EU Keeps Moving to Open Source, New Linux Smartphone  ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **France Massively Adopts Nextcloud** - France is migrating large public sectors to Nextcloud, reducing dependency on big tech and increasing funding and bug discovery for open source. - Nick says this could boost digital sovereignty but success depends on training and long-term management. Transcript: Nick So good news for open source, because it looks like a few French organizations and governmental bodies and regional bodies have started moving to Nextcloud to replace their proprietary Software suites. The Ministry of Energy Transition, which is the one in charge of making our energy production a bit more green, they've integrated Nextcloud and Colabora for 50,000 users in France. Then there's the Department of Ile-de which is basically Paris plus its wider surroundings. They also moved 550,000 teachers to Nextcloud as well, which is a lot. The city of Lyon migrated several thousand employees to a Nextcloud-based solution, and they're going to expand that to the entire region, not just the city of Lyon. And also the Ministry of National Education, which is the thing that manages all of our schools, high schools, universities, and the like, they already moved 330,000 employees and Staff to Nextcloud, and their goal is to reach 1.2 million employees in the future on Nextcloud as well, which is a huge chunk of public servants in France, by the way. There's also a partnership between Nextcloud and Smile, which is a big European open source provider, which I almost ended up working at at some point in my career. All in all, a lot of stuff happening in France, which is the country where I'm from and where I live, so that's cool. And it's also great for funding of Nextcloud because more organizations and more people using it means a lot more bugs being discovered, a lot more missing features being noticed, And so that can be funded and worked on. It also means that the entire country is slowly being more independent from big tech solutions, which is really cool as well. Hopefully, these transitions will stick over time. Hopefully, they're well managed with adequate training for the people being migrated to Nextcloud. We'll see in a few years if this sticks or if they end up going back to licking the boots of Microsoft. ([Time 0:01:38](https://share.snipd.com/snip/76d937bd-124a-433e-84f8-1387f6681991)) - **LibreOffice Cuts Administrative Costs** - A German state saved €15M per year by switching 80% of its administration to LibreOffice. - They plan to reinvest €9M of the first-year savings to finish migration and build more open-source tools. Transcript: Nick Wolfgang Holstein in Germany has shared some numbers about their migration to open source. According to their Minister for Digital Transformation, their move to LibreOffice alone will save them $15 million in 2026 and presumably each year after that. 80% of the administration of the state has now made the switch, which means no more Microsoft Office licenses. Only 20% of users now need those Office licenses for specific applications that couldn't quite be done yet with LibreOffice. And they're going to be investing 9 million euros of these first year savings into completing the migration for the remaining 20% people, and also they are going to develop more open-source Solutions for use in the ministry. This might seem like not such a big deal if you save 15 million, but you spend nine to complete a transition, but once the migration is over, it's 15 million each year of taxpayer money That can be used for more interesting things than paying Microsoft. And it is only at the level of one administration for one German state, around 30,000 PCs. Imagine what an entire country might save if, for example, they migrated all of their administrations to the same software. In France, we have more than 5 million public agents. A lot of them might not use computers daily, but I would wager at least half of them do. If you migrated them all to Nextcloud, LibreOffice, and Linux, you would probably save a lot more than 15 million a year. ([Time 0:03:46](https://share.snipd.com/snip/84682fe9-14a5-469c-b83e-9d470b02b868)) - **New Sailfish Linux Phone Crowdfunded** - Jolla (Sailfish) launched a crowdfunded Linux phone with removable battery, 12GB RAM, microSD, and a privacy hardware switch. - Nick notes it runs Sailfish Linux, supports Android apps without Google Play services, and passed its preorder target. Transcript: Nick Maybe it's good, but I would assume it's the usual political opposition in every country, just saying that everything that the other side did is garbage and everything they proposed Would have been way better so yeah now Yola the Finnish company behind Sailfish which is a smartphone operating system they are launching or they have launched a new crowd-funded phone It has a fully removable battery 5g 12 gigs of ram 256 gigs of storage with a micro sd card slot plus a full hd AMOLED display, a 50 megapixel camera, and a 13 megapixel ultra wide, a selfie Camera in the notch above the screen, and a physical privacy switch to disable the mic, camera, Bluetooth, and various sensors, and it is going to be running Sailfish, which is a Linux-based Operating system. Alongside the phone, they'll also add Sailfish which is the latest version of that OS. It has no trackers, no data collection, and no Google Play services, although they do say it supports Android apps, but it is running Linux. It's based on Mego, which was a first-run Linux-based operating system for smartphones that never went very far, but they used that base to build their own thing, which looks really Good, at least on screenshots. It also comes with its own default set of apps. It has its own distinct UI. So the phone is on pre-order now. They will only make it if they reach 2000 sold phones, but they've already passed that number by quite a margin. ([Time 0:05:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0f5e9c9c-0775-4584-968e-9cc7d54577c9)) - **Cosmic/Pop!_OS: A Strong First Draft** - Cosmic and Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS released as a polished first stable desktop offering a middle ground between GNOME and KDE. - Nick finds it functional with customization strengths but notes missing polish and undercooked default apps. Transcript: Nick Maybe, maybe they will. Now, of course, this week, Cosmic and PopOS 24.04 LTS were released in their first stable version. I already made a dedicated video covering all the ins and outs of the desktop and also with a quick look at what the distro offers itself. But if you want the TLDR, it is solid enough. It is a first draft. It is a very good first draft with a solid desktop shell, great styling features, and a nice enough workflow to manage your Windows applications, installing stuff, jumping in and out From apps, searching in the desktop, all of that. It works really well. The default applications are definitely undercooked. They generally do less than their GNOME counterparts, which a lot of people already think is not enough. They do a lot less than their KDE equivalents as well, but that's to be expected for a first stable release. They will obviously improve upon that as time goes on. In terms of options available for tweaking the layout, tweaking the theme, customizing things, it's a nice middle ground between GNOME and KDE. It's not quite on the level of something like Cinnamon, but it's already very close. It does have fewer settings than GNOME in some specific settings area, but it does have a lot more layout adjustment, customization, and theming options than GNOME offers by default. It also lacks a bit of polish. Animations are missing in a lot of places on the desktop. You feel that stuff is just popping up in front of you instead of being animated. I would love to see more animations that you could obviously disable with a toggle, I guess. HDR support isn't there. Some stuff is a bit jittery, is just moving on screen a lot. For example, resizing a panel doesn't smoothly do it. It just removes the panel and re-adds it with the new size. There are some corner radii not being quite the same on all parts of the desktop, some theming options can cause problems as well, but generally it's a very good first version. Applications made for other desktops can also look quite good. GTK and GNOME apps will adopt the color scheme that you set in Flatpaks and in apps from the repos. And Pop! OS itself is Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, but with a newer kernel, newer drivers, added repos to add newer versions of certain apps, FlatHub, and a Flatpak remote for Cosmic apps. So you can use it on recent computers without being afraid of having way too old versions of anything. And it also will be updated on the fly. So it looks pretty good. In short, it is good. ([Time 0:08:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/84332603-a48e-4dce-9f81-6064fcdbe894)) - **KDE Hits Major Fundraising Milestone** - KDE raised over €280K this year, increasing funds for contributors and infrastructure. - Nick credits KDE's stability and modern polish as reasons it merits strong community support. Transcript: Nick Now still on the topic of desktops, KDE's fundraising efforts have been a massive success this year once again. They've raised more than 280,000 euros at the time I'm recording this and this includes more than 100,000 euros in yearly donations in the first five days, which is huge. Now, as usual, this money is used to keep KDE independent, to pay contributors on the desktop and the KDE apps, to maintain the infrastructure, all of that stuff to just make sure that KDE can keep going and keep evolving. When you donate, you can also decide to adopt an application, meaning your name will be listed on the applications page as a supporter, and to make sure that all the apps can be equally Served and supported. Only five supporters can be attributed to a single app. It's really good to see KD doing so well. Last year, I think they raised something like 165,000 euros, so it is already way past that for 2025. I think it's really cool. KDE deserves it. There's no denying that the current version of KDE is absolutely fantastic. The buggyness of the past is just gone. There are still some bugs because it's a major project, but it's just extremely stable in my experience. The applications are getting better. The interface is getting better. They have cool projects. It's just one of the best options out there currently on Linux alongside the other major desktops. ([Time 0:11:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/874ff578-f2ef-4ae7-8db8-e63c67e51ff4)) - **Proton Expands Encrypted Office Tools** - Proton added Proton Sheets to its encrypted office suite with real-time collaboration and ODF support. - Nick praises Proton's progress but wants a native Proton Drive client for Linux to complete the ecosystem. Transcript: Nick And I think they truly deserve that kind of funding. Now, if you use Proton, the email service and drive and whatever else, and not the compatibility layer for gaming, they are fleshing out their office suite. They already had Proton Docs, which was an alternative to Google Docs, encrypted and private, and now they launched Proton Sheets, which does the same thing for spreadsheets. It is accessible through Proton Drive. If you have a Proton account, you'll see a button there. It is being rolled out to users progressively, and it does support real-time collaboration. It supports Excel files and CSVs, but I didn't check it. They have open document format support. It supports charts and graphs and a variety of formulas. It is end-to encrypted, and of course, it is free to use with a Proton account. It works in any web browser, although it will warn you that the window is too small if you try to access it from a small screen, which can be annoying because if you see that message, you're Locked into view only mode, which prevents you from making quick edits on a portable device. That's kind of sucky. Now, personally, I love everything that Proton does. They are a regular sponsor of the channel, not of this specific video. But the only thing I'm really missing from them is that freaking Proton Drive client for Linux. Once they release that, I can move everything to Proton and stop worrying about trying to build my own digital ecosystem or whatever. I can just use Proton Drive. But right now, no Proton Drive client on Linux is making it hard to fully use their services. So that's a bit annoying. Hopefully, they're working on this. ([Time 0:12:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6f0a9101-69b3-4ba2-8b11-f80f1528f430)) - **Ubuntu Adopts Vanilla GNOME Styling** - Ubuntu will move closer to vanilla GNOME shell styling by layering overrides on the default stylesheet to reduce breakage. - Nick expects the look to stay familiar while reducing maintenance burdens and bugs. Transcript: Nick Ubuntu will apparently try and move closer to vanilla GNOME in terms of their shell theme. Now, don't worry, this doesn't mean they're going to adopt the GNOME color scheme and full theme it just means that they're going to change how they add their own changes onto the gnome Shell style sheet because currently they built an entirely custom style sheet for the gnome shell the problem is every minor or major version of gnome means they have to rebuild this Entirely and if they miss something it can be completely broken on the desktop or it can just not look right or not work at all. So instead what they'll be doing is moving to using the default style sheet and tack on some changes on top. So they'll use symlinks to point at the default style from their own style so they only have to override a few things and they don't have to maintain a fully separate file. The look won't change much this way. They will keep their own font. They will keep their smaller padding compared to what GNOME offers. They will keep their orange accent color by default. All of that but they will adopt the default GNOME rounded corners in the shell. The button spacing that GNOME shell uses, and also the more contrasted colors. It also seems like they're adopting GNOME's font weights as well in shell dialogues with more things in bold where Ubuntu previously used normal weights. Now the Yaru theme is community-based, it's not made by Canonical, so I would assume they don't have that many people working on it, and so just having a subset of modifications that You can use to override the main theme is less risky and less complicated than maintaining an entirely different stylesheet. ([Time 0:14:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a71ceab6-8774-428a-a921-08329904bb9c)) - **Two Ubuntu Flavors Lose LTS Status** - Ubuntu MATE and Ubuntu Unity will not be LTS in 26.04 due to lack of contributors and quality assurance. - Nick notes the flavors may still release but won't carry LTS guarantees unless more volunteers help. Transcript: Nick Still on Ubuntu though, it looks like two of the Ubuntu flavors will not get that LTS status for the next version which is 26.04. These are Ubuntu Mate and Ubuntu Unity. Both of them apparently have problems with finding contributors to maintain the level of quality and testing expected from an LTS. Ubuntu Unity already missed their 25.10 release since they had too many bugs and no one to fix them and it seems like this will not be fixed for 26.04 either so they just won't be able to Maintain that LTS status. As per Ubuntu Mate, it had never missed a beat until now but again the lack of contributors for that desktop and that version of Ubuntu makes it difficult to maintain properly and ensure The LTS status. Now, that could change in the future if people step up and want to help. It doesn't mean that they won't have a release at all for 26.04, although I would expect Ubuntu Unity to not really be able to do it either. They just won't be labeled LTS. Now, that doesn't mean these flavors will entirely go away or that these desktop environments aren't flourishing on other platforms and other distros. ([Time 0:16:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6db94188-ce0f-493e-b8e7-d467cabae5a7)) - **libxml2 Left Unmaintained** - libxml2 is now marked unmaintained with known security issues, creating widespread risk across Linux. - Nick warns this highlights ecosystem fragility and the need for new maintainers or forks to patch vulnerabilities. Transcript: Nick LibXML2 is now unmaintained. This is the standard library that most desktop environments, most configuration systems and most Linux apps use to process documents or config files on Linux. It is shipped by almost all Linux distributions, and there are a ton of other packages that depend on lib.xml2. And now its sole maintainer has stepped down from the project, and the project is marked on GitLab as unmaintained, citing it has known security issues, and that it would be foolish To use it to process untrusted data. This is a big bit of bad news, obviously. This thing is everywhere. It currently has vulnerabilities that will be left unpatched until someone can take ownership of the project or forks it, and then that fork would need to be adopted by most distros As well. Now, that's a shame, but it does outline the fragility of the Linux ecosystem, its usual XKCD meme where the entire internet infrastructure rests on one single piece of software maintained By one dude in the middle of nowhere except this time it's just for Linux. ([Time 0:18:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/123c7701-37a9-4a68-ba49-71684a1929d9)) - **HDMI Forum Blocks Linux HDMI 2.1 Support** - The HDMI Forum blocks HDMI 2.1 support in open-source AMD drivers by denying license terms for public implementations. - Nick criticizes the Forum's restrictions as corporate control that prevents Linux from using available hardware features. Transcript: Nick Another bit of bad news for Linux is the HDMI forum is still a terrible organization. They are blocking the ability to support HDMI 2.1 on Linux through the AMD GPU open source drivers. Valve is obviously trying to get that to work because they're going to have an AMD GPU in the Steam machine and they will have the hardware to support HDMI 2.1. HDMI 2.1 is very useful if you want to go higher than 60 frames per second, higher than 60 hertz refresh rate on a 4K image. You can do it with something older than HDMI 2.1, but you'll have to compress the image, which obviously results in noticeable artifacts and isn't as good. So Valve is trying to work it out. The problem is the HDMI forum refuses to accept any of the code that is being submitted to them that would add that support to the open source AMD GPU drivers, because they only grant licenses Under very strict conditions and they seem to be under the impression that if open source code includes support for it and is visible to everyone then it will basically disclose the Spec to everyone and they will lose control over it. This is not a problem for example for Nvidia drivers because most of that implementation can be done in the proprietary GSP firmware instead of being in the open source driver itself. So as usual, it's corporate greed, it's idiotic notions that will prevent us Linux users from having nice things. I personally don't even care, I don't have a monitor capable of doing higher than 60Hz at 4K, I game on my TV, but it's 60 hertz so I don't give a crap personally. It's just super annoying as a concept to be limited when you have the hardware, you have the developers willing to build the code and then there's just an entity doing nothing saying Nah I don't think so. It's just super annoying. I don't even know how it is legal to have those kind of practices, honestly. The HDMI is on literally every single monitor sold and every single GPU sold. It should not be controlled by an organization that decides who gets to implement the spec and who doesn't. ([Time 0:19:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1cb0ce1f-3b25-460a-8dca-efa6fa3e62ba)) - **D7VK Brings DX7 To Vulkan** - D7VK 1.0 brings a Vulkan translation layer for DirectX 7, improving performance for many old games. - Nick sees this as part of a trend where Linux translation layers may eventually outperform Windows for legacy titles. Transcript: Nick And to conclude today's episode, we had DXVK for DirectX 9 to 11 support on Linux. We had VKD3D for DirectX 12 support. And now we have D7VK, the same type of translation layer, but obviously for DirectX 7 games being translated into Vulkan. It is the first stable 1.0 version of that library. It was released this week, and as they say, is production ready now whatever production ready means when it comes to old ass video games. Apparently what they call well behaving DirectX 7 games will now work without any issues but as they say not all bugs are fixed. The number of games that used DX7 and did some really weird stuff with the API is quite high, so not every game will work better with D7VK than they did with the basic Wine D3D API. Still, in some benchmarks like 3DMark 2000, D7VK gets almost triple the score of Wine D3D, so I guess it could definitely help to make all the titles run much better in some cases. Although, again, computers that are able to have a Vulkan support were probably already able to play those DirectX 7 games at full resolution, full details and full FPS. Because those games are extremely old. But it doesn't hurt to have a newer library to support that kind of stuff. Now, there are apparently some other issues on Wayland. There are some missing features from DirectX 7 in D7VK. In short, it is a first release, but it is cool to have the option. I think at some point, Linux is just going to be better at playing the vast majority of Windows games than Windows itself, because generally when a game runs, it runs better on Linux, It is smoother, it has better performance, and all the titles just run on Linux at all, altogether, because on Windows 11, a lot of those DirectX 7 games will just never even start, because The OS has just changed too much and hasn't kept compatibility with it. Whereas on Linux, you can just play them, even though they were never built for the system. So that's still amazing to me. ([Time 0:22:04](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a5fbad2e-6071-40ad-81f5-0f573ff0039c))