GNU/Linux is on its way to become “top dog” in desktops and laptops. I am super-happy that now, in 2026, we’re having those sorts of debates.

However, will the philosophical battle for Freedom be won too?

This is not a given.

Because “the politics like Daniel and you are fighting will worsen for a while,” as it was put to me. “Here there is a problem because there is not a single place (AFAIK) to learn even the smallest amount of ICT anywhere in the entire nation,” someone told me. “All have been replaced by Microsoft resellers [...] The digital sovereignty question is not a technical matter, but one of politics and specifically about how to purge the Microsoft resellers from their entrenched positions where they block teaching and learning of ICT across the EU…”

Consider for example what they do in schools (paywalled article). “Teachers talking about GenAI [sic] in schools more trouble than it is worth? [...] we are beginning to see signs that GenAI is starting to lose its lustre.”

Why did this nonsense manage to (or was allowed to) enter schools in the first place? What were they teaching and why? Who for?

“Is Microsoft in schools more trouble than it is worth?”

“Yes. It is,” I was told. “Are Microsoft cults in school administrations more trouble than they are worth? Yes, they are.”

We need to oppose not only proprietary software but also social control media and chatbots. They have no inherent value, they’re mostly instruments of indoctrination and “population control” or “social control” (the latter is less loaded a term).

It’s a famous line from a famous flick. We discussed numbers related to the waste of money associated with proprietary software and I said that if we assume 90% of “IT” budgets in governments (across Europe) are devoted to proprietary stuff, then we can deduce totals or estimates (rough totals) associated with such undesirable software which threatens sovereignty, both at a national and commercial level.

I also noted that GNU/Linux – a carrier of Software Freedom – is moving from underdog status to middledog [sic] – i.e. not top dog yet but heading there w.r.t. desktops and laptops. I said we need to cover this as it’ll happen once, and once only. Of course many sites will cover it and are already covering the growth of GNU/Linux, e.g. “Desktop Linux Just Cracked 10% Market Share – and Windows 11 is Mostly the Reason” (SoylentNews citing ZDNet).

ODAY will be our last “normal” day. After this we rest a bit, take it easy, and are formally or informally “on vacation”. It’s partly a mental state of mind… and partly a policy thing, which means not bothering with E-mail, all sorts of “work” (or “chores”). We’ll instead spend more time outside.

In September we’ll return (back to normal).

Like me, he quit all those things and will not ever bother with them. They’re a total waste of time and potential cause for problems.

Well, Debian’s financial strings now include Google as well.

Google controls a lot of the hosting of Debian. Yes, a surveillance giant was entrusted as such!

The friend continued.

“AFAIK,” he said, “the same thing has happened with in Ubuntu / Canonical and all the *buntu subprojects.”

GAFAM is poison to Free software projects.

There is nothing benign about conditional help.

oday was a very successful day because we put in our lawsuit (formal draft at this point) and have thus far heard nothing back from the firm that caused this problem. Tomorrow we go on holiday (none of this is critical to us, we’ll be back “in action” in September) and as noted earlier on it looks like the people who bully us are not doing too well (“Their papers and their envelopes became cheaper; they are budgeting their inventory in the office“). The papers associated with this lawsuit were sent yesterday by post to a law firm so sexist and insane that it can probably compel departing female workers (lots of that) to go on a stabbing binge/spree in Trafalgar or something.

I struggling to see why any women at all would still stay there. One client strangles women, another thinks stabbing is a joke.

I never chose to put myself in this situation, wherein my wife and I file 2 lawsuits in 2024, one lawsuit in 2025, and soon another one for this year.

Lawsuits are always like this. Or almost always. People who assume they’re entitled to something for ‘hurt feelings’ are often guilty of many things themselves. They tend to ignore what they did to “deserve” what they later complain of.

OMORROW we unofficially go on “holiday” or a weeks-long vacation, even if it is a stay-cation and most travel will be to places nearby. We don’t plan much shopping, windows “shopping” can be fun too.

A week after Rianne’s birthday it’ll be Bank Holiday, then we’ll be back to normal.

I plan not to check E-mail much. It’ll be as if I’m away somewhere in a distant island (like I was less than a decade ago).

With Rianne by my side, life is always a joy.

Keep it simple, stupid (KISS).

Being “offline” is not a state of misery but a sign of contentment.

In the Court, they have very few staff attending (minimal crew). So what happened?

Let’s consider what people said about IBM this week: “This is typically expense control because customer travel is charged against cost of sales while non customer travel is charged as a regular operating expense. It is a symptom of financial pressures due to sales numbers not as great as hoped…”

Another said: “Having $70B of your market value in one day is pretty much an indicator that the company is in serious trouble regardless of how much they try to explain it away. Surprises me that so many people at IBM are in a bubble and think they are working at a growing and thriving company.”

And also “that’s what dying companies do, start cutting back on all the unnecessary expenses” (yes, it said “dying companies“).

For what the candidates have to offer, specifically Daniel Pocock:

In attempting to find out how many “datacentres” per se are based in Manchester, I got this map:

What % of them perform actually useful functions? What % serve a foreign and maybe very hostile purpose? Should we mind?