[kwlug-disc] Install fest? Is the timing right?

[Doug Moen]

Here are the Linux systems that I have installed on my devices:
* Mint, on my laptop and desktop
* GrapheneOS, on my mobile (originated in Toronto!)
* OpenWRT, on my router

"Buy Canadian" doesn't seem too relevant, since all of my hardware presumably comes from the U.S. and China. There are no chip foundries in Canada.

I could switch to a lifestyle where I only own stuff made solely in Canada, but that would entail giving up anything containing microchips, like computers and cars.

What I think about instead, to the extent that I am an activist, is freedom from American hegemony over Canadian life. That includes surveillance (surveillance capitalism), and thought control (via advertising, algorithmic social media feeds, and now Elon's new chatbot trained on American alt-right propanda). It includes appliances that don't function unless you are connected to the manufacturer's internet server, which is a form of surveillance, but which also allows the manufacturer to delete paid content or remove features that no longer match their business model. It also includes megacorps like Amazon and Walmart and Uber, that undercut local businesses using practices that should be illegal, and suck all the profits out of the Canadian economy, leaving us all poorer. And American middlemen that try to take a cut of every Canadian economic transaction.

So those are the problems I try to address in my software install and purchase decisions.


On Thu, Feb 20, 2025, at 5:16 AM, John Kerr via kwlug-disc wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> With pro Canadian and anti American sentiment at the highest it has been
> for years is this the time to revive the install fest?
> People maybe very receptive to any idea that keeps our dollars in Canada.
> Just a thought. What do you think?
> John
>
>
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