When it comes to personal technology, something that works inconsistently is worse than something that doesn’t work at all. And my recent experiences with Linux are nothing but inconsistent. I see different results with different distributions on the same PCs, and I see different results with the same distribution on different PCs. And it’s a problem for someone who, in my case, likes to be definitive as much as possible. But Linux is like a roulette wheel, you never know what you’re going to get.
To be clear, I’ve had some stunning successes with Linux. Fedora Workstation, which I wrote about recently is terrific. And Zorin OS 18, which I’ve not yet addressed in this series but will soon, is likewise top-notch. And there are promising distributions like Zenclora. And others.
But I’ve also had curiously terrible experiences. Debian, the basis for so many other Linux distributions, can be balky, but the most surprising failures have come from unexpected places. I’m still struggling to get the KDE Plasma Desktop version of Fedora Workstation working on any PC, for example. I hope to figure that out eventually.
With that as a backdrop, I was interested to see that France intends to replace Windows with Linux. Which is not an accurate description of the news, as it turns out. “France” is not replacing Windows with Linux. And it’s not even “the government of France” that is replacing Windows with Linux. Instead, a French government official said that France should “break free” of its dependence on Big Tech–which he described as “American tools”–and achieve digital sovereignty. One French governmental agency, the Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs (DINUM), is “exiting from Windows in favor of workstations running on the Linux operating system.”
That DINUM employs fewer than 500 people seems to have been lost in the desire to write ridiculous, click-baity headlines. But let’s not underestimate the impact of this change. Yes, there are famous examples of governments announcing and implementing a switch from Windows to Linux, failing badly, and then sheepishly returning to the same embrace of Microsoft. (We’re looking at you, Munich.) But that was decades ago. Linux has improved dramatically in that time. And Windows, like the rest of Big Tech has, well, you know. Succumbed to the customer-averse financial allure of enshittification.
And this tiny French governmental agency isn’t alone: Equally small governmental agencies in Denmark (~400 employees) and the German state government of Schleswig-Holstein (~30,000 employees) had previously announced similar initiatives. These numbers are insignificant compared to the over one billion customers running Windows 11 worldwide, of course. But that’s how avalanches can begin: A tiny snowball, picking up size and speed as gravity does its thing. Inertia is a powerful force whether you’re big or small.
Behind these announcements is a broader call for the European Union (EU) and really the world to end its reliance on Big Tech, which, yes, is all U.S.-based, leading to some obvious (and oblivious) complaints from my home country. Like all bullies, Americans can be overly sensitive when called on their baloney. Sorry, world.
But here’s the thing. It’s not like they didn’t warn us.
In 2018, the EU passed the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to ensure the data sovereignty of its citizens. In this case, Big Tech didn’t just bend the knee; they, for the most part inacted policies to be GDPR-compliant worldwide. Microsoft certainly did. In fact, in 2019, it called on the United States to enact similar legislation to protect the privacy rights of Americans. You can guess where that went. Right, nowhere.
Then, in 2022, the EU enacted its Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) to rein in the worst enshittification behaviors found across Big Tech: These rules determine dominant gatekeeper companies and products/services and then do what antitrust always does: Impose stricter business behavior rules on them so that they can no longer abuse their competition, partners, and customers. But Big Tech’s reaction to these new rules varies dramatically. Microsoft, for example, immediately announced how it would change Windows to conform to its DMA responsibilities. But Apple has fought every change demanded by the DMA tooth and nail in what is now an infamous strategy of “belligerent compliance,” in which it pretends to follow the law but doesn’t, not really. It does this in the U.S., too, of course. Speaking of consistency.
So, the EU seems to have had enough of this nonsense. Slowly, in small ways at first, this economic superpower is indicating that it will no longer put up with Big Tech and, yes, the U.S. in particular. One has to think we had it coming. (And, yes, the EU is an economic superpower, with an economy valued at about $20 trillion, compared to about $30 trillion for the U.S.)
You may recall that enshittification-namer Cory Doctorow has pointed out that there’s nothing we can do as individuals to “vote with our wallets” and reject enshittified products and services in a bid to get those companies to be better to their own customers; we’re just not powerful enough to force that change.
But as with the so-called “pain points” initiative we’re seeing unfold with Windows 11 this year, there are entities that are big enough to get these companies to change their ways. With Microsoft and Windows 11, those are mostly enterprises, the world’s biggest companies.
But we should know that governments make up part of the enterprise market, too. And governments, unlike big businesses, can also enact policies, rules, and laws. I can’t stress this enough, though I have to keep repeating it because no one seems to learn the lessons of history: It’s better to work with antitrust regulators so you can have some say in the outcome; if you allow judges, courts, and juries to decide your fate, the outcome is almost universally more negative every single time.
We might also give these tiny EU agencies some credit for leading by example. The outcome of these efforts is, yes, undetermined as I write this. There is the possibility that they will “pull a Munich,” so to speak, face-plant, and have to rethink things. But from Microsoft’s perspective, the better approach would be to work with the French DINUM, the broader French government, or even the EU itself and see what it can do, if anything, to meet their concerns. This seems to be the playbook under Brad Smith, for sure.
But here, I have nothing to offer: Microsoft already provides governments with source code access to Windows and other platforms, specifically so they can ensure that there are no backdoors, but it’s unclear how any it or any Big Tech company can meet the needs of EU digital sovereignty. Data sovereignty is one thing, but if Europe wants to move to what Cory Doctorow calls “the post-U.S. Internet,” it’s pretty much up to the divorce lawyers now. It will be messy, I bet.
Whatever happens, and no matter how you feel about Big Tech, enshittification, and U.S./EU relationships, we can all agree that the EU’s desires for independence and sovereignty are at least logical and understandable. I certainly feel this same push and pull, which you can see in my recent writings about Little Tech, especially, though it goes back further than that. People are people, and we often need to be burned before we truly understand that fire is hot. But with enough bad experiences in the rearview mirror, life has a way of clarifying things.
But I am curious about how the DINUM or whatever agencies and, maybe, eventually entire governments, can make Linux work for them. There are all the usual costs associated with this kind of change, and they can possibly reduce the friction by standardizing on hardware and software combinations that are known to work well. But again, in my experience, it’s the inconsistency that drags down Linux. And I would love to see the industry somehow reduce that pain point.