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

BLKNSLVR

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47719486

ArtTimeInvestor

It is a step into the right direction. 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?

casey2

But Linux is US tech? Isn't the main guy American?

gsky

Finally Europe grew a spine

drstewart

Is this the daily thread on this topic? Astroturfing around this is getting suspicious.

selfsigned

Really proud as a French, I think the government has had some success with moving to something matrix based for the public sector too. https://tchap.numerique.gouv.fr I just hope we end up having more wins at the EU-level, instead of massive fails like GAIA-X...

peter-m80

should be done at EU level and make it mandatory for all members

e-dant

Microsoft is a strategic risk for the US, too

redoh

The difference between this and Munich's attempt is that France has been building up gradually. They already run Tchap (Matrix-based) for government messaging, and the gendarmerie switched to Linux years ago with over 70k desktops. Munich tried a big-bang migration without enough internal expertise and caved under political pressure when MS moved their HQ there. Schleswig-Holstein in Germany is taking the same incremental approach now and seeing better results. The pattern is pretty clear: governments that treat it as a multi-year capability build succeed, those that treat it as a licensing swap don't.

clickety_clack

Even the US government should be considering this.

_ink_

Glad that France takes the lead, that Germany fumbled. Allez Les Blues!

M95D

I fear this might be just license costs cutting and not something that Linux and FOSS will benefit from.

tjarjoura

This sounds interesting on paper but I wonder how likely it is they actually pull it off. Even putting aside the logistics of installing new oses across a bunch of workstations, migrating from legacy Active Directory domains is something even small enterprises struggle with.

idoubtit

The 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.

jlnthws

Nice! Now moving from Windows to Linux is the "easy", visible part. Replacing US cloud + US AI dependence end to end is much harder, and that’s the real deal today.

cmiles8

They’re still going the almost certainly end up running this on US designed chips, with US designed networking equipment and a bunch of other assets tied back to US companies. They should do what they want, but it’s “sovereignty theater” at best.

jhawk28

AI finding vulnerabilities in open source software is going to make it super unpleasant for a time. I expect there to be a shift back to closed source until we get through that period.

anon291

Linux is also written by American companies at the end of the day. Most linux devs are supported by American companies and Linux's benevolent dictator for life, Linus Torvalds, lives in Portland, Oregon and is an American citizen. There's literally no non-American general-purpose operating system.

etchalon

They're not wrong.

ChrisArchitect

Again? what was wrong with the previous two discussions about this OP? with 1400+ upvotes [dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47719486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47716043