From scofield at omsoft.com  Sat Apr 11 18:08:38 2026
From: scofield at omsoft.com (Bob Scofield)
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2026 18:08:38 -0700
Subject: [vox] The Trump Factor In Linux Growth
Message-ID: <41bec7cf-80ca-4a74-92cb-b5a6a10e097b@omsoft.com>

It appears that, as a result of the chaos spread by the Trump regime, 
France is moving its government computers to Linux as a way to gain 
digital sovereignty:

https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/10/france-to-ditch-windows-for-linux-to-reduce-reliance-on-us-tech/

There are other articles and videos on European countries moving away 
from U.S. digital products. One of the more interesting is this video on 
the German government banning Microsoft file formats from being used at 
any level of German government from the federal to the municipal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7jYaEJ8LFU

Bob

From brian at brie.com  Wed Apr 15 20:03:38 2026
From: brian at brie.com (Brian E. Lavender)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2026 20:03:38 -0700
Subject: [vox] The Trump Factor In Linux Growth
In-Reply-To: <41bec7cf-80ca-4a74-92cb-b5a6a10e097b@omsoft.com>
References: <41bec7cf-80ca-4a74-92cb-b5a6a10e097b@omsoft.com>
Message-ID: <aeBRinSqty4EE40q@brie.com>

On Sat, Apr 11, 2026 at 06:08:38PM -0700, Bob Scofield wrote:
> It appears that, as a result of the chaos spread by the Trump regime, France
> is moving its government computers to Linux as a way to gain digital
> sovereignty:
> 
> https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/10/france-to-ditch-windows-for-linux-to-reduce-reliance-on-us-tech/
> 
> There are other articles and videos on European countries moving away from
> U.S. digital products. One of the more interesting is this video on the
> German government banning Microsoft file formats from being used at any
> level of German government from the federal to the municipal:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7jYaEJ8LFU
> 
> Bob

This is an interesting factor for the growth of Free software for sure!

Brian
-- 
Brian Lavender
https://www.brie.com/brian/

"There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to
make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other
way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies."

Professor C. A. R. Hoare
The 1980 Turing award lecture

From bill at broadley.org  Thu Apr 23 19:07:50 2026
From: bill at broadley.org (bill broadley)
Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2026 20:07:50 -0600
Subject: [vox] The Trump Factor In Linux Growth
In-Reply-To: <aeBRinSqty4EE40q@brie.com>
References: <41bec7cf-80ca-4a74-92cb-b5a6a10e097b@omsoft.com>
 <aeBRinSqty4EE40q@brie.com>
Message-ID: <bd8223ce-3d7f-4ecb-8a52-a88473d1844e@broadley.org>


 > This is an interesting factor for the growth of Free software for sure!

Indeed.  Munich Germany tried similar, then went back to windows ... but is now 
considering open source again.  Schleswig-Holstein, one of Germany’s 16 states 
is moving 10 of thousands to Linux.

Does seem like tide is turning, some other data points:

* Linus tech tips had a disastrous attempt to try linux for a month a way back 
and failed.  They tried again recently and are loving it, have passed the month 
for the test and still haven't switched back.
* Seems like many gamers are considering things like bazzite distro of linux 
instead of windows 11.  Valve is of course on board.
* Valve of course has pending console and headset ... running linux.
* AMD is supporting Linux with *gasp* driver updates *before* the hardware 
ships.  Sadly Intel's moving in the opposite direction cancelling various OS 
projects.
* Companies like System76 and Framework seem more mainstream than previous Linux 
companies, and still put Linux first.  People seriously consider it as an option 
to a macbook pro.
* Lenovo's support seems broader and more official than in the past (all 
ThinkPad, ThinkStation, and ThinkServer have support)

Linux has great market share in:
* phones, all android run the linux kernel, well more than half the market
* edu laptops (all chromeboxes use the linux kernel)
* Cloud the majority of cloud nodes runs linux
* HPC - 100% of the top 500 runs linux.
* embedded - billions of CPUs ... mostly running linux.
* AI related development - seems mostly on linux or at least linux first.

Definitely a good year for Linux.

