France Considers Open Source

joestar writes "Reuters today announced that the French Government is considering Open Source Software adoption as an excellent alternative to reduce their IT costs. A cost reduction of several hundred millions dollars is planned by replacing proprietary licenses by Open-Source solutions. 'Microsoft must return to being one supplier to the state among others', declared a government Minister. France's culture, agriculture and finance ministries had already signed deals with Mandrakesoft for first Linux deployment tests. After Munich's new move in Germany, it seems that Open Source Software is currently a major movement in old Europe."

Comments

In case of Slashdotting..

[Anonymous Coward]

France Challenges Microsoft in Software Re-Fit Fri Jun 18, 2004 10:47 AM ET By Emmanuel Jarry and Jean-Baptiste Vey PARIS (Reuters) - France's cash-strapped government is giving alternative software firms the chance to win state business from Microsoft in a pioneering drive to challenge the U.S. software giant in the public sector. Civil service minister Renaud Dutreil told Reuters France wanted to use "open-source" software providers to resupply part of the almost one million state computers under a government cost-cutting drive designed to trim a bulging public deficit. "We are not starting a war against Microsoft, or against American companies in the software sector," Dutreil said in an interview. But he added that Microsoft "must return to being one supplier to the state among others." "The competition is open," he said. "My estimate is that we can cut the state software bill at least in half." At stake, in the case of office suite software alone, is around 300 million euros ($362.5 million) worth of software to be introduced to state computers over three years. Savings on operating systems could be of a similar order, officials said. France's conservative government is trying to cut costs as it seeks to rein in a public sector deficit which is set to bust the European Union limit of three percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2004 for the third year running. Open-source software -- uncopyrighted software which has no license cost -- like Linux, OpenOffice, Mozilla, Apache, MySQL and Evolution -- was "very credible," Dutreil said. Microsoft, which is appealing a European Union fine for breaching antitrust law, said it would seek to show the French government it could offer software at a competitive price. "In fact, open-source software is not free. It is very expensive because it shifts the cost to maintenance, services, integration and training," Microsoft France chief Christophe Aulnette said. Open-source software suppliers welcomed the news. "This decision will allow us to increase our presence in France," said Jacques Le Marois, president of the French open-source software company MandrakeSoft. "This will also help us sell our solutions to other governments," he said, adding that he believed the German, Israeli and Malasian governments also envisaged shifting to open-source software. France's culture, agriculture and finance ministries had already signed deals with MandrakeSoft, the company said. ($1=.8275 Euro)

Re:France Would Save More Costs

[JohnGrahamCumming]

if they scrapped their massive welfare state, their coddling of workers, and protectionism that hurts their citizens overall.

Switching to Open Source would be the least of the economic problems.

So how do you explain that France is a member of the G8, one of the largest economies in the world, a major player in aerospace (ever hear of Airbus or Ariane), major player in the oil industry, pharmaceuticals, an independent nuclear power, has a far better life expectancy than the US, lower obesity, a superb health-care system?

You roll out the old "big government" argument without considering the fact that France is not going the way of the Soviet Union, but is in fact a very healthy economy.

John.

France already uses open source

[danfairs]

For any of those out there who were at Europython in Sweden a couple of weeks ago can testify, Nuxeo have a large presence in the French public sector. Nuxeo's product, CPS, fulfils a similar role to Plone as a CMS. Like Plone, it's based on Zope.

In fact, I hear that it's got to the point where if you're planning a CMS project in Public-Sector-France-Land and you *don't* have a Zope-based product on your shortlist, questions are asked why... Corroborations, anyone?

Re:I think France got it

[arvindn]

No, they didn't say that very cool thing. The second quote was from Mandrakesoft.

Re:I'm not surprised by this.

[agent dero]

Keep in mind that for both World Wars, the 'Allies' were losing until shortly after the U.S. showed up ;)

Food for thought

Re:This is stupid....

[loolgeek]

I think it really shows how stupid some governments and corporate managers are when they actually have to form committee to decide whether or not to use open source. Instead of trying to decide whether to use open source why not try to figure out what problems you have, if and how a computing solution can solve those problems, what software is available to solve the problems, and then finally, and only if there are multiple solutions, decide which one offers the most benefit for the TCO. What'll end up happening is that France (and others) will move to an open source only solution and they'll end up spending more money trying to integrate an OSS solution than if those cheap asses just would have bought the commercial equivalent (eg Microsoft Office).

I agree with you OSS solution are not the silver bullet.

But, they did not say they will move to an open source only solution (or even partial solution). They just said they will now consider open source.
Microsoft solutions will still be considered.

The real stupid thing was to only consider close source (mainly Microsoft) before...

Re:Well, shoot.

[chris_mahan]

perhaps "source libre"

Libre in french (i'm french I know) means free as in speech.

Free as in beer is "gratuit", which is where the english word gratuity comes from. A freebie.

the advantage of "source libre" is that the english speaking world can understand it perfectly well.

Re:Can anyone quote accurate statistics...

[Hatta]

...concerning MS in Europe?

Sure, there are about 350,000 adult europeans afflicted with MS. By country it varies from between 5 and 150 cases per 100,000. Cultural and ethnic factors probably play a large role in this.

In Europe, MS is common in southern Scandinavian but not the north, in the Orkney and Shetland Islands but not the Faroes or Iceland, in Sardinia but not in Greece or Spain, and in Sicily but not in neighboring Malta.

Re:I think France got it

[saforrest]

Then there is world war deux, remember back to the afternoon of June 22, 1940. That whole armistice treaty you signed with germany to protect your collective french butts? Yeah, thanks for standing strong with us there.

Um, what the hell are you talking about?

First off, France had been invaded, its supposedly foolproof Maginot Line had been completely circumvented, and the population was fleeing before the German advance. Sure, they should have planned better, but at that point, what else was there to do? The later collaborationist actions of the Vichy government were dispicable, but to go on actively fighting would have been bloody ridiculous.

And 'standing strong with us'? You admit with the reference to the Revolutionary War that you're an American. So how hard were the Americans fighting against the Germans in 1940?

Oh, right. They weren't in until Pearl Harbor, a year and a half later. (In fact, Prescott Bush, whose last name you may find familiar, had his assets seized after the Americans entered the war because comparies in which he had an interest had funded Nazi Germany.)

Re:I think France got it

[lombre]

uncopyrighted software which has no license cost

This is an error of the reports/translators (i.e. they almost got it - as usual), the original quote from (reuters.fr) is

"La concurrence est ouverte", souligne le ministre. "Mon estimation est que l'on peut au moins diviser par deux la facture logiciel de l'Etat."

Il précise qu'il a rencontré de nombreux acteurs du secteur et estime que les logiciels libres, de type Linux, OpenOffice, Mozilla, Apache, MySQL, Evolution, constituent aujourd'hui une "solution très crédible", "en particulier en terme de sécurité", portée par des entreprises "solides et innovantes".

"Ce qui transparaît clairement, c'est que les solutions bâties sur des logiciels libres sont aujourd'hui devenues une alternative crédible à l'utilisation de logiciels propriétaires, aussi bien en terme de prix que de fonctionnalités", dit-il. "Je pense que ces logiciels méritent une place plus importante sur les postes de travail de l'administration."

This mentions nothing about uncopyrighted software