Wird das nun ein neuer running gag? Die Batiendenaggde ist sischä!!!

Gleich schlafen gehen um ausgeruht zu sein wenn’s losgeht ✌️

Obligatory reminder to all Linux users to help every Windows user interested in switching.

See other comments: Got bought up by some company and then enshittified.

Congratulations! All the best to you and the people you care about.

Not telling people is a heck of a lot different from being about to blow the whistle on a major corporation and telling people “if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide”.

Look into PhotoGIMP, afaik it precisely delivers Photoshop-like symbols, maybe even layout, and shortcuts

Browser is nice. On Linux though, Okular is superb (except for its occasional problems with forms).

What’s your opinion on Affinity (Designer/Photo)?

Apparently Audacity has been bougth by a company which subsequently did crap with it. https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/s9isqj/help_tenacity_a_fork_of_audacity_after_its/

Not sure how good Tenacity currently is

Well, on the other hand, it’s by far not always the case that the program one person is currently using is already the best choice for their use case. For example, in the process of degoogling, I’ve begun using a lot of programs that are actually better for me than the ones I previously used (e.g. Notesnook > Google notes). Of course there’s friction/effort involved in finding the best replacement, but there’s just no way around that if the goal is to get away from the defacto standards.

That concern is somewhat justified for sure, but what’s good is that the authority of this IT Planning Council also stems from the Länder (states), so that there will be (a) at least some continuity and (b) it might even be the case that some politicians of his party are actually behind this.

I suspect though that there are already a lot of applicants, given that Ireland is the only remaining country in the EU that has English as its main language, so the competition may be especially hard. But that’s not to say it’s impossible.

Übrigens: Dass Deutschlands Strommarkt in Preiszonen aufgespalten wird ist auch eine implizite Forderung der konservativen schwedischen Regierung, damit es eventuell doch noch zur Verlegung eines neuen Stromleitkabels von Schweden nach Deutschland kommt.

Ausnahmsweise linke ich dafür mal auf Cicero: https://www.cicero.de/wirtschaft/schweden-energiepolitik-deutschland-hansa-powerbridge

(Die schwedische Regierung wünscht sich auch, dass wir hier wieder Atomkraft einführen, aber das hat wohl auch damit zu tun, dass die das selber machen und das auch bei ihnen reichlich kontrovers ist, also der Wunsch nach einem Bundesgenossen oder einem partner in crime – und dabei haben die sogar ein Endlager.)

Generally speaking, the best bet is French due to the large community of speakers (including also Belgium, Luxemburg and Québec), the relative ease of getting French to a usable level, and its usefulness and sought-afterness even outside of francophone countries. Next up would be German with its even larger community of speakers in Europe and economic relevance but higher difficulty. Third I’d say is Spanish, since learning it will also make Italian intelligible to you.

If things get worse in the US, some people who are affected particularly gravely (e.g. trans people) might even be eligible for asylum, which would remove the language requirements (but I’m only speculating here).

Whether language proficiency is needed beforehand depends a lot on the precise European country (and on the profession(s) OP would like to work in, and on what other skills they possess).

I wondered about that too. Your figure of 169.4 Mio EUR certainly is a good sign. Also, there’s this phrasing in the linked report:

Der IT-Planungsrat setzt sich dafür ein, dass in der Öffentlichen Verwaltung offene Formate wie das Open Document Format (ODF) zunehmend Verwendung findet und bis 2027 zum Standard für den Dokumentenaustausch wird. Er beauftragt das Standardisierungsboard mit der Umsetzung.

Which can be translated as follows:

"The IT Planning council promotes the goal that open formats like the Open Document Format (ODF) are increasingly used in the Public Administration and become the standard for document exchange by 2027. It directs the Board of Standardizations to implement this.

That’s making me hopeful.

Also, note that the decision is from 26.03.2025, so maybe something more on it can already be found by now…

Thoughts on how to make this happen:

• Whenever a shopowner is already critical of Trump, call them and suggest it directly.

• Ask your local cashiers and other store clerks how come the prices rose, and whether that really is all tariffs. Again and again. And ideally so that other shoppers overhear it.

• Make angry social media posts explicitly asking the same, explicitly tagging your local store and/or the chain to which they belong, and muse about looking into their competitors.

This is a huge opportunity. All of us Linux geeks now need to be on mainstream social media platforms and actively seek out and help everyone who expresses an interest in switching from Windows to Linux.

Just a celebration of using correct geographical names