some point, it will be unthinkably slow and expensive to let humans work on anything.
To do *that* locally, you need GPUs and LLMs.
How will Europe solve these two?
Meanwhile the french Mistral is partnering with Nvidia to build an AI data center near Paris on which their LLMs will run.
But I agree this is not enough to make the EU a contender in the race with the US and China. The EU still has not seriously considered decoupling from American big tech.
Also, CPU-only doesn't necessarily mean "on your own computer". You can easily have 100 TB RAM in a couple of racks.
AI has no value.
I'm not interested in games.
I learn things by doing them, not by playing guessing games.
A human can however do the same job. Turning designs into code isn't a fundamentally new capability unlocked by GenAI, it's just a shuffling of costs from employing humans -> renting GPUs
AI has, however, made my life noticably worse. Especially when dealing with braindead robot driven customer "support". But also in making it financially impossible to buy more RAM or upgrade a GPU.
I think we'd be better off without yet another bubble.