Slashdot Mirror
French Lawmakers Demand Source Code
Interestingly, they also propose that software developers have a "right to develop compatible software." Of course, my right to make my software compatible implies your obligation to document your software and protocols so that I can make my software compatible.
Their proposed law "protects commercial publishers of proprietary software and developer communities of free software against anticompetitive strategies by enforcing in a practical matter the interoperability principle introduced in the European software directive of 1991. Therefore, Article 3 states that 'any individual or moral person has the right to develop, publish and use an original software which is compatible with the communication standards of another software.'"
(Any Francophones want to tell us what "moral person" refers to here? Corporations? Committees? AI software that passes the Turing test?)
That's a really nice troll, and I find it interesting that it got moderated up to 4. I guess that moderation shows how ignorant the average slashdot reader is. Anyway ... As for your question, when is the last time something you bought had the label "made in france" ... well that's a really good question and I suggest for example that you open up your ADSL modem, your DirecTV MPEG decoder chip (my uncle designed it ...), or examine closely some flash ram chips (all made by ST Micro). More generally, french economy is much more oriented towards export than the US economy. And oh yeah, our trade balance is positive ... you could compare this to the abyssal US trade deficit.
In a french society, there is no inherent visceral distrust of the government nor of the State. In France, there was no magna-carta to inflate the heads of power-hungry people to the point of totally subverting the State to the needs of the few powerful people who have enough wealth to run things as they whish.
In France, whenever the State or the Government thinks it can pull a fast one on the people, the people rebel and promptly overthows the culprit. This does a far more effective job than the labyrinth of byzantine anglo-saxon "checks and balances" that merely insure that only seasoned special interest group lobbyists will be able to steer things their ways in the ensuing political quagmire.
The french people therefore puts a lot of trust in the State, and the State has a therefore much larger role than in anglo-saxon societies. It is also an active economic partner; french people think nothing of having the State running profitable businesses (for one thing, 100% of their profits go back to the State, so that's so much more money that the people will have less to pay in taxes).
Even better, for the french, working for the State is not viewed as a bad thing; in fact, the State skims the best of the best in the schools, and offers free schooling in special schools that turn-out civil servants of exceptionnal ability, competence and talent. Recent French historry is peppered with thousands of such people of very humble extraction that rose to very influential positions, thanks to those State schools, and returned the favour with exceptionnal service to the State, for the benefit of the whole population, not just a few lucky shareholders.
And that's only legitimate: the taxpayers deserve the absolute very best people to work with their tax money.
This systems insure that anybody that has the potential for exceptional service receives the training for it, not just the very few whose fathers can afford college, or those who are lucky enough to brownnose themselves a scholarship.
The State is an emanation of the WHOLE NATION, and therefore it HAS TO WORK FOR THE WHOLE NATION. If it doesn't, that state is overthrown, either forcefully (1789, 1848), or peacefully (1959).
Of course the State has to stay in power!!! There is only one State, and it's disappearance means anarchy. But only something that is legitinate can assume statehood, and it is certainly not the unaccountable private corporations that are so aggressively vying for statehood can be legitimate.
You are incredibly blindfolded by the biggest anglo-saxon collective neurosis: the fear and distrust of the State. You are a perfect example of people being brainwashed by the continuous anti-State propaganda whose only purpose is to shrink the State so much that it will no longer stand in the way of big corporations who want to make the biggest amount of profit at the expense of everyone else.
Now, if there is no more State to make laws that protects you against greedy corporations, what will you do when some corporation decides that it wants your own house?
--
In France, the Government carefully caters to the needs of the people who elect it: the population.
And it is a good thing! This prevents the social structure of the society from crumbling to a state where nobody can expect help from other people, and cannot trust anybody else, including the State (like it currently is in the United States).
French society is a much more balanced society than anglo-saxon societies. The "Economy" may be important, but is is NOT THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN, as one may think by looking at an anglo-saxon society.
So, it is therefore a good thing that shareholders rights are not paramount before the rights of the majority of the population.
After all, that majority of the population are not entrepreneurs nor investors, and they elect a government that has to ensure that the State looks after their best interests.
Last time I checked, France *IS* *IN* *Europe*. And property rights are very well protected in France, as well as human rights are.
Now, what is more important, property rights, or human rights???
But the employers have, by law, to insure better working conditions than in anglo-saxon countries. Workers can work efficiently without having to worry about getting the boot tomorrow, even if they work satisfactorly. Good engineers can stay working as good engineers, without having to think about bailing out and starting their own upstart company, thus wasting the talent of a good engineer turned into a not-so-good administrator. It's not for nothing that Airbus is eating a whole chunk of american aerospace industry!!!! Ever flew in a Caravelle??? Rode in a Citroën DS??? Both (made 40 years ago) STILL run circles around the best american industry can produce TODAY.
The continuous refusal of britain to follow european social and human-right standards when it comes to human/property rights is quite indicative of the primitive state of anglo-saxon societies, where only the most powerful can thrive (at the expense of others), just like in the stone age.
A true display of blatant ignorance, and typical anglo-saxon ethnocentrism; a stauch refusal to consider viewpoints different from one's. France is a country that has been built as much upon intellectual property as "physical" property. It is not for nothing that french Culture is one of the richest in the west; for each Shakespeare, France will boast hundreds of Racine, Montesquieu, Molière, Beaumarchais, Rabelais, Voltaire and whatnot.
How many litterature nobel prizes???
How many science nobel prizes???
Surely such a country cannot blatantly disregard TRUE intellectual property!!!
In the 1960s, France was at the forefront of software developpment. Then the 1970's came along with american computer companies strong-arm tactics. French informaticiens never forgot how they lost their prominence to snake-oil. They had their lesson, and will never be caught at it again.
How about when private concerns compel close-source? Is that better? Will you have the balls to say that it is "well intentioned" towards the public good???
--
RMS would like this one in particular:
Q: Does this Law allow the use of Free Software?
A: Yes, all Free Software is compatible with this Law by nature since Free Software source code is public and since all communication standards can be derived from the knowledge of the source code.
Note the use of the words "Free Software" instead of "Open Source Software". They clearly are using "Free" to mean libre, rather than gratis.
Q: Isn't is sufficient to require access to the source code?
A: No, because on the one hand, access to the source granted only to public organisations is not sufficient to guarantee that communication standards used to exchange information with citizens are open communication standards. Moreover, on the other hand, it would be incompatible with private property and competityion [sic] Law to force all software publishers to give public access to the source code.
That's the real kicker. Revealing source code to a third party (as opposed to "Open Source") is not good enough--you need to make your standards open. Also, they don't force anyone to try to totally open their source. RMS is probably cringing here, but this point will go a long way toward making this more acceptable to developers.
France (not the people, but the government) has a few severe problems with it's economic system, and it is extending the same philosophy that caused these problems to software.
Not true. They have a nice 35 hour work week, their productivity is up dramatically due to enforcing it, and they use Linux for all the DSL access to their schools. If you're a Bill G type who wants to get rich on the backs of the people, you won't like them, but most Open Source coders don't have megabucks and aren't in search of them.
In France, the rights of a shareholder are minimal. Unlike in the US, where shareholder interests are supreme and codified into the law, France gives very few rights to shareholders - decisions to improve a companies financial health and the wealth of the shareholders take a back seat to worker "rights" to employment, etc.
And this is bad? I've owned French ADRs and I don't have a problem with the French way of doing things.
The result? France attracks little foreign investment, and investors in France do not invest domestically. The capital flows to countries where their property rights are protected (US, UK, Europe).
That was last century, ma vielle, massive inflows of capital to France are the hallmark of late 1999 and all of 2000. Wake up and smell the cafe au lait!
Thus France suffers from high unemployment and a lack of capital for new business start ups. When is the last time you bought anything that said "Made in France."
Last week, I did. And unemployment is dropping there as capital flows in. Try keeping up if you're going to invest worldwide, ok?
Now, they are extending this philosophy - a disregard for property rights - to the area of intellectual property.
If you mean a requirement that Privacy Rights of Citizens are higher than Property Rights of Companies, of course. And that's a good thing. Why should the EU follow the disasterous example of US Privacy Rights, which give away everything to corporations, including intellectual property that should belong to the people?
The same results will follow with software in France. It isn't that there is a problem with open source-like schemes. The problem is when the government compels is, no matter how well-intentioned.
I doubt it. I'm betting a lot of money that it's not so. And so are a lot of other worldwide investors, who think you're out to lunch on this subject. So, we have to accept a little bureaucracy, so what? At least we have an ordered and equal financial market with educated consumers. Not like Italy or Russia, where bribery is the way of the world.
Will in Seattle
I guess european countries are getting scared of the control US companies have on the software they use. Regardless how security-threatening the last MS backdoor was, it frightening for a nation to know that NSA or any other organization can put backdoors in Windows (or other software from any closed-source vendor). The US is not too worry, since a potential NSA backdoor would not benefit other countries, but the europeans are.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
The 17 may 2000, the french will vote for the creation of a "Conseil Supérieur de l'Internet" : Where all french Webmasters need and ID and administrativ authorisation to publish any information on Internet (web, ftp, irc, ...)
French Risk to pay 1200$ and/or 6 month of prison. If they are not autorised to publish information on internet.
More info (in french) at
http://www.article11.net/
and http://altern.org/defense/vote/
Close. In French law, "moral person" is opposed to "physical person" (ie, individual). So a moral person is any entity to which law applies but is not an individual: corporations, non-profit organizations, etc.
Since code is considered speech by some people, they're probably just making sure that it's all written in French, without any American idioms creeping into the language...
*ducks*
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
it would demand that software used by the French government have its source code available
In the French political tradition the government (== the state) is much more powerful and subject to less checks and balances than in the Anglo-American tradition. I see this as the continuation of the trend: the government is (slyly) trying to increase its power in the Information Age.
One, often useful, view on what's happening treats economic and political life as a huge power game, played by three kinds of players: governments, corporations, and individuals. Recently (second half of the XX century) the governments have been on the losing side -- their power vis-a-vis other players have somewhat declined. Since the first goal of any government is to stay in power, and the second is to grab as much power as it can get away with, this makes government unhappy. Add to this the (yet) unfettered freedom of the 'net and the governments start to look positively worried.
I don't see this (the French government claim to source disclosure) as a good thing. I am highly distrustful of governments and giving more power to them -- and this is a power grab by the government, make no mistake about it -- does not strike me as something to be applauded. I recognize that corporations are not all benevolent either, but I still think that governments are more dangerous.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Interesting bit:
, Olivier Ezratty, VP of marketing and communication for Microsoft France said that Microsoft was eventually ready to grant some independent technical authority full access to the source code of Microsoft software within government control. Also, Microsoft often makes custom versions of their products for large consulting companies in order to comply with their needs. Eventually, Microsoft is also free to publish a detailed and consistent documentation on its comunication standards so that they become open standards.
Glad to know that Microsoft will not be prohibited from publishing consistent and complete documentation.
But seriously, this sounds like a very good use of government power. I'd hate to see the government get into the business of dictating development techniques (much as I love open source), and this seems like a good way of encouraging open standards without deliberately antagonizing powerful companies like MS.
Can your IM do this?