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Wow, that article on the French is an evidence-free zone. The only actual French OSS project they mention is some middleware doodah that I've never even heard of. Trying to think of some myself... um:

1. Mandrake
2. ...er ...
3. ... that's it.

I'm sure there are others but none springs to mind.

Actually it's Mandriva. Using Mandrake is no more allowed, because of Mandrake the magician ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandriva_Linux#Name_changes )

Well Mandriva is just an example of software tagged "French" (not by Mandriva itself, but it's often referred as "French distro" or something).
As you guessed, we can find some other examples of software started by french people (videolan, Xfce, azureus, libcaca, sympa, frozen-bubble[2] etc.).

But is it important ? Is Mandriva really a French distro ? Mandriva now owns Conectiva (from Brazil) and Lycoris (from USA). So it's more 50% French, 25% US and 25% Brazilian. But wait it's using a kernel started by a Finnish guy, and a Desktop Environment born in (and still hugdely attached to) Germany...
You know were i'm heading. I don't think counting the number or "French OSS projects" is a good measure of how much France is involved or not in FLOSS. Perhaps we can find more valuables way to measure it. For instance by finding some projects where French people are really involved :

• Gnome :
  • http://www.gnome.org/~jdub/random/GnomeWorldWideHuge.jpg (I agree, we don't see much here. Just a bunch of points somewhere in West Europa)
• KDE :
  • http://worldwide.kde.org/pics/fullmap.jpeg
  • http://commit-digest.org/mappy/?view=2008-08-17&scheme=map_default&region=world&mode=embedded&standalone=no
• Debian
  • http://www.debian.org/devel/developers.loc (Same remark as Gnome)

We can also looks at studies and statistics :

• http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/Final-2b.htm#_Toc14094379
• http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-9992379-16.html

This part was only about FLOSS development, we could also study FLOSS use or lots of different things. Well, i think my post is long enough already (sorry when i start, i just can't stop) so i won't cover all this. One last thing : I have no clue about other countries, but there is a lot of movement around FLOSS : Events :

• RMLL/LSM (Libre Software Meeting) : http://2008.rmll.info/?lang=en
• Paris Capitale du Libre (Paris http://en.paris-libre.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&task=&id=0&Itemid=1
• Solutions Linux : http://www.solutionslinux.fr/
• FOSSDEM http://fosdem.org/ (That's true i lied again, it's not in France, but in Belgium. In Brussels, the French speaking part of Belgium)

There are also powerful Associations and usersgroups like April ( http://april.org/index.html.en )
Well April is Involved in so many things (promotion of FLOSS, lobyying, meetings with politics, action groups against tying, against treacherous computing, against software patents, against OOXML normalizat

Programmers and musicians have one thing in common, they mostly make their money from non-copyright sources. The vast majority of programmers (no, I don't have recent numbers to back it up) make their money doing in-house programming. The vast majority of musician make their money on live performance, even if the occasional album sale feels nice.

The interesting issue is what will lack. For musicians, the underground will hardly be affected, they make their money on live performance. The established names ditto, as well as merchandise. Even the "boy bands" and other label made concept will likely continue, with other sponsors (currently TV seems to love the process of creating pop bands).

For programmers, free software is already everywhere, about half of it produced by professionals according to the EU sponsored FLOSS report. Anything that can be created incrementally can be created by people paying for features the need.

For movies, outside the big languages (English, Spanish, Hindi) production is heavily subsidized, so generally not profitable.

Books will continue to be written (a writer has no choice but to write) but getting paid might be a problem (unless you are into propaganda). Again, for smaller languages government subsidies are already needed. In Denmark it takes the form of a library fee, authors of Danish language books gets a sum proportional to how many people borrow their books. Yes I know tax is stealing, but the majority in my country for some reason want to preserve our quaint language, even if it means higher taxes.

So what we lose out is international blockbuster movies (which is sad, while I likes Clerks which is the type of movie that would continue to be made, I loved Lord of the Rings), some types of "movie like games" that cannot be created incrementally, and maybe a system to pay authors in some countries. Music will be mostly unaffected.

AFAIK, the current state of the art of Go on computers is Goemate and Go4++.

GNU Go is actively developed, but it still does not match commercial Go software, ranking 1-2 stones weaker. It is rated from 8 to 9 kru, which is a weak amateur.

Computers have thus far not been too great at cracking go via the usual searching algorithms, as it has a high branching factor - starting at 361, much higher than chess! It is only recently that Go programs have even begun to achieve low levels of competence. Besides the limited searching and pattern recognition of current software, future programs may improve by decomposing Go into 'subgames', allowing it to be more readily attacked.

The number of job postings on Dice.com that required some type of Linux expertise increased 190% over the past year to over 2,200 positions.

Not to pooh pooh this kind of increase, but it isn't as cool as jobs actually doing Linux development, or other OSS development. That would be even more exciting. Just because a job has need for Linux experience, doesn't mean that you'll actually have time to work on your favorite OSS project as part of your work. It may just mean that the company is using Linux to power some solution that you'll be working with.

On the other hand, I've seen data that does show that more developers are getting paid for OSS work. I would like to see a 190% jump there next year.

CKO

If we learn anything from the likes of Microsoft, I hope we learn a little about self-promotion.

No. Those guys have families to support. 78.9% of open-source developers aren't even married, and it's quite unlikely that they have significant family financial support responsibilities otherwise. India is another story. They already have people to provide for, so they're not overly concerned about the needs of computer users everywhere or whatever piffle.

I think clearly there is some serious thinking going on in Government circles about Open Source and technology projects. Has anybody looked at the EU guidelines? They've even set up a special body to promote open and interoperable stuff across the EU... More stuff

"In both situations, it is less important who wrote the code than who was the central motivating factor in the creation of the phenomenon."

Please, don't bullshit. There are a lot of motivating factors for writing free software, from ESR's cathedral and the bazaar to the freeing of mozilla to just the simple fact on how much Windows sucked at the time. Giving Linus undue credit in this regard is merely dishonest.

".... This is probably because RMS's motivations are morally dogmatic, where as Linus's are practical/hedonistic. You can be a communist and like Linux, but you don't have to."

First, look up dogmatic and see if that is really what you mean.

Second, read this from here:

To provide more freedom in software development and to serve as an institution where knowledge can be exchanged are the two most pronounced purposes of the OS/FS community, followed by the provision of more variety of software and by support for innovations, which are very similar items. Thus, we witness a clear coherence with the otherwise mentioned motives and orientations, the strong interest in skill improvements and a strong wish for a large variety of software products, which apparently is considered as a value itself. It is noteworthy that all material or hedonistic interests are clearly outplayed by these items.

Read the rest of the study itself here. What they found is that most people who write free software do it for the "dogmatic" reasons Linus seems to despise so much. Certainly, its not an overwhelming majority--but the point stands: without RMS, free software would not be anywhere near as important or complete, nor have as many developers, as it has today.

Not that even a majority of these people agree with RMS in every way. But, for a movement to sustain itself, there needs to be something more than a "cult of personality". There needs to be something real to work towards--a lofty goal.

I suppose I should stop here. The study really should speak for itself. But there is no doubt in my mind, no matter how unpopular it may seem, credit is certainly due.

"In both situations, it is less important who wrote the code than who was the central motivating factor in the creation of the phenomenon."

Please, don't bullshit. There are a lot of motivating factors for writing free software, from ESR's cathedral and the bazaar to the freeing of mozilla to just the simple fact on how much Windows sucked at the time. Giving Linus undue credit in this regard is merely dishonest.

".... This is probably because RMS's motivations are morally dogmatic, where as Linus's are practical/hedonistic. You can be a communist and like Linux, but you don't have to."

First, look up dogmatic and see if that is really what you mean.

Second, read this from here:

To provide more freedom in software development and to serve as an institution where knowledge can be exchanged are the two most pronounced purposes of the OS/FS community, followed by the provision of more variety of software and by support for innovations, which are very similar items. Thus, we witness a clear coherence with the otherwise mentioned motives and orientations, the strong interest in skill improvements and a strong wish for a large variety of software products, which apparently is considered as a value itself. It is noteworthy that all material or hedonistic interests are clearly outplayed by these items.

Read the rest of the study itself here. What they found is that most people who write free software do it for the "dogmatic" reasons Linus seems to despise so much. Certainly, its not an overwhelming majority--but the point stands: without RMS, free software would not be anywhere near as important or complete, nor have as many developers, as it has today.

Not that even a majority of these people agree with RMS in every way. But, for a movement to sustain itself, there needs to be something more than a "cult of personality". There needs to be something real to work towards--a lofty goal.

I suppose I should stop here. The study really should speak for itself. But there is no doubt in my mind, no matter how unpopular it may seem, credit is certainly due.

You can see here where it was announced (there are more, but that's where I know of).

OTOH, if you have a look at other surveys (WIDI -
final report), you'll see that Debian is among developers the preferred distribution. WIDI was announced in Slashdot (main page), Heise.de and several other news sites that aren't related to the Debian project.

Patient: Doctor... I seem to have a problem with my teeth.
Doctor: Yes, what is it?
Patient: I have his nagging pain here, is there anything you can do?
Doctor: Let me see... HOLY CRAP! (cough) Well uh... let me put it to you straight. You seem to have a Gnome stuck inbetween your teeth. I'd get the FLOSS out, but I don't think it'd help your problem. Perhaps we should knock your teeth out and replace them all with KDE bridges.

Only one in a hundred, if Rishab Ghosh's FLOSS Survey is a representative sample.

Only one in a hundred, if Rishab Ghosh's FLOSS Survey is a representative sample.

click here to see how many of the open source developers are male.
Where are the girls at today?