alt Hacker NewsThe chain of facts makes me sad:
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.
Replies
This is EU, what else do you expect? European officials saying they're ditching Windows has become a ritual:
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
What about https://github.com/cloud-gouv/securix, though?
You could be more pointed than that. French secret service "leveraging" Palantir is a disgrace , we all know who is leveraging who and its a plain shame.
It shouldn't make you sad, it should make you curious.
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.
It is always easy to make big announcements but harder to follow through.
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.
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Performative anti-Americanism has become one of the major features of European culture (and especially French culture).
France'a Gendarmerie (one of two branch of law-enforcement) has switched to linux for more than a decade. There is little reason to think they are bluffing. Furthermore, the groundwork has been laid for months, with forks being worked on.
I understand your take generally, but here I don't understand the skepticism.