Slashdot Mirror
French Response to Google is Microsoft
efp writes "Mark Liberman posted over in the Language Log that, in considering alternatives to Google's library initiative in Europe, French President Jacques Chirac would consider a partnership with Microsoft 'since he has so many views in common with its president, Bill Gates'. This comes out of talks between the French president, the head of the French National Library and the Minister of Culture, in in part 'building an alter ego to the American project, before thinking of an eventual collaboration with Google, so as not to negotiate from a position of weakness' as they plan to digitize their cultural resources."
Because France (and the rest of Europe) is in a position of weakness when it comes to ebook.
The BNF http://www.bnf.fr/ has attempted too early to scan lots of books, without the right plan.
The result? a bunch of low res image in locked PDF (can't select and copy) of some two hundred years books.
What google has done, is making a few people think in France: hey! We have completly fucked up our electronic library!
Given that it has costed several millions to citizen without any results,
maybe we should try to not suck so that the docile citizen do not notice the millions of euros which have been stupidly spent for a totaly useless project!
What happened up to now is that: The president of France said that he'd rather have his own "very large digital library" rather than let google do it all on their own. What some of his "minder" said in answer of a journalists question was: yes Microsoft could be a partner. Most probably if the journalist would have asked if Oracle, or Mysql or any other organisation/person/BEM the answer would have been more or less the same.
The first issue being: Should the governement fund a public "digital library" The second issue being: How.
So I do find it very unfortunate that people make a lot of "advertizement" for a mediocre propriaitary software provider (as in you can write good things or bad things about me, but first of all write about me !), based on partial information.
For the record, I do like the google search engine, but I do think that any government should make the effort of putting as much as possible of cultural content as possible online.
Of course I do hope that when the project will start it will use Free and Open Source Software, but for the time being there is not even a call for tender
BTW the french national library is called "La tres grande bibliotheque"/"Bibliotheque François Mitterand", (socialist predecessor of Chirac) no wonder Jacques wants his own.
For those actually interested in what is there http://gallica.bnf.fr/
That would be a ken-by-ten .
~Idarubicin
The translation isn't correct for the first paragraph. That's quite a problem, since it changes the meaning significantly.
Le président serait-il prêt à s'entretenir avec le concurrent de Google, Microsoft, puisqu'il a tant de convergences de vues avec son président, Bill Gates, qu'il a longuement reçu à l'Elysée? "Pourquoi pas?", répondent les conseillers de M. Chirac.
The initial translator wrote "Would the president be ready to make a deal with Google's competitor, Microsoft" which is incorrect.
A correct translation would be:
Would the president be ready to talk with Google's competitor, Microsoft, since he has so many views in common with its president, Bill Gates, whom he has long welcomed to the Elysée?
Quite a different meaning, don't you think ?
As usual, the Slashdot headline is pure FUD.
Here is the snippet from Le Monde's article : Dans l'esprit du chef de l'Etat, il s'agit de bâtir un "alter ego" au projet américain, avant d'envisager une éventuelle collaboration avec Google, pour ne pas discuter en situation de faiblesse. Le président serait-il prêt à s'entretenir avec le concurrent de Google, Microsoft, puisqu'il a tant de convergences de vues avec son président, Bill Gates, qu'il a longuement reçu à l'Elysée ? "Pourquoi pas ?", répondent les conseillers de M. Chirac.
Translation : "In Chirac's mind, the idea is to build an "alter-ego" to the American project, before thinking about a collaboration with Google, to have a good position in negociations. Would the president be ready to talk with Microsoft, since he has many common ideas with Bill Gates, whom he has met at the Elysée ? "Why not ?" is the answer from Chirac's advisors."
In summary, Chirac wants to build a French language online library, to have a good collaborative work with google. Should that work be done with Microsoft ? Maybe yes, maybe not. But the stated goal is to work with google, whatever that goal that can be achieved with Microsoft or not.
If you need to work with Oracle, what do you do ? You call an MS sales man to leverage your negociations with Oracle. Well, France wants to work with Google, so it doesn't forbid itself from working with Microsoft, if that gives it a better negociations position.
Slashdot has become more and more a FUD machine, with more or less every headline in contradiction with linked article. Worse, since the actual content of the article is from Le Monde, and is in French, many non-French speaking readers won't be able to see the utter non-sense that the Slashdot article is. This is more and more becoming the Fox News for Nerds, and it's starting to seriously upset me.