I'd love to participate, but am 6 hours ahead of Ottawa time now.
However, the topic has been bouncing around the gray matter this
week. Here's the current distillation. It may be useful to help set
some directions for the meeting.
And it would be great if someone captured important messages of
the meeting, especially if some sort of ongoing effort to provide
advice is considered.
Cheers, John Nash
Moving away from US-based Internet services
John Nash
2025-2-2
The recent Linux-Ottawa discussion is mirrored elsewhere. For example,
some queries on National Capital Freenet Group Discussions about avoiding
Facebook or X.
The hostility of the current US regime does need an array of responses, and
individual Canadians can and should reduce their dependence on Internet
infrastructure that holds data in the United States, and in particular any
service associated with the very rich techno-oligarchs lining up with Mr.
Trump. Linux-Ottawa is well-placed to advise and help Canadians in this
regard. We should, at the same time, remember that at least half of US
residents are almost certainly as unhappy as we are. Our advice and our
presentation should be measured and open to positive cooperation. We will
win more friends with courtesy than threats.
To make the most of our discussions and information-sharing, I believe we
need to capture the key ideas. A wiki or something like it with some
active editing and moderation to ensure clear structure and purpose is
one approach. I've run several over the years, and am more than willing
to participate.
A danger is that one can try to do too much. Successful projects of this
sort need
- an outline of the purpose, with reasonable and transparent boundaries.
We can't do everything, and need to focus on the possible, with a list
of the services (web hosting, email, social messaging, blogging, ...)
to be considered.
- some description of potential solutions, preferably in general terms for
lay people with links to the technical details for those who can work with
them;
- a few recommendations, possibly noting that they are made at a given point
in time and may change going forward;
- some recipes for implementing these ideas, hopefully in a form useful to
general users.
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