Ice is inconsequential. They enforce immigration law and Europe is way stricter than the US. It's also much harder to integrate as European nations are ethno states (no hate.... Nothing wrong with it. Most countries are. Just a statement of fact)
> I am in my 50s, I have never seen a country as divided and toxic as the US, and that is for a reason.
So you lived from 1970-2020, literally the most peaceful time on the planet due to Pax Americana. If I were a European nation, I'd just give the US what it wants. Especially maybe try not to appear like they just want to desperately hold on to their colonies? I mean, where's the decolonization people when you need them
> Especially maybe try not to appear like they just want to desperately hold on to their colonies? I mean, where's the decolonization people when you need them
Greenland’s path to independence is clear in law: only the people of Greenland can decide, by referendum. Denmark would respect that choice. So far, Greenland has not chosen to start the process. The decision is entirely Greenland’s.
I have used Linux my entire adult life. Honestly never really had any issue with setup. Everything just works without having to do anything. Much easier than windows usually.
the issue is not about it being american as it is america being in control of it. you don't get access to windows or mac os source code. You can however take the linux source code, fork it and make it yours. that "dictator for life" in portland can't stop you. nor can anyone else in the us government for that matter.
But technically you can also do that with chromium and gecko, but it's a lot of work, so very few do. And those that do don't cut the line, they'll almost all still follow upstream and just apply their changes.
So in the end, they're still dependent on the decisions made in the US. That doesn't need to be a problem, but I don't think "you can get the source code" really changes that.
sure but a nation state that takes digital sovereignty seriously could easily devote some resources towards maintaining their own fork. Thats the point. Hell, north korea has their own special linux distro
I think this is objectively true. The Linux Foundation is also US based. We saw this when Russsian contributors were banned from the kernel to comply with US sanctions.
The big difference of course is that relying on Linux does not have to mean realying on US corporations. At the level of a nation-state, and certainly at the level of a larger political collective like the EU, control can always be taken back if political interests diverge or if risks mount. Linux could be forked and maintained out of Europe, Asia, or elsewhere if needed. And technology could even continue to be pulled from the US version if desired.
Above, I mean the kernel. But the "distro" level offers another level of contorl. A distro maintained outside of the US offers a lot of local control and isolation from the risks of US control. The kernel used in this distro does not have to be fully forked to be audited, to remove anything concerning, or to add in whatever is desired. And the same is true of all other software included in the distro.
While maintaining a distro is a lot of work, it can be done at the scale of an individual or a small team. It can be done with a travial number of resources at the nation state level. In some ways, it is crazy that more countries do not have their own distro even if it does start as much more than a "spin" of some maintstream distro. As political tensions mount, this may become a more normal "national security" step to take. Being ready to pivot and isolate from the US is more important than actually doing it. If all your government and military infrastructure is based on a distro you control, you can then pivot quickly if you need to. And there are customization and standardization benefits of having a regionally focussed distro beyond national security.
Distros cannot realistically work without hardware support. Hardware is designed in America. The licensing for the software to use the hardware is controlled by the United States
I mean I can write a kernel right now with all the computer systems theory implemented, but without the architecture specs, the firmware, etc, this is completely useless.
Licensing can be ignored. Specs can be stolen. You think China cares about enforcing American copyright in the slightest? One way other countries can retaliate against American tariffs and invasions is to start ignoring American copyright and IP laws.
You can but the firmware that is needed to run it is American, because the hardware is American. Even if the company wants to open source it, the US government can block it in whatever country.
> You can but the firmware that is needed to run it is America
This thinking is part of the reason for the momentum behind RISC-V and LoongArch.
RISC-V is a lot like Linux in that it benefits from International cooperation and innovation while offereing the ability to seize control if needed.
But you are correct that even an open ISA does not protect you from a proprietary hardware implementation at the chip or firmware level that you still do not control. This requires additional open standards.
Bigger picture, it means "domestic" chip design and fabrication capabilities. The world is just starting to wrap its mind around this. But again, RISC-V is really helping here. There are emerging RISC-V chip capabilities in Europe and even in places like India for example. It is easy to laugh off these efforts as non-competitive. But not only will many of them find niches where they will be economically pheasible but they offer an important backstop to geopolitical risk and the flexibility to at least of enough domestic capability to keep the lights on if needed. Building and rolling out a RISC-V ecosystem will take years or decades. But once there, it can be pivotied to or maintained on any RISC-V chip. As long as you have the ability to produce some kind of RISC-V chip, this ecosystem can never really be taken away from you.
And RISC-V offers the same kind of international collaboration that allows both pooling of efforts and protection from reliance on any one actor or region that could become a political threat.
RISC-V understands its role in this regard. It too was an "American" technology but Linux International was setup in Switzerland for a reason.
No it's not, it's all made in China. Maybe you mean the IP is American, but the IP can just be ignored. If the USA can ignore trade agreements, and defence pacts, then its newfound adversaries can ignore American IP laws too.
The FreeBSD Foundatioin is based in Boulder, Colorado, USA.
OpenBSD is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
NetBSD is a non-profit based out of Deleware, USA
I am not sure exactly what you mean by "US-focused" though. I do not think the US government has much direct influence in practice. Both governance and engineering contributions in BSD are highly distributed internationally.
That said, FreeBSD in particular has quite a lot of corporate contribution. Netflix is a heavy user of and contributor to FreeBSD for example. And the recent $750,000 laptop push in FreeBSD is being driven by Quantum Leap Research out of Virginia.
The fact that the BSD systems have less coporate reliance does not necessarily offer more protection though. There is less corporate "control" simply because the BSD systems are less important economically.
You could fork Linux anytime you like and your fork would than have as little corporate control as NetBSD. And just like NetBSD, not taking US corporate contributions would mean less engineering investmetn overall and potentially having to do more yourself.
I mean, it would probably be easier for the EU or China to fork Linux than it would be for them to migrate to OpenBSD if they wanted independence from US exposure.
I mean contrary to the comment above this is how American universities used to be. They had standing exams... Show up on admission day, take a test, highest scores get admission. Easy
The landlord of most of the United States is the American people since American public pension plans are some of the largest holders in these funds that purchase single family homes.
People act as if this is due to 'private greed'. It's not. American public pension plans are underfunded and need more returns. Thus they turn to the private markets, who offer them that which they are seeking to purchase. The market is heavily distorted by these public players whose policy and aims are not constrained by the market but by public policy.
The purpose of people putting money into stocks or real estate is to allow for a simple, fairly 'hands-off' way to make money (real estate is not totally hands off, but is pretty close to a set-it-and-forget-it business).
Real estate works for this because you can really put in as much as you want into it.
Other business activities do not work because the entrance cost for non-rent-seeking business is extremely high and the risk is way too high compared to real estate. This is due to American regulation and labor laws.
This is a 'first-world problem', but now that I have capital, the question is 'what to do with it'?. Yeah, you could throw it in the stock market, but that's also rent-seeking in a sense because you're not really able to invest in primary rounds (I mean you can, but it's hard to find deals), so basically you're just providing liquidity to people, which is rent-seeking of a different kind.
So then the question becomes what else to do with it? I've given a ton away, but that's useless for the most part since it barely creates any economic value.
In my ideal world, I'd start a factory and hire a manager, but the capital cost of that is high, not because of the material or the rental cost, but because of the labor cost. So then, what's the option? I could easily outsource it all to China or India, but that's completely useless for the United States.
Then the question becomes, why start your own, when you could invest in others. Great! I would love to do that. It would be even better if I could simply invest in a local enterprise... Except, that's not easy either. Regulation over investments means that even investing in this is fraught with difficulty unless you want to establish some sort of 'fund'.
So basically, there's nothing to do with the money, which is sad, since I end up giving most of the money I make away anyway, and would prefer to have more of it to give away.
Until America figures out what it wants to be, it's going to be real estate for me... consistent incomes, fairly uncorrelated with equities (which I have a lot of too), etc. There's really not many other options here. There's barely any 'productive' activities taking place in the United States.
Daily reminder that the largest purchasers of residential real estate through these intermediary firms (since that's all they are... they own them in trust for others) are public employee pension plans.
The market has clearly moved on, as you've identified, primarily due to bro science. Meanwhile, the medical establishment still thinks protein is going to kill you.
Same experience with safety nets too. America has tons of welfare. Not sure why people have issues with it honestly.
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