French Lawmakers Demand Source Code

Three French members of Parliament have proposed a law to "increase liberties and consumer protection, and improve economic competition in the information society." It wouldn't demand free software, or even open source software - it would demand that software used by the French government have its source code available, possibly under some kind of exclusive license, and more generally that open communications standards be used. Looks like they're trying for a practical solution to bit-rot, through the only effective means. Here's their press release and FAQ.

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?)

Comments

Good news... NOT

[Anonymous Coward]

(bad english! I'm a french webmaster)

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/

Re:Viva la France

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Actually...

[pb]

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.

The French

[Kaa]

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

sounds interesting

[eries]

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.