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.
Why Fedora? They’re basically Red Hat in a trench coat. I’d go with a EU based distro like Suse.
I read EUDORA for a split second and got all excited that the best email client ever was getting reborn!
But this is cool too… i guess.
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.
Why Fedora? Sorry, but there are so many European options, it makes no sense to build a European house on an American basement.
It’s still open source
if you’re not paying it doesn’t really matter. open source belongs to everyone; it’s a disservice to put it in the same bag as, say, a Microsoft or Apple OS.
plus how far removed is enough? are we going to scrutinize what programming languages were used and where they originated as well?
Open source is free for everyone, I think the objection is more about an american company being able to directly influence the decisions, operating under US jurisdiction, etc.
Probably since it’s the main redhat upstream and they want the advantage of already widespread usage.
Although at that point why not OpenSUSE for the same reason you mentioned.
Security is a big focus for gov usage, why not base off of Debian?
Fedora Origin: USA
No, thanks. 🙅
alternative POV: it’s entirely FOSS so there’s little control that can be exerted from its use. it’s also entirely free, so use is extracting value without providing anything in return. by its use, you’re taking resources to maintain, host, etc and providing nothing in return
similar reason to why i don’t use ecosia with an ad blocker: by blocking ads you’re using their resources without giving back and thus you’re taking resources away from the charity
This is true, but then why not base it off Guix (the GNU distro)? …I’m sure Fedora is full of binary blobs and not-so-free software.
If they needed it, they could still add extra software and blobs to Guix, sourced by the EU… and I think doing that would allow it to carve itself a niche (a version of Guix with more compatibility would be interesting for many) rather than sticking a white label on Fedora and call it something else. I don’t see a lot of value on this over just using Fedora directly, I’m not sure if it’s true that Fedora & Red Hat do not benefit from this… wouldn’t their support agents be able to just start providing support also to EU OS customers if they (both customers and support agents) want? Wouldn’t it make it more interesting for private companies working closely with the government to choose Red Hat as a partner when it comes to enterprise Linux?
I guess we’ll have to see how much they customize it, but in my experience with previous attempts, I’m expecting just a re-skin, just Fedora with different theme. At most, with some extra software preinstalled. I don’t think that’s a threat to Fedora or Red Hat, but rather an opportunity for expansion.
I’m sure Fedora is full of binary blobs and not-so-free software
fedora is staunchly opposed to non-free software in their default distro … that spat a few weeks ago with OBS was related to that AFAIK
unsure about like signed blobs for “security” services but i imagine they’d be very limited, and optional
rather than sticking a white label on Fedora and call it something else
but for what benefit? no matter what’s trying to be achieved, starting with a very full-featured, robust OS that’s widely used is going to serve you very well… not just technically (less work for the same outcome), but for human reasons
there are loads of guides out there for how to fix fedora issues, few for guix… loads of RPMs that are compatible with fedora, and i can only imagine fewer packages for guix
and then if you’re talking about server OSes - and actually workstations too - managing them with tools like ansible etc… fedora is going to have off the shelf solutions
just Fedora with different theme
well, the actual software and configuration i’d argue aren’t the important part - owning the infrastructure is the important part… package mirrors, distribution methods (eg a website), being able to veto or replace certain packages, and the branding (or regulation) that draws people to it… being able to roll out a security patch to every installation without a 3rd party okaying it, for example
I don’t think there are many distributions that are truly free, at least not in the eyes of the FSF. Fedora is not one of them.
but for what benefit? […] fedora is going to have off the shelf solutions
Yes, but that’s my point: fedora is already fully featured… the work needed is trivial, to the point that directly using an installation of fedora by itself (along with tools like ansible) wouldn’t be very different from doing he same with EU OS… at that point you don’t need a whole new distro, just Fedora and maybe some trivial scripts (which you are gonna need anyway in any large scale installation, even if you went with EU OS).
Imho, there would be more value if something actually novel was used, and new guides and howtos were created to simplify/clarify things that used to be hard. What would be a pity is to spend a lot of euros for something that is trivial to do, and that only helps filling the pockets of some corrupt politician’s friend. I mean, I’m not against a simple thing, but then I’d hope they at least showed how they will be spending the budget on some other way (marketing? …will there be actual custom software? …are they gonna maintain the entire repo themselves?).
well, the actual software and configuration i’d argue aren’t the important part - owning the infrastructure is the important part…
But I was not arguing against that. And if they did promise to do that, then that would be different. The problem is precisely that I’m expecting them to NOT own most of the infrastructure and instead rely on Fedora repositories, because from experience that’s how these things usually go.
I repeat the full context of the section you quoted: “I guess we’ll have to see how much they customize it, but in my experience with previous attempts, I’m expecting just a re-skin, just Fedora with different theme”
Maybe you have a different experience with government-managed distros, but there have been some attempts at that in my (european) country that were definitely not much more than a reskinned Ubuntu (and before that, Debian) from back in the day. They used Ubuntu repositories (ie. Ubuntu infrastructure), and the only extra repo they added was not a mirror, but just hosted a few packages that were actually produced by them and were responsible for the theming, reskining and defaults. They used metapackages that depend on upstream packages to control what was part of the default desktop environment, there might have been a few more extra packages (mainly backports), but very few and always lagging behind alternative backport repos. Uninstall the metapackage (which you might do if you wanna remove some of the preinstalled things) and it literally was Ubuntu straight from Ubuntu official repos. There was no filtering, no veto, no replacing, no mirroring.
Also, just to keep things grounded in the initial point: do you really think that Fedora / Red Hat would not benefit at all from it?
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.
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.
“Made with ❤️ in Brussels by Robert Riemann”
Clicked his URL…
“physicist and computer scientist…passionate about open source and free software, cryptography…”
Whew, almost read crypto"currency"…
"…and peer-to-peer technology such as BitTorrent or Blockchain/Bitcoin.
Goddammit.
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✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
