Technology

Germany has made ODF mandatory as the standard format for documents within its sovereign digital infrastructure. The decision is incorporated into the Deutschland-Stack, the framework governing the development, procurement and management of digital systems for public administration at all levels. This is neither a pilot project nor a recommendation from a working group, but a mandate backed by the federal government and the coalition agreement.

The official document has been published by the IT-Planungsrat, the central political steering body comprising the federal government and state governments, which promotes and develops common, user-oriented IT solutions for efficient and secure digital administration in Germany: https://www.it-planungsrat.de/beschluss/b-2026-03-it.

At this point, the question for all other European governments is clear: what are you waiting for? With this decision, the distinction between those who care about digital sovereignty and those who do not becomes stark.

Italy's competition regulator has fined online review platform Trustpilot and its units 4 million euros ($4.6 million) for failing to adequately verify the authenticity of reviews and for misleading consumers about how their services work.

Shares fell 2.5% in early trade.

The fine, imposed on Monday, comes months after short seller Grizzly Research accused Trustpilot of creating fake profiles that gave negative reviews and then pressuring companies to pay for subscriptions - allegations which the company rejected.

Wikipedia banned eight volunteer editors from making changes to articles on the Arab-Israeli conflict, following a ruling on Thursday by the online encyclopedia’s Arbitration Committee.

In June, Wikipedia editors targeted the Anti-Defamation League, declaring it an “unreliable source” whose data could not be relied upon when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

When Wikipedia first announced disciplinary action against the Wikipedia editors, the ADL issued a press release praising the decision “in the wake of a massive effort by anti-Israel editors to spread misinformation and hate across the platform.”

ADL listed all but one of the banned anti-Israel editors. It named “Iskandar323,” “Selfstudier,” “Nableezy,” “Levivich” and “Nishidani” as “being part of a bad-faith campaign in an attempt t o undermine the credibility of ADL.”

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/peertube/p/1903269/manjaro-trouble-germany-mandates-open-formats-google-destroys-sideloading-linux-weekly

Try out Proton Mail, the secure email that protects your privacy: https://proton.me/mail/TheLinuxEXP

Grab a brand new laptop or desktop running Linux: https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en

👏 SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:
Get access to:

• a Daily Linux News show
• a weekly patroncast for more thoughts
• your name in the credits

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment

Or, you can donate whatever you want:
https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp
Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/

👕 GET TLE MERCH
Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:41 Sponsor: Proton Mail
01:40 Manjaro community wants to split from company
04:51 Android dev verification is a nightmare
07:17 Google made the worst sideloading UX possible
09:23 Germany mandates the ODF format
11:08 Orion browser has a public beta
12:52 CachyOS is the most used gaming distro right now?
14:32 Firefox talks about their upcoming new features
16:43 GNOME 50 is released, and it's a massive update
18:13 Thunderbird shares their roadmaps 20:10 Playstation 5 runs Linux now
21:28 DLSS 5 gets massively bad reactions
24:58 Sponsor: Tuxedo Computers

Links:

Manjaro community wants to split from company
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/manjaro-2-0-manifesto/186171/28

Android dev verification is a nightmare
https://itsfoss.com/news/android-developer-verification/

Google made the worst sideloading UX possible
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/google-details-new-24-hour-process-to-sideload-unverified-android-apps/

Germany mandates the ODF format
https://linuxiac.com/germany-mandates-odf-for-public-administration/

Orion browser has a public beta
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/03/orion-for-linux-beta-release

CachyOS is the most used gaming distro right now?
https://www.xda-developers.com/cachyos-dethrones-arch-as-the-top-desktop-distro-for-linux-gamers-on-protondb/

Firefox talks about their upcoming new features
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/firefox-148-149-new-features/
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/meet-kit/

GNOME 50 is released, and it's a massive update
https://youtu.be/lrLlQlvHV1Q

Thunderbird shares their roadmaps https://blog.thunderbird.net/2026/03/introducing-our-public-roadmaps/

Playstation 5 runs Linux now
https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mesa-AMDGPU-PS5-Patches
https://x.com/theflow0/status/2030011206040256841

DLSS 5 gets massively bad reactions
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2026/03/gamers-react-with-overwhelming-disgust-to-dlss-5s-generative-ai-glow-ups/

#linuxdesktop #linuxdistro #linuxnews

In an obscure post, a Mozilla MLE announced a ClawBot ripoff specifically targeted at at tradespeople (electricians, plumbers, roofers, handymen) for help with administrative tasks like scheduling, explaining invoices, etc.

What is their project, ClawBolt? According to their website, it's a compilation of

• A flaky AI agent you run on your computer
• A Telegram chatbot to remotely control it
• A connection to OpenAI to parse all of it

This sounds like a dangerous project to target at tradesmen, doesn't it? AI marketing tells people that AI is smart and safe and powerful when it is anything but. If Facebook's top AI safety genius nearly destroyed her own email inbox, how will a plumber fare?

One of the features of ClawBolt is "memory," something that will store and possibly corrupt questions and answers like "What's Mrs. Johnson's address?" and "My hourly rate is $95".

But it gets worse: ClawBolt documentation says it can scan images to "get help identifying fixtures"

Remember the memes making fun of AI's inability to make wiring diagrams?

I can only imagine how bad this could make things for tradespeople - in addition to violating customer privacy, getting gaslit by a non-deterministic "memory" machine, and potentially breaking their work computers.

“I've been asked several times, are we still considering being in Israel? We are 100% in Israel. We are 100% behind the families there. We are 100% in the Middle East,” said Jensen Huang, as Nvidia moved to reassure employees and investors that the war in the region has not altered its long-term commitment.

Nvidia has significantly expanded its presence in Israel since its $6.9 billion acquisition of Mellanox Technologies in 2019, which established a major hub for the company in the country.

Today, Nvidia employs around 6,000 people in Israel, and the country plays a central role in the development of several of its key technologies, including advanced chips and networking systems.

The company is also planning a major new campus in Kiryat Tivon, expected to employ up to 10,000 workers. Announcing the project last year, Huang said: “Israel is home to some of the world’s most brilliant technologists and has become NVIDIA’s second home.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The war in Iran is exposing the world’s reliance on fragile fossil fuel routes, lending urgency to calls for hastening the shift to renewable energy.

Fighting has all but halted oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carries about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas, or LNG. The disruption has jolted energy markets, pushing up prices and straining import-dependent economies.

Asia, where most of the oil was headed, has been hit hardest, but the disruptions also are a strain for Europe, where policymakers are looking for ways to cut energy demand, and for Africa, which is bracing for rising fuel costs and inflation.

Unlike during previous oil shocks, renewable power is now competitive with fossil fuels in many places. More than 90% of new renewable power projects worldwide in 2024 were cheaper than fossil-fuel alternatives, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

In retaliation for the ongoing U.S.–Israeli war, Iran responded with a novel form of counterattack. For the first time in military history, private sector data centers came under deliberate attack.

In an era when companies known for e-commerce, social networks, and search engines have also become close collaborators with militaries, is bombing their servers fair game?

Three days after the U.S. and Israel began their joint bombardment, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched kamikaze drone strikes against Amazon-owned data centers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain that provide an array of cloud computing services to customers throughout the Middle East. The impacts and subsequent fires “caused structural damage, disrupted power delivery to our infrastructure, and in some cases required fire suppression activities that resulted in additional water damage,” according to Amazon, resulting in service outages across the region.

The motive behind the attack, according to Iranian state television, was not to block people from ordering groceries or posting to social media, but rather to highlight “the role of these centers in supporting the enemy’s military and intelligence activities.