Comment on Why Denmark is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and Linux
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 2 days ago
tl;dr: “digital sovereignty”. “EU leaders are seeking to reduce Europe’s dependence on foreign technology providers, primarily those from the United States, and to assert greater control over its digital infrastructure, data, and technological future.”
Fair enough and makes sense. Every country should be trying to be as independant as possible IMO.
We only need that independence because we can’t trust each other. There’s no problem in some countries being more focused on one thing or another, as long as we are collaborating with each other without taking advantage of anyone. Unfortunately, there are still dangerous players in the world and we have to be prepared to defend against them and this capitalistic view we currently have guarantees that there’s always someone taking advantage of someone else.
We need to evolve…
15 years ago this statement would lead to accusations of being anti-globalist, communist, economically illiterate.
15 years ago this still made economical (just not political) sense and was the right approach.
Now it still is, but there’s an additional quality - I think the incentive is not of public good, it’s of strengthening authoritarianism on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. Domestic authoritarians always want to play with their toys without foreign authoritarians meddling. But if the domestic environment is not authoritarian, only foreign is, then they are not in conflict, and the other way around too.
So this may mean that both USA and EU are changing for the worse, for now.
Not attacking Linux or LibreOffice.
I would argue that switching to an open-source model for all your tools is more globalist. Open source projects are being maintained by people all over the world, and any group or branch is allowed to modify and redistribute their personal version of any project.
It’s the opposite of being subject to an ever growing corporation you can’t even put checks on. Every government using the product of a single small group of massively rich corporations is giving said corporation unprecedented power over the world.
Unless you use Redhat or just fork anything yourself without upstreaming changes.
neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I always wondered how any head of state could feel like they were not being spied on if they were using windows.
Can governments really ensure that windows has been secured that well or is there always a possibility that Microsoft is spying for the United States?
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 days ago
When you can spend a lot on security staff, they’ll probably convince you that your own installation of Windows is sterile.
They probably use Macs.
They might even only use air-gapped machines, with sufficient paranoia.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Using a Mac wouldn’t be any safer, that’s also an American company. Plus Apple has full control of the hardware as well as the software and they make their own silicon… It’d be even easier for Apple to spy on users than Microsoft, they could even do it with less chance of being detected.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Not in the sense of it being an American company, but in the sense of it being a bit less of a mess.
Intentional spying yes of course.
joostjakob@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Security services use things like airgapping, but our politicians talk to each other using WhatsApp…
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I think I’ve read US military and navy etc have their own parallel Internet, a few actually.