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

I think France got it

[SeanTobin]

Well, they almost get it. Example:

Open-source software -- uncopyrighted software which has no license cost -- like Linux, OpenOffice, Mozilla, Apache, MySQL and Evolution -- was "very credible," Dutreil said.

Well, there is a license cost, and it most definately is copywrighted. But monitarialy they are correct. Now, the very cool thing they said was:

"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.

BINGO! We have a winner! Evil country A develops software for a fraction of the cost it would normally take in the closed-source land, sells it to Good Countries B through T and V through Z, and makes more money than they would have been able to otherwise.

Now that is what the GPL is about. Saving money&time in development, making money in sales & support (of course I probably wouldn't want France supporting my KMissle Launch Control System), and giving back to the world an improvement on what they borrowed.

Re:I think France got it

[pavon]

The licence cost part is correct depending on how you look at it. When most people talk about software licences they are thinking of EULAs, which are supposed "licences to use". So what they are saying is that you don't need to pay someone to get a licence to use the software. Which is absolutely true - there is no cost, monitarily or in source, to use open source software.

Of couse we all know that you don't need a license to use software, just to redistrubute it, so those EULAs aren't really licences at all. They are just notices that say you have no licence to distribute, as well as an attempt to get you to agree to a bunch of things that probably aren't legaling binding anyway, since EULAs are not valid contracts.

Open source licences on the other hand are real distribution licences. But the only cost is when you want to redistribute derivitives works, in which case, the cost is the source to those derivative works. In the standard user's perception of "software license" there is no cost.

Just splitting hairs :)

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.)

Well, shoot.

[BitwizeGHC]

Now that the french have got their mitts on it... I propose we rename it to "Freedom Source"! ... What? Too Stallman-esque?

Re:Well, shoot.

[kfg]

There's always "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite the Source," which is quite a mouthful, so we'll just call it "LEFtS" for short, but that might be a bit too Dantonesque for some.

KFG

Ya know what Microsoft?

[tekiegreg]

You just quoted in the article:

"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.

The scary part is, I highly agree with that statement. Price alone is not a factor for people going to open source, perhaps I should enlighten you people.

1) The upgrade trap, perhaps if people could upgrade on their schedule instead of yours.
2) The whole OPEN SOURCE part, or if I need a feature added or changed, I'll find a developer to do just that...

Yes, to the Slashdot community, I know you all know the best reasons for going open source, however I'm worried that MS doesn't :-p and that could do them in (like it would be a loss???)

Re:Ya know what Microsoft?

[shis-ka-bob]

The fact is Microsoft software requires more maintenance. At least on servers, The Robert Francis group found that Linux requires far less admin time. This is discussed at zdnet . For a 'server unit' (defined in the report), the admin costs for Linux was $12,010 annually. The cost to administer Windows was $52,060 annually.

Microsoft likes to say "Linux is free like a puppy". I say, yes and Microsoft is like the purebred (add the 'b' word here if you wish) that costs a lot upfront and has congenital defects from generations of inbreeding. Sure, she is pretty, but shie is high strung you will spend way too mutch time and money fighting infections. Give me a mutt anyday; the mutt is not only cheap to aquirer, but more robust and better tempered. Saving money up front is only the start of your savings, the real savings is found in the maintenance costs.

Re:Ya know what Microsoft?

[thetoastman]

Hmmm, I suppose you've never looked at the cost of software maintenance, training, and software integration of Microsoft products.

Maintenence . . . . you have forced upgrades, required reboots (translates to downtime), and prohibitively expensive maintenance support costs.

Services . . . . I have yet to find Microsoft services capable of answering even the simplest of questions. For this I can pay a huge amount of money.

Integration . . . The key to any software integration project is the adherence to well-defined, published, and freely available standards. This is why the Internet works so well. This is why you can run SOAP and web services between competing vendors. This is why you can use XML-RPC and accomplish an amazing amount of integration. This is why EDI worked well in the transportation and distribution industry. This is one of the reasons OSI failed (standard costs were expensive).

The challenge with a Microsoft-centric solution is that it adheres to standards poorly if at all. And of course, like Cabletron (remember them, the networking company that eschewed standards for a proprietary management system) this will only be cost-effective in a single vendor solution.

Training costs for Microsoft are every bit as high as training costs for open source products. Many organizations don't train their users on Microsoft products, which is what Microsoft then uses as a training cost baseline.

If you have ever had to work with a reasonably complex Word document that someone else has created, you know what disaster this lack of training can be. Often it is easier to create a properly (?) structured Word document and paste in the contents rather than attempting to fix the original work.

In short, capital costs are lower, maintenance costs and schedules are business-driven instead of vendor-driven, services are better (would be difficult to be worse), integration is better, and training is a wash.

Another clear advantage with open source is that you can train your IS staff on principles and concepts instead of vendor-specifics. This means that when the next IT revolution hits, your staff will be in a position to take advantage of it.

It also means that your IS staff and business are insulated from capricious vendor changes that REQUIRE specialized and expensive training.

MS should make the customer the designer

[aim2future]

What MS need to assure is that MicroSoft finally will become a company that provides what the customers want. Today MS is among that line of companies pushing the customer to buy and not asking the customer what the customer want (I've heard from insiders how this works). A policy which will never work in the long run.
In the free software development the customer is also the designer, for the skilled ones, but why could not the customer also be the designer for the less skilled ones?
The reason that the free software development has been so successful is that the providers are also the customers and can continue develop the products. I'm not sure that MS has understood this simple fact yet.
MicroSoft should adopt to this idea, and in the long run they can become a very successful supplier of wanted software, designed by the customer for the customer.
/AIM

Reuters: You Fail It!

[JohnGrahamCumming]

From the article:

Open-source software -- uncopyrighted software which has no license cost

Wrong! Free and Open Source Software absolutely relies on a strong notion of copyright because of the need to protect (in this case preserve the freedom to modify) the software itself. Without copyright you have no way to actually license the software to someone else, and hence impose your specific licensing requirements (e.g. GPL).

That's partly why the term "copyleft" is so dangerous and should be stamped out. It's absolutely vital that people realize that F/OSS is copyrighted and under the control of an individual, or group or a corporation. The strength of F/OSS comes from the underlying copyright and the fact that it enables us to control the code.

John.

Not just use - develop with open tools

[xtal]

Microsoft development tools can cost some big money, and it costs money to stay on top of things. Countries that invest once in open source tools can use those open tools to develop their own in house software - for example, Le KMissile Destructo Fumer 5000. All of this can run on open platforms, some the KMissile system can have more resources put into the APPLICATION and USE of the tools, instead of getting new hammers and nails all the time.

Open source gives free tools to everybody. World class, kick ass tools. Do you know how much something as good as FFTW would cost to buy? More than my car! This lets you focus on using those tools to create value in the market - sucks to be in the tool making business, but overall it represents a boon. This is why so many people in the industry have problems; the value is not IN the IT, but what the IT enables you to DO.

Re:Not just use - develop with open tools

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

If you want higher quality, pay up for visual studio.

This is an obvious troll, but I'm going to reply anyway. What can you do with VS that you can't do with kdevelop? I've had considerably less problems with kdevelop (even ugly versions of old...) then I ever have with VS. OK, I've said in previous posts and I'll say again, I'm no code guru, but, I've had a MUCH easier time with GNU utils then anything from Redomd...

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.

Isn't it obvious?

[Three Headed Man]

All these countries are considering open source not so much because they may use it, but because they know they'll get some leverage against Microsoft. As soon as Linux was offered in Thailand, Windows cut prices on XP and office to $35. The best way to drive someone's price down is make them think they have to compete against a serious threat.

Doesn't make sense.

[Rhys]

Why are all these governments endorsing and planning to use OSS on one hand, and then passing retarded laws that could cause serious problems for OSS on the other? Hello Mr. Foot this is Mr. Hand and his gun to shoot you.

Translation issue

[loolgeek]

SeanTobin wrote:
-----------------
"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.

BINGO! We have a winner! Evil country A develops software for a fraction of the cost it would normally take in the closed-source land, sells it to Good Countries B through T and V through Z, and makes more money than they would have been able to otherwise.
--------------------

I think it is bad translation. "To sell" ("vendre" in french) could also mean "to convience" or "to promote", it does not mean necessary that money is involved.

Keyword: "Considering"

[nysus]

The article fails to mention that France would also "consider" Microsoft if the company counteroffered with a 75% discount. I think this is merely a bargaining ploy on the part of the French government. It's a smart thing to do, though, and anything that sucks cash out of Microsoft's warchest has to be a good thing.

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?

EU VS US Trade War

[CHaN_316]

I'm thinking the decision to move to OSS by France could be a geopolitical strategic move as well. A trade war between the US and the EU is almost certain to come, and it'd be in Europe's best interest to NOT be locked into software vendors from America. We are already seeing signs of the trade war, be it farm subsidies, technology standards (CDMA VS G3) (Galileo VS GPS), and genetically modified foods. In addition, we all know that the American-French relationship has seen better days.

Just because Chirac complimented Bush about American hamburgers (3rd paragraph) at the G8 summit doesn't mean all is well between the two.

this will be seen as an afront to capitalism

[xutopia]

No, the French aren't doing this to piss of the USA. They're doing it for the same reason many people use Open Source :

1. licence cost
2. mandatory and costly MS upgrade cycles
3. proprietary lock in
4. piss off Bill Gates

Re:Go Mandrakesoft!

[ErichTheWebGuy]

You can NEVER say, on slashdot, "I, for one" without welcoming some type of new overlord.

For example:

I, for one, welcome our new open-source overlords.
I, for one, welcome our new penguin overlords.

There. Now you know, hopefully you won't make the same mistake again :)

More info here

Europe vs. America

[Anonymous Coward]

from wsj.com June 18, 2004; Page A10

The growing split between the U.S. and Europe has been much in the news, mostly on foreign policy. But less well understood is the gap in economic growth and standards of living. Now comes a European report that puts the American advantage in surprisingly stark relief.

The study, "The EU vs. USA," was done by a pair of economists -- Fredrik Bergstrom and Robert Gidehag -- for the Swedish think tank Timbro. It found that if Europe were part of the U.S., only tiny Luxembourg could rival the richest of the 50 American states in gross domestic product per capita. Most European countries would rank below the U.S. average, as the nearby chart shows.

The authors admit that man doesn't live by GDP alone, and that this measure misses output in the "black" economy, which is significant in Europe's high-tax states. GDP also overlooks "the value of leisure or a good environment" or the way prosperity is spread across a society.
[Germany and Arkansas]

But a rising tide still lifts all boats, and U.S. GDP per capita was a whopping 32% higher than the EU average in 2000, and the gap hasn't closed since. It is so wide that if the U.S. economy had frozen in place at 2000 levels while Europe grew, the Continent would still require years to catch up. Ireland, which has lower tax burdens and fewer regulations than the rest of the EU, would be the first but only by 2005. Switzerland, not a member of the EU, and Britain would get there by 2010. But Germany and Spain would need until 2015, while Italy, Sweden and Portugal would have to wait until 2022.

Higher GDP per capita allows the average American to spend about $9,700 more on consumption every year than the average European. So Yanks have by far more cars, TVs, computers and other modern goods. "Most Americans have a standard of living which the majority of Europeans will never come anywhere near," the Swedish study says.

But what about equality? Well, the percentage of Americans living below the poverty line has dropped to 12% from 22% since 1959. In 1999, 25% of American households were considered "low income," meaning they had an annual income of less than $25,000. If Sweden -- the very model of a modern welfare state -- were judged by the same standard, about 40% of its households would be considered low income.

In other words poverty is relative, and in the U.S. a large 45.9% of the "poor" own their homes, 72.8% have a car and almost 77% have air conditioning, which remains a luxury in most of Western Europe. The average living space for poor American households is 1,200 square feet. In Europe, the average space for all households, not just the poor, is 1,000 square feet.

So what is Europe's problem? "The expansion of the public sector into overripe welfare states in large parts of Europe is and remains the best guess as to why our continent cannot measure up to our neighbor in the west," the authors write. In 1999, average EU tax revenues were more than 40% of GDP, and in some countries above 50%, compared with less than 30% for most of the U.S.

We don't report this with any nationalist glee. The world needs a prosperous, growing Europe, and its relative economic decline is one reason for growing EU-American tension. A poorer Europe lacks the wealth to invest in defense, a fact that in turn affects the willingness of Europeans to join America in confronting global security threats. But at least all of this is a warning to U.S. politicians who want this country to go down the same welfare-state road to decline.

Re:They're going open-source for the wrong reasons

[ultrabot]

However, when you do a cost-benefits analyis of open-source software as a whole, you have to take into account user training and support costs.

Don't forget the cost of lock in - it can't be measured on short timerange, but having competition on the market is going to buy you, and the rest of the industry, a lot.

Going for Linux is a no-brainer at least for us europeans. It frees us from an oppressive US monopolist, creates local jobs and generally opens up new business opportunities because, well, Linux doesn't yet have all the software Windows has.

It's time to be a little bit patriotic, people! Asshats that can't learn the few Linux apps they need with a little bit of tutoring could just be fired (now there's a motivation that gets people moving), you should have the best minds working for you in the first place...

What will French geeks be like I wonder?

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Qu'est-que c'est 'command line'?

Apres moi, le r00t!

Je pense, donc je hax0r.

Bonjour, mademoiselle. Parlez-vous php?

Le b0x. Les b0xen?

BSOD? MERDE!

Re:France Would Save More Costs

[CHaN_316]

I'm not sure how healthy the French economy is these days. France (and Germany) have been exceeding the EU's limit of deficit spending which is 3% of GDP. France is at risk of getting sanctions from the EU. In addition, it doesn't look like Europe's education system is fairing too well either, and it's generally agreed that education is required for a healthy economy. This Time article talks about overcrowded classrooms, underfunding, etc, etc.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:I'm not surprised by this.

[jalet]

> France is just pissed off that they are no longer
> the center of the world's culture

Well, by listening to your president talking, I'm pretty confident that the USA are not either.

Re:not asking the customer what the customer want

[idiot900]

Open source by and large does not listen to actual end users.

This is obvious in the
low quality documentation, if any,

The major OSS projects have third-party published books out.

configuration process,

Which is why a business would use a distribution instead of rolling their own.

usability

The big-name OSS projects meant for the end-user (i.e. KDE/GNOME/Mozilla-spawn) are very usable - they are just a bit different than the closed source competitors. I'd venture to guess somebody who hasn't seen any desktop before would learn an OSS desktop just as easily as a Windows one. Switching over to OSS couldn't be any worse than switching from Windows 3.1 to 95.

ongoing support

Businesses would buy a support contract.

Business users are not going to continuously fight the 'geek needed to install and operate' mentality of open source software.

Ditto with the support contract. (And since when has running a non-OSS shop been a walk in the park? You need competent IT staff, period.)

Fun: Microsoft software running under Linux

[Theovon]

What would be fun to watch is if some country decided to switch to an Open Source OS, and then did a separate bid for office software.

Microsoft would be in a position where it could compete for the position of supplying office software, but only if it ported their office software to the Open Source platform.

I wonder what they would do.

It would fun just to watch what they do in that predicament.

And after hearing this news

[Cnik70]

Microsoft canceled plans for it's latest product: Microsoft Surrender Suite. Freshmeat.net was soon overwhelmed with new releases of kSurrender, gtk-surrender, and gSurrender. Mirrors should be available for all French citizens to download the latest releases.

The truth about the american military machine ww2

[GuyFawkes]

OK, I live in england, I'm celtic by ancestry, you might refer to me as "a Britisher"

My parents generation fought ww2, on my mums side 5 kids, all of them signed up, their father, my grandad was torpedoes three fucking times and lived to tell the tale... he was a bosun on the murmansk run on oil tankers, he used to chew tobacco (can't smoke on tankers) and that's what eventually killed him, colostomy and bowel cancer.

Of his five children the eldest was a telegrapher, RN, was ordered to stay behind at the fall of singapore and report on the nips, was mia for 9 months and eventually made his own way overland to india, next eldest was another RN telegrapher (the radio shack was a prime target btw) my mum was a wren who was a plotter in devonport, plotted the d-day practices in which thousands of americans died through the sheer incompetence of their commanders, going to cut a long shit load of history short here, not much point going on about a thousand years of clanging swords with someone or other which is basically what english history is, let me tell you how WE see american military in first hand observations from ww2 (my father etc) through korea (before you lot went into nam properly) to the present day.

in 1943 when the british army couldn't even get a pair of boots and 20 rounds of ammunition to every soldier, the american military machine could get chocolates to every soldier, and all the boots they could wear and ammo they could carry, "over sexed, over paid, and over here" was a 1943 sentiment about americans here in the southwest training for d day, but EVERYONE was in absolute awe of american logistics.

Similarly, from 1943 through korea etc to present day, nobody ever thought american soldiers lacked courage.

While american logistics were awesome, most people rated american military hardware as sub-standard, when germany had tiger tanks you were running around in shermans, worst thing about a sherman was the motor, 2 stroke detroit diesel was NOISY bastard, made it real easy to shoot at... similarly because supply of bullets was never a problem american weapons and soldiering were much more automatic fire than semi automatic, times where supply chain breaks everyone shit themselves if americans on the flank, waiting for them to expend all ammo and then fall back.....

no, BY FAR commonest sentiment about american military machine was the soldiers were not as highly trained or versatile as ours (this is still true, simply because US military budget is so fucking huge we HAVE to be better at everything, on a per platoon basis) and american brass were by and large grandstanding assholes, just like we used to shoot in the back when going over the top in WWI....

americans go on patrol in iraq in armoured vehicles all toting fully automatic weapons and more importantly crew-few medium calibre automatic weapons, anything tougher than a columbine schoolkid pops up and you hunker down and call in an airstrike.... such tactics are inevitable when you have a HUGE military machine with awesome logistics and vast numbers of under trained cannon fodder troops.

british go on patrol in iraq in open backed landrover (4wd, a british "technical" really, often minus the 50 cal) response is very short ammunition conserving short bursts of 3 or 4 rounds at most, of not single shot mode, if it turns bad retreat and regroup, or die there, we just don't have that kind of air support or even heavy armour.... such tactics are inevitable when you have a small military machine with shite logistics (remember, we had to canniballise our biggest liner just to get troops to falklands, and she was built that way just in case too...) so every soldier must be a minimum of proficient at many tasks and bloody good at one or two.

same thing is true of bar fights, in american bar fights there is much pre fight posturing and strutting, like bears in some mating ritual, much opportunity for both to mutually cool it off without losing face according to some strange set of rules...