- Yes. I think big players in Linux should start supporting core functionalities in GNOME and KDE, and make it polished for laptops and desktops and that would be very cool. For a long time, KDE had a problem of having too many things under its umbrella. Now, with separation of Plasma Desktop and Applications, focusing on Plasma Desktop and KDE PIM should be a good step.
- Kind of ties to the old point: KDE on Wayland does this extremely well.
- You're back to 20 years because problems are exactly from 20 years ago. Vendors refusing to support linux with d rivers.
- Audio filtering? Interesting. I know people who use Pipewire + Jack quite reasonably. But may be you have usecase I am now aware of? Would be happy to hear some.
It would help if Gnome wasn't so hostile towards proper cross-DE interop. A famous quote by a Gnome dev goes, "I guess you have to decide if you are a GNOME app, an Ubuntu app, or an Xfce app unfortunately"
They seem to genuinely believe that their way is the right way and everyone else is "holding it wrong" so there's no need for things that would make cross-DE apps easier (or even possible).
It's desperational. The desperation of not having to lose any contract. The desperation of being just one bad year away from being on the streets and having to live a terrible life (no food security).
For students, often there is no pathway to actually become good due to lack of resources. So, the only way is to fake it into a job and then become good.
If you have to setup a company today, and want the easiest path to EU-wide SaaS, probably Estonia is the way to go, very easy for EU citizens (don't know how the experience would be from outside, if it's even possible).
Checking the requirements, it seems to me that any "first world" citizen would encounter a low barrier for entry, with exceptions for Russians ("second world" citizens).
Avoid Luxembourg like the plague unless you are a company like Amazon. And even them are making a massive mistake form a governance and risk management point of view of being based there. But they have their tax deal...
- They are optimized for Big funds, Holding structures and Multinationals
If you are a bootstrapper, or small company or any early
stage startup, the ecosystem works against you.
- Setup costs are absurdly high if you include Notary
around plus possibly Lawyer, Bank onboarding
plus accounting you are looking at burning €10k to €20k
easily before making a cent.
- The scourge of the state Fonctionnaires. Untouchables and incredibly well paid state employees. One told me would take care of my long delayed VAT returns... AFTER they would return from their long summer holidays in Switzerland ...
- It only works if you have some special deal like the famous Mr Marius Kohl also known as Monsieur Ruling used to do...
"Leaked Documents Expose Global Companies’ Secret Tax Deals in Luxembourg"
https://www.icij.org/investigations/luxembourg-leaks/leaked-...
- Banks will treat you like a criminal by default and assume, you are laundering money, or hiding taxes and you are compliance risk. They have extreme KYC requirements, and do account freezes for trivial reasons.
- Accounting is rigid, expensive, and slow. Taxes are not low in practice. On paper, it all looks good, but in reality they have the Corporate tax and municipal tax. Many complex withholding rules and limited deductions unless
structured perfectly.
- The legal system is slow and formal. Everything takes a lot of time
and a LOT of paperwork with more costly intermediaries. Small changes
like directors, statutes will force Notary, Formal filings, Delays.
- The ecosystem is completely closed and relationship driven and the few startups
like Talkwalker and Doctena are coming and financed from local families.
Luxembourg runs completely on local networks and specially reputation over
merit. If you are not local, from finance, or law or government circles you are
invisible.
- Incredibly promiscuous relationships between the banks, law and legal professions, with a permanent revolving door between local companies and banks management and government officials. We are talking about less than just a few hundred people. This means Luxembourgeois families with long term historical relationships. Good luck on any legal or business dispute between you...and a local, who is a cousin from the local judge or government official....
I have had the chance of setting up and running companies in many countries. Specifically for Europe, currently I would suggest as two best options right now: Estonia and the Netherlands. Avoid France, Luxembourg and definitely avoid Germany.
Wow thanks for the long reply, unfortunately many if not most of your points are common in all of Europe. I asked you to clarify because I am not only curious about the topic but I strongly believe that these issues should be talked about way more frequently and reach when possible the general population.
Most people are completely unaware of the risks and difficulties of running a company in our countries.
In Italy for example the tax agency operates on a model that is often no different from extortion and innocent people can suffer greatly because of it, I have seen it happen.
I am skeptical that EU Inc will solve all the main problems or even that it will become reality at all but let's see.
> Banks will treat you like a criminal by default and assume, you are laundering money, or hiding taxes and you are compliance risk. They have extreme KYC requirements, and do account freezes for trivial reasons.
I see that everywhere though; my banks in my birth country NL, one of which I have used since I was born (my parents made an acc obviously) half a century ago treat me like that every year. Achtung! We are not sure who you are, provide a lot of paperwork or else! Worse even in other countries. And they are all very afraid of US residents.
Yes. This has long being the case. Cities with national monuments used to enforce "only eletrical taxis" rule near the monuments to protect them from pollution and this was successful.
This is a very Reddit comment. You can move to Oklahoma and get a brand new construction house for under $300k. But you won’t, because you want to live within an hour or so of the same dozen major US cities everyone else wants to live in close proximity to.
The houses as a structure aren’t going up in value (any more than the price of construction materials and labor has). It’s the land that’s appreciating faster than inflation in most cases you’re complaining about.
Win XP was excellent, as was Win 7 I thought. However, since then KDE has in my opinion, gone even further and become even better. So, the peak is not gone, it has just moved to KDe.
They do have a culture of silos and secrecy where employees are not allowed to talk to each other. This is actively enforced to prevent leaks but this also gets you this.
- Kind of ties to the old point: KDE on Wayland does this extremely well.
- You're back to 20 years because problems are exactly from 20 years ago. Vendors refusing to support linux with d rivers.
- Audio filtering? Interesting. I know people who use Pipewire + Jack quite reasonably. But may be you have usecase I am now aware of? Would be happy to hear some.
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