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Cake day: July 6th, 2023

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  • Microsoft is also after those juicy administrative contracts, and right now, with US-skepticism sky-rocketing everywhere in Europe, they are terrified that the EU might mandate that administrations have to use (or, at least, have to use more in the coming years) European-made software.

    Loosing those EU contracts wouldn’t just be lost money at a time where Microsoft is pumping more and more money into AI with not a single cent of profit on the horizon, it’s also leaving the door open for a competitor to gain worldwide legitimacy and challenge their monopoly in business software.

    And that is worst case scenario for them. That’s why every tech giant has been pourring billions into trying to capture the chinese market. Because where they did not succeed, another brand started taking their place.

    How would you feel if, in the coming years, a good chunk of the EU administration were to switch to Nextcloud? If, following that move, ISPs started providing those same services to end user? If more and more people switched from MS Office to other office suites that ACTUALLY follow standards and are interoperable? Would one’s reasons for staying with the MS Ecosystem in general crumble?

    And if you think that’s not possible, remeber where Yahoo was, and where they are now. In the recent Google trial, there were internal memos showing that Google was actually concerned about DuckDuckGo, and had to prepare a strategy to ripost just in case. DDG has 0.3% percent marketshare.

    All giants have clay legs, it’s just a matter of making them bend the knee :)





  • unautrenom@jlai.lutoTechnology@lemmy.world*Permanently Deleted*
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    3 months ago

    It’s not about ‘Google’ vs ‘the other search engines’. It’s about transparency. You’ve probably read some news about how AI crawlers have been destroying infrastrucure and half the time does NOT declare themselves as crawlers in their UA.

    Can confirm that nealy 90% (read hundreds of thousands) of daily visits to several of my websites are made by crawlers from datacenters and I HATE not knowing whose who. Because when I don’t know, I block and report. Website owners already have enough between AI, Page Rankings, and Research Agencies who all exploit free infra for their own business.

    Do I make exceptions for Search Engine crawlers? Yeah, I do. I’ve seen Google, Bing, and Mojeek, but weirdly enough, never Brave. Now I know why. And frankly, if they can’t be bothered to be transparent about their crawlings, then I won’t be bothered to make exceptions for them. They’re freeloading just as much as the rest. If they act like shady chinese crawlers, then they have no right to go pikachu face when they’re treated like one.






  • I’m not sure. The courts intends for Google to sell Chrome, not Chromium. Even if they gave guarentees that Chromium will become independant, the coourt’s likely to tell them to sell Chrome anyway (as they could still apply monopolistic practices like service bundling without control over Chromium, not to mention they could ‘fork’ LF’s Chromium later to make their own).

    The way I see it, this is more Google being scared shitless about Chrome’s new owner being shitty, promote their own services instead of Google’s, and disrespect web standards (or depecreates the ‘standards’ Google implemented in Chromium without the approval of other browers, or standard bodies). That could cause MASSIVE issues for them, and the loss of business that could cause would be tremendous, in a way that’s far worse than giving up control on Chromium.

    To me, his seems more like the nuclear option of Google saying that if they can’t own Chromiulm, then nobody can as a way to cut their losses.


  • Stephen Shankland’s report from 2020 notes a number of people suggesting that Chromium as a whole could be moved out of Google entirely and into an independent foundation, such as the Linux Foundation. That’s not what is happening now, but it’s another step toward larger organization outside of the web’s dominant browser and advertising provider (though Google is still one of the supporters).

    One can only hope this is the first step toward a larger trend. LF stewardship of the Chromium project wouldn’t be perfect, but it’s still much better than the current situation of it being controlled by one company, be it Google or whoever they’ll forced to sell Chrome to.






  • Culture wise? Probably. Institution wise though…?

    Our current republic was founded by de Gaule, and our constitution was written by him as well. The thing, he’s a millitary general, who (much like a good chunk of the French population at the time) held disdain toward parlementarism, due to the lack of stability of the Fourth Republic.

    What that means? Our current system has much of the power concentrated in the hands of the gov (see 49.3 and to some extend 47.1 where the PM can just decide to override anu vote on law. It was something taboo, only used a fair few times before Macron, like once in 2014(?) and it ruined the PM (at the time Manuel Vals)'s carrier. Macron used it dozens of times throughout his years as President), leaving the National assembly with little manuveur than the censor motion (dissolves the current gov, but leaves the president in power).

    That and Macron preparing to sell our public media and hospital to the private certainly don’t give me mich confidence in that regards if the RN were to win (’ •_•)


  • From what I understand, he was hoping for :

    1. Destroy the incoming alliance between our two Far Rights parties (that worked)
    2. That the trad right party would implode (that worked)
    3. That the left would self-combust like always (that did NOT happen)

    And that he would thus be the ‘only credible choice’ against Far Right. (Note that in the last legislative elections, he was NOT given a majority in the National assembly so that he’d have to negotiate with other parties, which he refused to do anyway, except maybe with the small trad right wing party).

    Obviously, that didn’t work out. As other in the French subs have pointed out, he’s an ex-banker. He’s used to making risky bets. But now’s first time where he has to assume the consequence if he looses it.


  • (Here we go again)

    First things first, shame on you Politico for showing outdated projection results. The actual outcome has been published now (after big cities’ votes, including Paris, have been counted) and Far Right lost 5% (they’re now polling at 29.2%), barely ahead of the Left Alliance (28%). That’s both lower than the polls (which were giving her a whoping 37%), and their result in the last presidential elections.

    Edit: source: https://www.resultats-elections.interieur.gouv.fr/legislatives2024/ensemble_geographique/index.html

    Secondly, seat projections, right now are highly unstable due to our two turns system. RN (Far Right) might have some allies from the trad right wing parry who was utterly destroyed, but both the NFP (Left Alliance) and Macron’s Renaissance* have said their candidates need to desist when they’re third and Far Right is first to try to cumulate their votes.

    *Macron’s PM Gabriel Attal has, for the moment, said there might be exceptions to that rule for the candidates of the radical left party France Unbowed which they consider to be be ‘too extreme’ for their taste so we’ll see.

    (Also, slight reminder that Politico is a property of Alex Kreuger, the German equivalent of Rupert Mudrock. Don’t expect full neutrality.)



  • 34% is already lower than what they polled (and it will go down more as cities’ vote get counted). Though, you are right, the normalization of Far Right IS scary af. But it’s not a recent thing in France, it started nearly two decades ago, but surged to an extreme during the past few years esp with:

    • Bolloré (our own personal Murdock) bought more and more media, fired the journalists, and put propagandist in their place.

    • Macron started taking Far Right’s talking points (immigration), language (‘national preference’, which is a concept that makes no sense) and methods (just two days ago, his party made, published and propagated on social media a fake ‘NUPES’ (name of the last Left Alliance) website to calculate one’s future pension based on their ‘program’. As it turns out, the calculations were not based off their program at all and was nearly always defavorable to the person)

    • Macron, when asked about the surge of Far Right, had only one response: bUt WhAt aBoUt tHe LeFt? (And goes on and on to try and sell a ‘both sides’ to try and make himself more popular. Spoilers: it didn’t work) It’s also why it’s refreshingly suprirsing to not hear him bash ‘theLleft’ tonight, and instead call on everyone to vote against Far Right.