Not just the EU, the rest of the world. The whole point of OSS was to distribute knowledge across all of humanity, not just be used as a way to make trillions of dollars in profits by a few billionaires working off the backs of OSS developers.

I started using Linux every day in 1999 and I’m glad I did.

Managing a Linux server is no different from managing a Linux desktop. If you were to consider the GUI nothing more than a display layer over the top of a server, you’d have a good mental map of how things work.

To get started, use the same desktop distro as your server and use their preferred or default windowing system.

Once you’ve familiar with it and the pitfalls it comes with, you’ll know which questions to ask for your next choice, but you will be able to build on what you already know.

My go-to tool of late is duckdb, comes with binaries for most platforms, works out of the box, loads any number of database formats and is FAST.

Wow.

I’ve been processing a couple of billion rows of data on my machine, the fans didn’t even come on. WTF are they teaching “experts” these days, or has Elmo only hired people who claim that they can “wrangle data” and say “yes” ?

“Your proposal is acceptable.”

If I wanted my computer to make a sound, I’d wet my finger and rub it on the screen.

Interesting question. I suspect that it’s similar (but different) to asking, should you watch a movie made by someone who later was found to be a criminal at the time that movie was made.

I suspect that the answer depends on your personal moral compass, the norms, values and standards you shape your life by.

There’s a famous speech by Australian Lieutenant General David Lindsay Morrison AO, who said:

“The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept.”

Source: https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Morrison

In other words, I think it’s up to each individual to decide how they feel about it and act accordingly.

But you asked how I feel about it.

In short, I think that we live in a civil society where the regime in that country is not representative of a world I want to be part of. As such, travelling there under the current regime is not something I’d contemplate.

I’d also point out that I feel the same way about visiting the United States of America under its current regime.

Finally, I suppose there’s an aspect of risk associated with visiting either country. I have no way to evaluate how that might compare with other extreme sports, but I suppose there’s a thrill that draws in some individuals, overriding any moral considerations.

Can I also please have your favourite colour, the name of your first pet, your first car, the place you were born and a copy of your passport?

If you open your CPU up to a jailbreak by being a dumkopf, does that really count as Open Source?

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/you-can-now-jailbreak-your-amd-cpu-google-researchers-release-kit-to-exploit-microcode-vulnerability-in-zen-1-to-zen-4-chips

Accurate, except the bottom right panel only happens in very limited circumstances, hardly ever after a year has passed.

Source: I’ve been writing software since 1983 or so.

This sounds like a trap.

It’s free unless you fail the test.

NOP ($EA) 😇

This is waaay too close to the bone.

Source: I’ve been writing software since the 6502.

I only noticed the € vs $ because I was searching for the case, so all good.

It’s telling that they continue to attract fines. I saw the ones you mentioned also but didn’t have the energy to start digging.

Despite assertions made to the contrary in this thread, I’m not at all convinced that they’re doing anything other than maximising shareholder value to the exclusion of all other considerations, including making a risk assessment in relation to paying fines versus compliance with the law.

Interesting, when you read that article, it says that Meta will appeal, searching for the GDPR fine and the appeal, all I found was more fines, but no records of the results of any appeals.

Also, it was €1.2 Billion, not $1.2 Billion.

Again, you vastly underestimate the size of Meta.

In the last quarter of 2024 it shows a net income of $20,838 million. A $20 million fine would change that 3 into a 1 and again, that’s net income for just for three months.

Source: https://investor.atmeta.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2025/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2024-Results/default.aspx

What are the legal implications of hosting this information in a different jurisdiction and are there places where this data would be legally protected?

Think about it in terms of risk / reward or if you like, shareholder value.

If the value of the data exceeds the fine combined with the risk of it being discovered, the data will continue to exist.

Factor in the cost of actually guaranteeing that deleting something across all online, nearline, offline and archived data stores and the chances of anything being purposely deleted are not high.

Accidental data loss, sure, purposeful data loss, I can’t see it happening.

And?

I’m going with … never.