Couldn’t someone train a model on their university’s computing cluster, and share it? This would boost independent research on these things for sure.

On a more positive note: Saxony was the only federal state in Germany which, during times of more strict pandemic-related rules, allowed tracking exposure using the government-funded open source software instead of some app used by the other federal states based on stolen code whose only unique selling point was being advertised by a famous rapper…

And at the same time, Saxon universities coerce students into proprietary solutions, hiding behind university autonomy when members of the parliament criticize this.

The headline is misleading, as the article merely covers the decision of the Data Protection Commissioner of Hesse (one of Germany’s 16 federal states). Many other federal states have a similar tendency by now, but in detail it can be very different, and in practise, the Data Protection Commissioners can be very patient when it comes to giving schools additional time to switch to other solutions.

I didn’t mean running on the top of some distro, but “native” compatibility to existing packaging. Snap/Flatpack/Nix etc. can also more or less run on the top of arbitrary distros, but I think more acceptance can be achieved if the packages are (at least source-level) compatible to something existing and widespread and run as first-class citizens there.

Not saying that Guix isn’t innovative, useful or joyful, though. Just thinking that it might not work as an alternative for Debian in every case.

Will look into PureOS and Trisquel. Are their releases roughly corresponding to some releases of Debian or Ubuntu, respectively (e.g. package-version-wise)?

This might create a bias towards large vendors with huge human resources to throw at maintenance. But it should be illegal to sell devices and hinder third parties to fix bugs and develop security upgrades, for example through closed software platforms, drivers and interfaces.

Looks interesting, but to what extent is it compatible to other distributions, allowing for package-related or other reuse?

As much as an Ubuntu fork that removes that semi-proprietary snap stuff would be in a good position to build a user base quickly, so would now a Debian fork that keeps the on-device code licenses clean.

I understand the point, but I was thinking that there were already Linux distributions fitting into that niche…

Boycotting efforts against digital souvereignty alone is not enough. But the efforts to build a regulative solution won’t work without enough people willing to continue the boycott.