this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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It's only a proof of concept at the moment and I don't know if it will see mass adoption but it's a step in the right direction to ending reliance on US-based Big Tech.

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[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Fedora is too much into RedHat, and that's an American company, it depends on it. You'll have to go at least Arch, or Debian (which are more community-driven), or Ubuntu or Mint (that are European). But I wouldn't use anything Redhat-produced for an EU OS.

[–] bravemonkey@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

SUSE/OpenSUSE seems like a much more European option

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[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I wonder how much work is entailed in transforming Fedora in to a distro that meets some definition of the word "Sovereign" 🤔

Personally I wouldn't want to make a project like this be dependent on the whims of a US defense contractor like RedHat/IBM, especially after what happened with CentOS.

[–] Korkki@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I read the sovereign to mean something like an unified platform for EU institutions, that you can dev and train people on.

dependent on the whims of a US defense contractor like RedHat/IBM

A very good point.

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[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I didn’t know red hat was working for the US government. Can you tell me in what way?

[–] lemmyreader@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

At the same time, Red Hat released the first version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1. The Army deployed Red Hat’s operating system in its Blue Force Tracker system, which lived in jeeps and tanks on the battlefield. Major General Nicholas Justice, the man responsible for Blue Force Tracker, said later:

“When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source.”1

To this day, the U.S. Army remains one of Red Hat’s largest customers by volume. Red Hat was recently made part of the Army's Common Operating Environment, which is their enterprise standard.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250226064336/https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/red-Hats-decade-of-collaboration-with-government-and-the-open-source-community

[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks I’m gonna have a deeper look into this then😇

[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

If the EU were concerned about the US jurisdiction of Linux projects it could pick:

  • OpenSuSE (org based in Germany)
  • Mint (org based in Ireland)
  • Manjaro (org based in France/Germany, and based of Arch)
  • Ubuntu (org based in UK)

However if they didn't care, then they could just use Fedora or other US based distros.

I think it would be a good idea for the EU to adopt linux officially, and maybe even have it's own distro, but I'm not sure this Fedora base makes sense. Ironically this may also be breaching EU trademarks as it's masquerading as an official project by calling itself EU OS.

[–] SabinStargem@lemmy.today 1 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

I would like the EU to make an official universal Linux distro, intended for the ordinary person to use on their PC. Bonus points if they can collaborate with Steam to make it compatible with gaming stuff. The big reason I stuck to Windows 11 is for the sake of games, but if compatibility and ease of use to customize was improved, I would be happy to switch away.

The big thing that the EU can bring to the project is contributing lots of money for making Linux suitable as a daily driver, along with mandating its usage on government machines.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

i’d say if it happens it should start with focusing on:

  • government and workstation (this is important first to have control and independence over so that government isn’t beholden to the whims of foreign companies)
  • then server (maybe - idk really if that’s worth it though; it’s a whole can of compatibility worms and adoption expense)
  • then user desktop

though there is the argument that workstation and user desktop are close enough to each other that user desktop should be above server, but i’d imagine it’d be more of a “home user” than gamer situation. i could imagine some regulations around refurbishing old tech with this kind of OS too, and this would be more about low spec machines (that’d help workstations too)

[–] AnonomousWolf@lemm.ee 1 points 3 weeks ago

It used to be true that Windows is better for gaming. That's no longer the case.

Since steam deck runs on Linux, they made a compatibility layer allowing you to play windows games on Linux.

I switched to Linux a few months ago and have been able to play all my games just fine.

(also dual boot is an option)

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[–] digdilem@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

Mint and Ubuntu have Debian as an upstream, don't they?

Debian is a US legal entity, so if it was required to sanction countries, it feels that software built with it would likely be restricted.

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[–] miguel@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

But Fedora is based on an IBM product... so that's a swing and a miss. SuSE would be a better direction, IMO

[–] cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Only after IBM purchased Redhat recently

[–] miguel@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 3 weeks ago

Which was my point, yes.

[–] GNUmer@sopuli.xyz 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The idea of a "distro for EU public sector" is neat, but even the PoC has some flaws when considering technical sovereignty.

First of all, using Gitlab & Gitlab CI. Gitlab is an American company with most of its developers based in the US. Sure, you could host it by yourself but why would you do it considering Forgejo is lighter and mostly developed by developers based in the EU area?

The idea of basing it on Fedora is also somewhat confusing. Sure, it's a good distro for derivatives, but it's mostly developed by IBM developers. The tech sovereignty argument doesn't hold well against Murphy's law.

[–] Geodad@lemm.ee 2 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

Why Fedora? They're basically Red Hat in a trench coat. I'd go with a EU based distro like Suse.

[–] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Having seen SuSE destroy collaborators like OL, CNC and probably Turbo, I'm okay never even working with them as a customer. I intend to avoid them until death.

[–] vandsjov@feddit.dk 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

SuSE destroy collaborators like OL, CNC and probably Turbo

I'm very new with this and have no idea what OL, CNC and Turbo are. Could you please elaborate?

[–] mostlikelyaperson@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

I was wondering the same when I came across it a few hours ago and decided to look into it, apparently it’s because it was decided to use an atomic distribution as a base and Suses is apparently not considered stable enough by them. (I can not argue the validity of these statements given either way, that’s just what I found in one of their gitlab issues . if someone wants to look at it for themselves, searching for Fedora on the issue tracker should bring it up)

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[–] Bali@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

In my opinion, If sovereignty is the goal i think GTK based DE will be safer than QT based DE.

I am aware of The Free QT foundation And its relation to KDE but in a long term there is possibility of things might get complicated if there is change in policy . And even the QT trademark is not totally free. I'm not trying to start DE war, i love both KDE and GNOME.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

The Qt foundation tried to get fucky once already, and KDE and some other major companies that rely on it were about ready to fork it if they persisted. Qt seemed to calm down after that.

Not a great relationship to be in though, constantly suspecting that your toolkit might do a rugpull at some point if the shareholders demand it. But I think they could pull off a fork if they ever did.

[–] DreasNil@feddit.nu 1 points 3 weeks ago

Love this! We definitely should try to spread Linux to become more accessible and popular.

[–] dino@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 weeks ago

rofl, Fedora for EU what a joke...

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