Will Canada finally get its ass out of the US pan and choose Linux?
And also build some redundant infrastructure so in the event of a US turning hostile (which it is). The post-WW2 alliance and 5-eyes network was made under the assumption that while Americans can be positively nuts, they won’t do shit like this.
But under Trump they proved they can. While Trump’s brain is mush, the movement won’t stop with him. The next president might be worse.
Funny story about how France has done it with their public services. The Police where frustrated with the upgrade to XP, so they got a distro developed for them and went Linux. After a Microslop representative told France that their data was not safe from the US CLOUD act, they set a deadline for all public services to switch over to this distro. Not sure if the deadline has passed but fairly sure it is coming up if it hasn’t yet.
Canada - especially the federal government - is balls deep in with Microslop. Policy makers are 100% being lobbied + no idea how to even navigate the clusterfuck of a tech stack that’s been built up over the decades.
But hey they going to keep mandating everyone to go back into the office and use Microslop Teams when US tech companies have already publicly said they cannot guarantee that Canadian data doesn’t get router through US servers. cue applause /s
Even if the data stays in Canada on Canadian servers using Microslop systems the US can still get it because of the US CLOUD act.
I do my best to avoid the big tech oligopoly, I did not really realize how much of my time and money was going to it until 2025 when I started getting off of it and deeper into the home labing stuff.
Yeah, it’s been a journey for sure. I think I started divesting myself from google in 2015 when it made a deal with us military.
Now I have my own calendar, contacts, maps & GPS, alternate email, YouTube alternatives, hosting my own music, etc etc.
It’s a lot of work. A lot. I jump through hoops to do stuff that is convenient for most.
However, when I hear about the latest misuse of private data, it feels worth the effort. If infrastructure failed in an apocalypse, I’d have my opus music library.
Ultimately, my data remaining in my control is my top priority. MY DATA, MY RULES.
It’s going to take years (and truckloads of money) to build domestic capacity to rival what the US companies currently have. And then you will have to pay that money back with a much smaller total potential customer base, while competing against established international competitors with deeper pockets.
It’s not impossible, and some players will absolutely be able to chip away at it, but it’s not going to be as easy or fast as people what it to be.
We don’t have to sell EXCLUSIVELY to a Canadian market. We can sell to other countries.
Parts of the EU are doing it.
Canada’s small population to serve inference to is an advantage to some extent in such a capex heavy space, but the money being committed federally is pretty tiny. I look at $3.3 billion committed for AI over 5 years when compared with $60B for new subs, $3B for Arctic patrol ships, and up to $27B on F-35s if we go through with that order and don’t think we’re being serious about sovereign AI at all. We don’t have to be an OpenAI spending half a trillion on data centers for training and inference to reach a market of a billion+ people, but $3.3B over 5 years is not being serious about carving out our own independence from hyperscalers.
I’m waiting to see what comes as a final version of the national AI strategy, but what my feeling for a while is that what we’re seeing with AI in Canada is very reminiscent of what we’ve seen in O&G, but even more lopsided. Lots of US ownership, raw material (both mineral and data) coming from Canada but with value-added processes owned by US companies, revenue that will flow south, and lock-in to their systems.
Hopefully that will not happen this time around, oh who am I kidding it is going to happen.
Burn it down and rebuild it.
