Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options, says Dutch parliament Not content to wait for open letters to influence the European Commission, Dutch parliamentarians have taken matters into their own hands by passing eight motions urging the government to ditch US-made tech for homegrown alternatives. With each IT service our government moves to American tech giants, we become dumber and …
Your position on [seemingly, everything] that causes you to constantly 'call out' every even-semi-political statement made on this board.
I'm simply at a loss as to how you manage, to seem anyway, so contradictory...to just about anything. A bit of elaboration on your worldview may help here.
@Snake
"Your position on [seemingly, everything] that causes you to constantly 'call out' every even-semi-political statement made on this board.
I'm simply at a loss as to how you manage, to seem anyway, so contradictory...to just about anything. A bit of elaboration on your worldview may help here."
You mean when I correct the lies? That is a fair amount of the politics posting with the occasional rational discussion over not being a fan of people killing each other in a pointless war, dislike tariffs, happy to see government slimming down and being brought under control (with envy that its not our government going through it). Also happy about brexit and trade and progress etc. Probably just a less authoritarian and more libertarian position than some of the people on here I guess.
As for the actual discussion on here, I acknowledge and miss the diversity of views on here. You might note that was my comment and it was a coward that brought politics to this discussion.
I do wonder what contradictory things you are talking about? Can you elaborate?
@Evil Auditor
"Can you point out the lack of diversity of views at El Reg? I cannot."
Previously (years ago) there were a couple of writers, one who was economically inclined and another focused well on the military and not in the thrall of the green madness. Before the reg started appealing more towards the guardian crowd. If you have been around since 2009 you probably saw some of their work.
Now its pretty much 'orange man bad' or 'we are all doomed' is the only accepted (or at least expressed) view. One reg guy tried to claim being anti-dumb while forgetting their blind spot over Bidens incapacity.
Well, that's diversity of interests / coverage, not diversity of views.
I'd be happy with some quirky stories (accepting that half the comments would then be 'But where is the IT angle?!'), but with regards to bias/lack of diversity, the Register has always been iconoclastic - biting the hand the feeds IT is right there in the tagline - and when the people in charge are the current shower then they are going to be the focus of criticism. The doesn't mean there is a lack of diversity of thought, but sadly probably just reflects that pretty much everything they are currently doing deserves criticism.
@Mungo Spanner
"Well, that's diversity of interests / coverage, not diversity of views."
Someone economically inclined to challenge Trump on real things with real reasons and not just instantly anti-Trump nuttiness, as well as acknowledging his successes would be a very different view to what it written on here. Not falling hook line and sinker for the green madness and challenging the lies and problems would be very different than what is here now too.
"the Register has always been iconoclastic - biting the hand the feeds IT is right there in the tagline - and when the people in charge are the current shower then they are going to be the focus of criticism."
Actually as I pointed out this isnt what happened. When its Trump the reg is happy to bite and not afraid to express their dislike of 'bad orange man'. Compare that with Biden and his gov and there was little biting and no expression of dislike that I noticed. Instead they missed huge issues such as Bidens mental state and inability. The difference is very noticeable.
The bias is very one way. Orange man bad, we all gonna fry. There used to be a diversity of opinion which often added a lot more depth and reality.
"When its Trump the reg is happy to bite and not afraid to express their dislike of 'bad orange man'. Compare that with Biden and his gov and there was little biting and no expression of dislike that I noticed"
it might have something to do with the difference in the way those two are "ruin the country" (usa that is). and the difference in the way they cope with critical media.
but then again, from my dutch perspective, even the democrats would be considered extreme right wing. and that is with our own populist right wing party in the coalition.
@macsimski
"it might have something to do with the difference in the way those two are "ruin the country" (usa that is)."
Could be. The reg seems a lot less critical of how bad Biden was but Trump can do something good or bad and it still gets wrapped up with trying to bash him more.
"and the difference in the way they cope with critical media."
One avoided the media and we now know certainly why. The other is a media w***e who invites the media and is far more open. One got very little criticism and the other bashed constantly. As I said its just the lack of diversity in opinions or criticism in the articles. Same with the climate change debate which the reg now doesnt have any debate. Yet point out the lack of diverse opinion and the usual downvoting from the insular.
"The reg seems a lot less critical of how bad Biden was but Trump can do something good or bad and it still gets wrapped up with trying to bash him more."
But, so far, Trump...hasn't done much good. Supporters may think that, but the rest of the world has spoken and they consider Trump's actions ill-advised at best, or at worst decidedly "Anti-American" as he alienates allies to the point of moving to abandon American soft power & economic concerns. I am quite sure you will try to deny that but as the EU plainly considers ditching the F-34 program, never-you mind stating outright that America can no longer be 'trusted' in terms of reliable geopolitical decisions, Trump's [current] trajectory of decisions is destroying "America First", not improving it. It's never to late to change...but that's not in Trump's nature. People like him "double down" when they *fail* (hey, what's 3 corporate bankruptcies to count for?) so I wouldn't necessarily hold my breath.
Trump is, so far, creating worldwide economic instability, alienating allies and making them pull American soft-power support, and firing government workers (which may indeed be necessary) but without adequate study or concerns for the outcome (if you really think that DOGE can come in after only **2** months, look precisely and accurately at an operation, judge both inefficiencies and those precisely responsible for creating it, and then trim only those people necessary with accuracy and precision...you're quite gullible).
Also, a willing note: I pretty much never, ever downvote. I've been on this forum for over 1 decade and I am quite sure, if it were possible to go through my records, that I have less than 50 total downvotes registered. So I have only downvoted you, maybe, three or four times, when you've gone quite off the deep end.
@Snake
"But, so far, Trump...hasn't done much good."
For the short time he has been in charge he is making more progress on the Ukraine war than the years under Obama and Biden.
Cutting down wasteful spending which includes funding for the covid labs and aiding criminal activity.
The border has practically been solved temporarily purely by the change of administration.
Foreign criminals are being deported instead of welcomed.
Secured the release of hostages in Venezuela.
Redesignated the Houthis as terrorists and is striking them for attacking ships.
Reinstated and given back pay to soldiers dismissed under Biden for refusing the Covid vaccine mandate.
Had an ISIS terrorist who orchestrated the Abbey Gate attack in Afghan arrested.
Again dropped out of the green madness holding back US energy.
Ended the Biden ban (might be the one Biden didnt know he signed) on LNG exports.
Moved to protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation.
Ended government support for men in womens sports.
Ending DEI.
Working on removing the weaponisation of the state that we have seen for the last decade at least.
Cracking down on the anti-semitism in colleges.
Increased military recruitment (highest in 15 years apparently!).
Ended Bidens electric vehicle mandates
Increased access to IVF (did not know this).
Actually meets with the press (unlike his predecessor).
Not a bad list that was easy to look up.
"I am quite sure you will try to deny that but as the EU plainly considers ditching the F-34 program, never-you mind stating outright that America can no longer be 'trusted' in terms of reliable geopolitical decisions"
No denial. Trump made it clear that he has no issue with the US supporting European defence but he expects Europe to make an effort to defend itself too. In his first term Europe seemed to take it as a joke, now they are in panic as they have nothing to fight with and the US isnt backing their favourite little war in Ukraine. Europe just realised that if the US doesnt supply the war then Europe cant do a thing about it. Aka Trumps point and reason to insist Europe invest in its military forces.
"Trump is, so far, creating worldwide economic instability"
And you will possibly notice I dont agree with him slapping tariffs on things and I was critical of the UK talk of joining in the subsidising chip fabs like the US and EU. I am not a protectionist and you might notice I point out the hypocrisy of recognising the damage of Trumps tariffs but yet people will argue the EU doing the same is good.
"and firing government workers (which may indeed be necessary) but without adequate study or concerns for the outcome"
I agree with you. I just also think this is about the only way to do it and succeed with government/bureaucracy. Every time Trump tries to do anything the bureaucracy does everything to frustrate or stop him from succeeding. To slowly and painstakingly wade through the sludge to find the bits of good and somehow extract that from all the bad is not easy and probably takes longer than the 4 years he has. Yet the sludge machine keeps growing faster than anyone could look at it. Previous Presidents have talked about trying to cut it down and yet it is still bigger and growing.
"Also, a willing note: I pretty much never, ever downvote. I've been on this forum for over 1 decade and I am quite sure, if it were possible to go through my records, that I have less than 50 total downvotes registered. So I have only downvoted you, maybe, three or four times, when you've gone quite off the deep end."
I also often dont downvote but occasionally will. I dont really care about them much as this isnt XFactor. Upvotes and downvotes dont really tell anyone anything and I know I have followers who seek me out to downvote regardless of the comment.
I prefer discussion because there is no way for one person to know about everything and I like to see the bits I have missed.
>” The reg seems a lot less critical of how bad Biden was but Trump can do”
Biden is yesterday, Trump is now.
You it in the UK media, they go for the crowd that are currently in power.
As for Biden being bad, given the log jam in Congress and the Senate, I find it hard to be so sure, although Biden didn’t deliberately wield a wrecking ball…
@Roland6
"Biden is yesterday, Trump is now."
And the disparity of reporting is very noticeable. The going for Trump vs did they go for Biden?
"As for Biden being bad, given the log jam in Congress and the Senate, I find it hard to be so sure, although Biden didn’t deliberately wield a wrecking ball…"
Did Biden deliberately do much? His Presidential pardons being called into question over did the President even pardon all those people? I get being critical of those in power but sleeping on the job for one and constant sniping at the other is the usual stupidity everywhere else. I seem to remember some reg articles using euphemisms for Trump but I dont recall such behaviour for pudding brain.
'Someone economically inclined to challenge Trump on real things with real reasons and not just instantly anti-Trump nuttiness, as well as acknowledging his successes would be a very different view to what it written on here.'
It doesn't take someone economically inclined to challenge the thinking behind threatening your past allies sovereignty and introducing trading tariffs, if it was the magic bullet he thinks it is, it would have been evident the first, second, third etc times it has been introduced through history. It isn't new and definitely isn't effective as the past has shown.
Effective ongoing trade is fundamentally based on trust, the great deal maker appears ignorant of this.
It would be a challenge to identify, list and acknowledge his successes, perhaps it's a genuine struggle for the current staff writers.
It seems pointless bemoaning the fact that few people agree with you. If you present a reasoned and rational argument as to why Trump should be lauded you will win people over.
Unfortunately you have set yourself a herculean task.
@Killing Time
"It doesn't take someone economically inclined to challenge the thinking behind threatening your past allies sovereignty and introducing trading tariffs"
Actually it does. Some people really believe in tariffs, and some have good arguments. I just dont agree with them. And we may differ but I like actual thought out reasoning above 'he is bad because he is bad man', I find it more interesting and useful.
Consider Trumps first run at being President. There were actual reasons to disagree with him, but it was all about the faked dossier, his skin/hair, made up stories, etc. Since then such has just been ramped up but the actual reasoned arguments end up lost in the moronic 'orange man bad'. That is why I liked the reasoned and diverse articles even where I didnt agree with them.
"It seems pointless bemoaning the fact that few people agree with you"
Who is bemoaning people not agreeing with me? This isnt a popularity contest, I am not in school, I dont care about being accepted in the little cliques and insular groups.
"If you present a reasoned and rational argument as to why Trump should be lauded you will win people over."
Why should he? He does pretty good as President especially as he spends so much time being attacked with lies and half-truths. He also does the difficult things and the unpopular things as well as things I dont agree with. He is very unfiltered which is both good and bad. It is your assumption that such a non-extreme position means I should argue for people to laud over Trump makes no sense.
"Unfortunately you have set yourself a herculean task."
I am of the understanding that there is no way to talk to people who wilfully wont listen and that there is no way to convince the dead mind to think. When not having a reasoned discussion with someone rationally responding it is usually to correct the bull for other readers passing through who may have only seen half of the information. A good real world (not online) example was someone telling me how horrible Trump and Vance was in that Friday meeting with Zelenskyy because of the news reporting and short clips being circulated. However they had changed their minds when they saw what actually happened in the meeting after I pointed out they had missed the vast majority of what had happened in the televised exchange. They dont like Trump at all but for that half fact they realise they were badly misled.
I do note that while I talk about diversity of opinion the direction of the conversation inevitably ends up on Trump.
'I am of the understanding that there is no way to talk to people who wilfully wont listen and that there is no way to convince the dead mind to think.'
Well I listen and I read however I really don't see the world the way you do.
For instance, your example regarding the White House press conference with Zelenski. I watched the whole thing and saw nothing untoward until the stooge reporter asked the loaded question regarding wearing of a suit. From that point on it was crystal clear to me that classic pre planned gaslighting was taking place. It was a truly inane question whose only purpose was to heavily infer some form of disrespect was being made from a visiting head of state.
The stooge had taken the place of a Reuters or AP journo who had been banned from the White House press party for the temerity of failing to report the White Houses position as they saw it.
I am old enough and ugly enough to recognise gaslighting when I see it again so no weasel words will change my position on this. As a result of this I will gladly put myself in your 'won't listen, dead mind' category and am more than happy to agree to disagree.
@Killing Time
"Well I listen and I read however I really don't see the world the way you do."
Thats not a problem, we all have our own opinions there is nothing wrong with that.
"For instance, your example regarding the White House press conference with Zelenski. I watched the whole thing and saw nothing untoward until the stooge reporter asked the loaded question regarding wearing of a suit."
But was it a stooge or are you hoping it was? You say you saw nothing untoward yet this is a press meeting pre Zelenskyy putting his signature to an agreement already made and approved to which Zelenskyy spends his time demanding more and acting as though he doesnt want diplomacy. Hell in the first 5 minutes he is calling Putin various names which is acceptable in private but not what you do when trying to make peace with the guy. Later in front of the camera he is demanding security guarantees, more military gear and demands of Russia paying reparations. Yet he is there just to sign what has already been agreed, not to demand more. No wonder the Ukrainian ambassador had her head in her hands.
"It was a truly inane question whose only purpose was to heavily infer some form of disrespect was being made from a visiting head of state."
I agree with you, I dont care if he is in a suit or not and preferred Trumps comments on Zelenskyy's clothing than the reporters. It also had nothing to do with the discussion but reporters are reporters. That also happens about 18 minutes into the discussion with some way to go before the last 10 minutes where it falls apart. After the stupid question Trump reiterates what he said to Zelenskyy on arrival that he likes Zelenskyy's clothing.
Of course you could still hold the opinion it was a set up, but I would be surprised if people agreed after watching it.
"But was it a stooge or are you hoping it was? "
Well said, Madam. Brian Glenn, the current boyfriend of MAGA conspiracy theory peddler Marjorie Taylor Greene, could never be considered a stooge or plant. And President Trump's playful little wink at Brian is just because someone dazzled the President with a space laser.
How people could think there was any kind of collusion boggles the mind.
Please don't stop posting your witty and erudite analysis of world economic, business, cultural, scientific, military and political affairs. Unfettered by facts, logic or coherency. Nor constrained by the norms of English punctuation. They are epic examples to us all.
You should probably just give up. You're being downvoted at this point because those with torches and pitchforks have decided you are the same as the "bad orange man". Nothing you say at this point is going to change that in their eyes.
The orange man is bad. The old, incompetent man was bad too. The orange man before that was bad. And so on and so forth. It's a wasted conversation.
> ...that would rather escape Earth by building space rockets,
Rather escape Earth than what exactly? It would probably be a good idea to not be so reliant on companies in other countries: sure! But what does space travel have to do with your justifications? Seems a rather weird thing to say.
That is obviously hyperbole, taken straight out of "Don't look up". But with Musk's plans you never know.
A more realistic scenario can be based on the fact that all of the billionaire bros have bomb save mansions in out of the way places where they can watch us die in agony from a safe distance.
The question remains, why should we build our infrastructure and government on such people who prepare to burn everything down for fun and profit?
The whole strategy is straight out of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" where the "technologists" go on strike and watch Americans die by the hundred million from their safe "valley" to rebuild a just Libertarian society when the dust settles.
Those would be Libertarians have never thought matters through, just like Ayn Rand was more a bad SF writer than a visionary. You cannot rebuild a highly developed industrial society on a graveyard.
It really takes a lot of people just to survive and even then it would take decades to build an industry again. It took Germany and Japan a generation to get back to the forefront of industrialization after WWII. And that was with massive help from the US.
"It really takes a lot of people just to survive "
Indeed, today's society is so reliant on complex technology and skills from around the world. Everything from industrial scale food production, rare earth extraction, chip fabrication, communication technology, medicines and medical technology. With a worldwide disaster, we'd be back to a medieval society, trying to rebuild from the ashes.
With a worldwide disaster, we'd be back to a medieval society, trying to rebuild from the ashes.
But 'a world without America' will fall a long way short of that.
I don't know how America will see things once the rest of the world has endured the adjustment, no longer needs America, and the USA is as isolated as North Korea is.
America is bigger and has more resources. Trump plays with people, he isn't going to invade Canada etc. But he does raise good points, destructive drugs have been streaming in from Canada & Mexico and the US has a huge deficit and to continue to be on top it needs to be reduced a lot. Why should America pay most for the defence of Europe when it no longer perceives a threat from Russia? It does perceive a more immediate threat from China and it seems to me a good plan to keep Russia from getting too buddy with China. It's not even in Russia's interest just that "we" the West pushed them that way. Putin made several overtures in the past to become closer to the West and work with the US. He was rebutted. Why? I know why but if you don't; go and think why people in power might not want to be friendly with Russia. China on the other hand is insiduous and smart. They started with little military might and have been using soft power to influence very effectively. They have become an economic power house and are able to expand and modernise their military. Trump is right that is the real competition to US hegemony.
Any drugs streaming in are paid for by those in the USA. Otherwise no-one would be supplying the drugs.
That so many end up wanting and/or needing such drugs is very much the underlying problem. And addressing that is probably the most important part of any attempt to reduce drug traffic.
"And addressing that is probably the most important part of any attempt to reduce drug traffic."
But it doesn't have the same appeal as battering somebody's door down at 4 am and, to make matters worse, might be hard work.
There's certainly a need to deal with these vicious gands fighting turf wars but that's essentially symptom treatment.
> America is bigger and has more resources
Yet still he covets those in the Ukraine.
> China is ... Trump is right that is the real competition to US hegemony
China is the only real competition to US hegemony? Are you *trying* to get mass support for China?
"Putin made several overtures in the past to become closer to the West and work with the US. He was rebutted."
You might find that was Dmitry Medvedev. He did his tour of America and got Germany seriously thinking that Russia could become a member of the EU. Russia wanted to come in from the cold but the US wanted to keep Russia as an existential threat.
Putin was the result of the "fuck off" Russia received from America, Medvedev u-turned and climbed aboard anti-west bus.
> Putin was the result of the "fuck off" Russia received from America
Given the people behind this were largely Republican supporters, this is going to be the real stumbling block with respect to Ukraine.
Currently, Ukraine is not in NATO and there are no foreign military bases in Ukraine. If Trump gets his mineral concessions, this puts US interests and personnel on Russia’s borde, particularly given the rare earths are in the area Russia currently occupies…
But he does raise good points, destructive drugs have been streaming in from Canada & Mexico
Maybe should have not let a US, family run drug company get a large cohort of the population hopped up on a locally produced subscription opioid? (For over a decade.)
>” Why should America pay most for the defence of Europe when it no longer perceives a threat from Russia?”
But is America actually paying for the defence of Europe?
Remember the US wanted Europe to use the US for its defense, hence why Europe has brought so much US manufactured defense equipment, in preference to sourcing locally and thus effectively subsidising the US defense industry ie. Jobs in America.
Perhaps MAGA supporters rather than complain about the US’s trade deficit should be asking why Americans are buying so much stuff from abroad. Eg. Why are they buying foreign cars instead of Tesla’s etc….
Has it occurred to people that there are those who want us to die? That they view us as cattle and when the herd gets too big, or efficiency drops ... If you look and listen carefully you will hear those views expressed. You will even hear some of the cattle express the view that there are too many. Stop being lazy listening only to the institutionally owned media, look wider, listen and think. Do a little research into issues, listen to the alternate suppressed and ridiculed voices and see which are good logical fits for what you see. There is a reason why certain views are immediately suprressed rather than being allowed for open debate and examination. A reason why more and more under cover censorship laws are being passed; to keep us "safe" and to save "our" democracy.
Start by looking into the Club of Rome, it's ideas and how it was funded and supported.
. "There is a reason why certain views are immediately suprressed rather than being allowed for open debate and examination. A reason why more and more under cover censorship laws are being passed; to keep us "safe" and to save "our" democracy."
You are obviously referring to Trump's outright attack on freedom of the press and journalistic integrity.
"You are obviously referring to Trump's outright attack on freedom of the press and journalistic integrity."
In order to attack the press for integrity it would need to have integrity in the first place. The US press did everything it could to cover up Joe Biden's failings and pivoted on a dime the moment Joe's clock spring finally snapped on live TV. The autopen white house made sure that only friendly press could attend.
<< Can you point out statements by Trump that are actually true? >>
As long as his big gob (mouth for US readers!) is moving, he is spouting lies. Him and JDV must be the only ones in the world that believe that KGB Putin didn't start the war in Ukraine. If Trump had another brain, it would be oh so lonely.
Ayn Rand of course, died in poverty. To her own great surprise, she personally had no particular talents or skills that other free individuals wanted to pay her for. She lived off Social Security, and Medicare, which she claimed with the aid of a social worker. The state paid for her operation for the lung cancer, due to her lifetime of heavy smoking of her individual choice.
Basically, she was a Republican.
"[Ayn Rand] lived off Social Security, and Medicare, which she claimed with the aid of a social worker."
That's social-democracy: You would even care for those who are opposed to Social Security and welfare.
However, I understand that Ayn Rand did not die in poverty. But many others did and needed the support.
Exactly but look beyond the visible billionaire bros. Bankers control the world, start the wars, direct the governments. Not your high street banks it's the BIS and central bank system. What a great idea printing money; you print money, lend it to people, they become endebted to you and have to pay back more than you gave them. Even governments have to pay interest. Why don't governments print the money then they wouldn't have to pay interest? Because they are subserviant to the banks!
There are rumours that the French Minitel system has been under continued development in a skunk works operation outside Paris, and will be rolled out to the sans culottes in a matter of months, in exchange for their iPhones.
Having switched back to their Holborn 9100s, the Dutch should go on and reclaim orangeness too. Trump has pilfered it for the dark side.
It would be lovely if this all led to cash being thrown at an inherently secure OS, software as software, rather than SaaS, and distributed software services, but somehow I doubt it.
As an IT employee at a Dutch university I really welcome this change.
At the moment we open our legs to M$.
We depend on Microsoft to access any of the University resources because we use their SSO.
Then we trust to them virtually all our communication through Teams and Outlook.
And we store all the files from our state-of-the-art research and education on OneDrive and SharePoint.
Most of it could probably be solved with FOSS solutions and the money better spent to hire developers to contribute to said FOSS projects.
As you say, there are probably FOSS options for all the key bits - but then it needs "a lot" of work to make all the bits work together. Given enough willpower it would be possible to build a FOSS stack to rival MS, but don't hold your breath. When the beancounters get involved, look at the costs of all that work vs the cost of just writing another cheque to MS, you can expect enthusiasm to wane quite a bit.
And of course, you can expect the MS dirty tricks dept and PR machine to go into overdrive against any attempt to leave their ecosystem.
Some very large orgs, eg Munich, have tried, but the problem has always been interoperability. But if *everyone* is migrating from Windows, the interoperability with Windows systems become a non-issue :-)
On the other hand, as little as 10 years ago, it would have been a lot easier. Nowadays, MS and Windows have embedded so much interoperability into the OS and their own apps, it's that much harder to just switch to another OS and hope that everything can be made to work together. Then there's all the ERP systems that many are so dependant on these days and more or less exclusively run on or with Windows only. MS have woven a tangled web and we are mostly stuck in it.
The problem was never interoperability and always political. There's a documentary vid knocking about which is painful viewing . FSFE will probably have a link somewhere.
With a change of administration, Microsoft flew in their top sales gurus and made a few promises, local research centre, jobs, etc. Suddenly their Munich centred distro (it had a snappy name Munix?) was heaved out and Windows was back.
Increasingly local administrations are finding that Libre Office is not so awful after all. The German government funded the hardening of some KDE component or other back in the day associated with kmail, kontact etc.
If politicians could only stop accepting the equivalent of Taylor Swift concert tickets and actually focus on the wider needs of the polity... Both CCTA and MoD (GCHQ too IIRC) have long since indicated that Linux based systems are no worse than any other option.
It's all there, we just have to get the CMA (El Reg passim) to do its job on cloud computing, interoperability, open standards (cont p 94)
This is all true. The OS was called LiMux. The documentary can been watched on YouTube. It is essential viewing for anyone with an interest in public sector IT procurement - including El Reg staff and readers. Or indeed anyone who pays tax. Too often the claims of the likes of Microsoft & Google are accepted without questioning. It is worth remembering in whose interest they are operating (hint: it's not the taxpayers').
> On the other hand, as little as 10 years ago, it would have been a lot easier.
Also 10 years ago cloud based functionality wasn’t so much a part of everything. So any move today isn’t just about open source but “open cloud” that does not involve Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle etc.
Twenty odd years back, there were some major EU HQ IT businesses that could have built and operated cloud at scale, now I suspect the landscape and capabilities are different. However, this might be an advantage to the building of a truly “open close” with interoperability between hosting/service providers.
but then it needs "a lot" of work to make all the bits work together
Yes, it's a lot of work to download an installation ISO for any desktop Linux distro, copy it to a USB device and then install it on as many PCs as you need. You want some online storage?
Fine, look for any European company offering NextCloud. You want an email provider that's not US? Fine, look for any of the European companies offering that. Wouldn't it be difficult using such a service without Outlook on your computer? No, look at the Thunderbird or other email client that was included on the distro you downloaded.
For all the office stuff, it's already there. You need to do some work to put it together but that's going to be paid off in not chasing whatever migrations commercial suppliers will force on you or cleaning up after yet another Patch Tuesday broke something.
All true, but I go back again to the interoperability that people rely on to do their jobs and the sense of paic that comes over them any time it doesn't work properly. I spend some time in a clients office on a semi-regular basis. The look on peoples faces and the worry in their voices when *anything* doesn't quite work as "expected", more so if it's just them and not everyone. "I booked a meeting in Outlook and it's not showing in Teams!!!", or "why can't I get to this Sharepoint or OneNote link?" all these apps are interlinked and intertwined in the user workflow and that is going to be hard sell to users who really, really don't like change. The Windows 11 roll-out was traumatic enough and, to be honest, for most users there was very little real change there! Then there's the multi-£1000 Teams based screens in the meeting rooms which "just work" with Windows laptops in terms of meetings, screen sharing and "joining/inviting" to meeting etc.
All stuff I have no doubt Linux could do, but I'm not aware of whether it's possible now. That's the sort of stuff I feel that many business users want and need but at the moment is not possible or at best flaky. I'd certainly be interested in being shown how/if any of the above could be deployed now or if there is any work being done in those areas. And yes, I fully agree that it's something that should be done sooner rather than later. If nothing else than to have an alternative. MS currently have no real competition in the majority of the desk top world.
Full disclosure. I'm a FreeBSD (mostly) and (occasional) Linux user. I only use Windows at work, and apart from Teams/Outlook, everything else I use are web-based apps in the browser, although interestingly, I can't access most of my work browser apps when not using Windows. That might be corporate security policy, log-in methods or something MS has done to make it harder to switch to Linux. No idea :-)
Try reading properly and you'll realise why you are so far off the mark.
Yes, it's easy to roll out an install. But that's not the problem. As John Brown points out, people expect all this "I did something in X and it automagically appeared in Y" stuff. That (sort of, mostly) "just works" out of the box with an all-MS stack. To glue all the different bits together to make something appear as seamless as that will take a LOT of work.
Don't like GAFA? Hands up all those who have a government they trust for its competency, honesty, financial responsibility and transparency.
Anyone?
What you are really saying is that you want to be failed by, cheated by, and screwed over by somebody different.
Well that'd be great, wouldn't it?
And how a government contract to GAFA would improve the situation? And the actual US government and its new friend from GAFA are really threatening - moreover I have still more control on my government than a foreign one, and foreign companies that showed more and more full contempt about the law. Just look at today article about their not compliance with the Digital Act, and their pressure fully adopted by the Trump administration to remove EU safeguards about citizens' data.
My government inevitably has data about me. I'd like they are not fed to GAFA too.
I wish you all luck with this.
For decades individuals, governments, businesses, and NGOs have taken the short-term-easy path of doing whatever everyone else was doing: using proprietary data formats, via proprietary (Microsoft, WordPerfect, Adobe, Oracle, SAP, et. al.) products.
This is the result of not understanding, and/or not caring about the consequences of data-format- and data-residency-in-the-cloud lock-in, and of having social structures in which technology-ignorant "higher-level" managers can and do override technically-knowlegable employees on technical issues. It also is a result of technically-knowlegable employees allowing themselves to become economically beholden to external companies ("I paid good money for Software Company X's certification, so I'm going to push for buying from Company X, so that my certificate will get me a raise, higher-paying job, etc.").
There are piles and piles of documents in MS-Word format, and piles and piles of "critical" spreadsheets which require the use of MS-Excel-only features to work. I'm not going to write about Oracle and SAP lock-in.
Mine's the one with the "-ms" macro (g)troff text documents on a flash drive in the pocket. Pure text, baby.
"I'm not going to write about Oracle and SAP lock-in."
Just as well in the case of SAP, at least as far as US lock-in is concerned:
"SAP SE ...is a European multinational software company based in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The company is the world's largest vendor of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP
Whilst working for the IT provider supporting six local councils in a valley in Southern Norway a few years ago I was stupid enough to question the wisdom of moving everything out in to MicroSoft's clouds. I was going against the orthodoxy of a die hard MS shop with a few MS fanbois in important roles. "It saves us having to run and maintain our own server park" followed by "What on earth could possible go wrong" being the mantras of the day.
Fast forward to now, and here we are, not only worrying if Norway's F35s will continue to work fully in the post-truth Trumpist era but also now considering the possibility that forcing our children to put every thought that they create in their school career into cloud services owned by US companies might not be such a brilliant idea after all. Perhaps also not a good idea that all our medical records and a myriad of other pieces of information pertaining to each and every one of us has been placed in similar systems.
Maar zelfs om het een beetje laat is, het is toch fijn dat er zijn wat mensen in Nederland die uiteindelijk het gevaar van onze situatie goed hebben begrepen.
It would take so long to replace US tech. No doubt the idiots, rather than having a well considered multi-decade plan for self-sufficiency, will instead impoverish their nation with higher taxes paying failed initiatives that only serve to enrich themselves and corporate friends. Thus they will render true independence impossible. American computer tech started in the 70's, it's taken 50 years. If the Dutch and UK governments were serious they would not be attacking farming - an even more important self-sufficient industry.
US is not the only supplier of IT tech, but maybe CPU/GPUs - all of which require Dutch equipment to be made. Taiwan and Korea can supply EU about tech. Software too - you don't need Microsoft or Amazon to run a cloud - there are European cloud alternatives. FOSS projects offer the starting point, without having to pay US companies.
Having to invent the wheel is more difficult to just make another one - and a lot of "US" IT tech was developoed by Europeans anyway.
If you can't trust your supplier, you have to start alternatives. Trump administration can be trusted like the Chinese one. If we have to ditch Huawei equipment, it time to ditch US companies as much as possibile too.
Moreover, this is the best way to counter Trump's tariffs. Hitting BigTech hard is far more effective than hitting US whiskey or motorbikes - both niche markets in EU. If Microsoft, Amazon, etc. become afraid that big, lucrative contracts may evaporate, and have to tell their shareholders profits will be down, their support for Trump could become far more cold.
In the case of the UK Green Party, if you take their worldview as your starting point and then develop policies based on that worldview, without too much consideration for electability, you will find many of the policies will seem to be anti-human…
Here is a starter: in 1970 it was 3bn and it was over consuming resources, with a forecast resource exhaustion date of circa 200 years. Today, 50 years down the road, we have a world population of circa 12bn, assuming consumption rates have not changed etc. the remaining 150 years is now circa 38 years.
So how can we reduce world population to 3bn within the next 10 years to give our selves a little more breathing space?
It is simple, ask yourself which parties have the well being of the next generation(s) in their focus?
Which parties do not look further than the next elections?
Which parties want to redo the 1960's and stop the changes made then?
Which want to go back a century?
Which two centuries?
The Netherlands has a party that still fights the French Revolution!
Realistically, at the end of Trumps term there will just be 'Less noise' !!!
The US of A is too big to fail ... but may spend a while trying a few strategies from the past to take over the world !!!
These strategies will probably fail BUT we will all have to suffer the short-term pain until sanity (or the closest the USA can get) prevails.
Trump is a short-term problem as history goes and the real long-term problem is 'What follows Trump ???'.
Ditto for Putin including the question.
:)
"What follows Trump ???'.
Ditto for Putin including the question."
In both cases disintegration of their respective countries is a real danger.
Putin's war already took out close to a million able bodied young Russians.
Trump already presided over the avoidable deaths of a million Americans in his first term They are planning the removal by force of millions of Americans to somewhere out of sight.
Countries have failed for less.
Yes, a noisy irrelevance with:
1) as much land area as Europe (that's *including* Russia as far as the Urals),
2) the third-largest population in the world and best demographic structure in the developed world (lower median age than every Western European nation but Iceland). Oh, and
3) 25% of the world's GDP. Almost forgot that one.
You are smoking strong copium, my friend.
I have seen a few stories recently from governments and organizations wanting to move away from US tech, and the irony is that these are often announced on their Twitter page, so they are moving away from US tech by using up the social media platform owned by a US based billionaire to announce there plans.
I haven't quite worked out why we haven't had European based challengers to the US social media platforms. The only platform that has been recently successful who wasn't from the US has been Tiktok and that might end up as another US based social media platform soon, as the 90 day extension given to them to find a buyer in the US comes to an end shortly.
Perhaps something to do with the taxation and bureaucracy Europe subjects its innovators to? There's a reason that Home Depot is worth more than Europe's top companies of the last half-century combined. (ASML didn't make this chart even though it does qualify. Add a bubble roughly 1.6× ServiceNow's.)
https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F91da2c40-f4cd-44ad-bb7f-e216cb8ad108_1400x788.jpeg
From https://geekway.substack.com/p/a-visualization-of-europes-non-bubbly
"Perhaps something to do with the taxation and bureaucracy Europe subjects its innovators to?"
Nah, there are much more simple explanations.
Europe is a divided with fragmented markets for kapital, consumers, and labor. That limits the size of any startup company.
Germans will not easily go work or invest in France or Italy and vice versa just because of the language problems. It takes a lot of time and determination to get settled in a foreign country with a different language. And language is just one of the differences between countries.
It is no accident that the strongest contenders for US companies come from China which is itself a huge unified market for kapital and labor with a billion cunsumers.
> Nah, there are much more simple explanations.
Absolutely, hence why the drive for the Single Market.
The UK was one of the biggest drivers of the Single Market, hence why things seemed to move so slowly, trouble is with the UK out of it, I expect things will move even more slowly; a win for US foreign policy.
No! Our foreign policy is to strengthen Europe. It has been since 1919. It's the Fourteen Points and the Four Freedoms.
As Konrad Adenauer said, "there is a saying that the Americans are the best Europeans, and there is much truth to that."
If France had its way, Germany would have never rearmed. The USA rearmed and reindustrialized Germany over French and broader European objections, and drove cooperation and growth.
Remember when first-term Trump encouraged increased defense spending in NATO? Europe didn't listen then. They are now, despite Trump's demented way of getting them to pay attention.
> No! Our foreign policy is to strengthen Europe.
To a point.
However, there are plenty of bodies and smoking guns where the US has interfered either directly or via the UK of hindering the European integration project and acting against European companies , whilst passing on information to US companies, so that they could gain commercial advantage.
What I realised I had missed from my comment (too late to edit it), was the UK leaving the EU was also a win for: Russian foreign policy. I feel China may have gained, but I have not seen any reports they did anything that might be seen as influencing matters.
>” I have seen a few stories recently from governments and organizations wanting to move away from US tech, and the irony is that these are often announced on their Twitter page”
Perhaps people are learning and adopting some of Trumps bluster, and what better platform to get your message across to Trump supporters than their own social media platforms…
And the EU should be, with 500 million people and the innovative power of Western Civilization behind it. As an aside, that's precisely why they don't need America's military support any longer, as Poland's PM recently pointed out.
"We're asking 350 million Americans to defend 500 million Europeans from 180 million Russians."
Pure comedy. Europe is finally growing up.
"couldn't run a cloud hosting platform"
They can, but not cheaper than a country with a scale advantage of 20 times the market size.
In the end, it is about the scaling and price.
Also, if a European company breaks out of its small home market, it will be bought and pilfered by Americans, eg Nokia mobile phones, Skype and Booking.com,
There are limits to the value of scaling. At some point, scaling further adds more complexity (eg. adding extra data-centres, adding global reach, adding more and more services etc...), and increased costs. At another, scaling further adds nothing except linear increases in costs as you're just adding hardware.
I think at this point, EU countries have realised that these industries are entering the realms of "strategic importance" so I suspect if someone tried to buy out an EU based cloud hosting company now? Governments would start stepping in to stop it.
The Dutch have so many other more pressing things that they seem to ignore, I suspect they are going to make a big promise and then not actually do anything tangible.... They already have risk assessment reports on the shelf which suggest that going all in cloud is maybe not the best idea, yet they ignore them and carry on.
My suggestion to them would be why be to commission another investigation/report, lets see what that comes back with in two years time....
So, the politics are in the article.
But what about the tech angle?
Would this potentially boost Linux development or just get Amazon to fork the corporate structure a bit and build a data center locally for them? Do they have a capability to start a migration away from m365? (May help limit the name-calling-posts to vi vs emacs too)
Sounds like a good idea and I'm looking forward to the naming of the various components.
The recommended OS could be called DykeOS and the .nl domain "repatriated" as they suggest.
Overnight batches could run on a cloud called noctur.nl with daytime work on diur.nl.
The always up, no downtime, high-availability cloud could be called eter.nl with spammers relegated to infer.nl.
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