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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."
Just see the sig.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Karma be damned. France surrendering to what appears to be a superior power? Where have I seen this before...
They are both filthy stinkin rich, hate google, and dream of a new world order?
I have this really funny quote that I like to put here. Unfortunately, there's this really annoying thing called a char
If it's anything like my Outlook PST file, it will be able to hold about 1000 documents, then not work as well.
Sounds fun!
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
...a "freedom engine"? ;)
DBA? Software Engineer? My company is hiring! Click
I see some kind of retaliation or what I'd call divide & rule, by the French government. "If you do not cooperate, (read `pay for content') I will go to your rival(s)." M$ used this against IBM on a limited level in the 80s and they succeeded to some extent.
for all the French+Bill Gates jokes
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
I have nothing against the French but what's next? France decides SCO's case has merit, claims jurisdiction? I'm just confused. It just seems odd that the country that takes issue with Google's helpful, automated services because they occasionally violate copyright is considering working with Microsoft, the king of anti-trust! No wonder the French people are so jaded.
When negotiating with Microsoft, is there anyone who can NOT negotiate from a position of weakness?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Perhaps the saddest part about France going to Microsoft for this project is that whatever data is produced is more likely to be locked into some proprietary format. That could be particularly unfortunate, since these cultural resources really belong to all the people of France and should therefore be made as accessible as possible.
It is a well known fact that European governments prefer to support the under-dog: "Go Bill, go Bill, go!"
Now the French can leverage the power of DRM to keep their military failures in the last century a secret!
Moi, j'aime bien nos maitres francais des biblioteque borg.
__________ Leave me alone I'm compiling a RPG II program on my S/36...Thanks to metamucil I'm a Regular Meta Moderator
What's wrong with the french?
French good deeds this year: 2French bad deeds this year: 5
Le sigh . . . .
As Seen On TV's? Come back!!!
So Microsoft has just bought France to go along with their acquisition of evil?
Sounds like a matched set to me.
Come on! We're Americans! Do you think we *care* what everyone else thinks?
All joking aside, regardless of my feelings towards the French, which are pretty close to neutral, this does seem contrary to their nationlistic zeal to keep France French. I (like other posters) assumed that the government would come up with its own solution. It seems absurd that France would team up with that oh so American company Microsoft to thwart that other oh so American company Google.
P.S. The US was attacked by terrorists because of numerous things, but name calling is not one of them.
P.P.S. The rest of the world bashes the US. Don't you think we get tired of that?
Does someone realize that Chirac never actually talked about partnering with Microsoft??? Not even close?
This post relates to ANOTHER post which translates ANOTHER article in a French newspaper which says that some UNNAMED assistant to Chirac when asked about the possibility of partnering with Microsoft answered "why not?" (which does not seem like a terrible answer..., there is no reason to dismiss anybody before the project is launched...).
> if it wasn't their support of terrorists, their ingratiating manner about our saving their asses twice, and the fact that they are as useless as tits on a nun, now i have another reason.
in the words of Simon Pegg:
what a prick.
I've never met anyone from France that was rude and refused to try to speak English -- quite the opposite.
I've heard it argued that Americans go to Paris to "see France" -- and their opinions about the French is more or less similar to the common French opinion about people living in Paris... :-)
It has been a bit frustrating, when the "frogs" don't live up to the image I get from being steeped in the literature of English speaking (or mangling) cultures.
But I'll have to change opinion now. :-(
It do give a bit of perspective at the local politicians. There are worse examples.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
No wonder most Americans have such a distorted view of world history if this is how an American high school history teacher thinks.
Seriously, in that one sentence you've demonstrated that you're so clueless about history that you're a danger in the classroom. I have to agree with the other poster that I'd be very worried if you were teaching my kids.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
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/
This is interesting because politically the U.S. is so much like Microsoft - a lumbering dinosaur of stasis that won't engage an evolving world. Instead, it looks to impose it's will by brute force and deceitful stratagems.
From my travels in France, I've found the people to be as forward-thinking (and well-informed) politically as they are conformist and sycophantic technologically. Chirac's cluelessness doesn't suprise me in this regard.
The French government has a reputation for opportunism when it come to matters such as peddling arms to all comers, but, at the same time, it's a government much more likely to be reigned in by an engaged populus -- as opposed to the U.S. where folks rely on pseudo news organizations such as Fox News.
It's strange how France's romance for American culture has been contorted into a self-abasing worship of one America's largest coporate leech.
Posting as AC to preserve my karma from the hordes of French pussies who'd rather mod me down than step up and fight...
So basically what you're saying is you're too much of a pussy to risk your karma because you're afraid someone might mod you down in disagreement?
"Run to Bill, he'll protect us!" Now there's an idea. Jeeze, France, explain to us how your country has actually been relevant for 30 years...
They're not running to Bill, when asked if they'd select Google's competitor, Microsoft, the president's advisor said "Why not?" Not "Yeah, we've already signed a contract", just "Why not?" if any other company was mentioned it would have had the same response.
The thing is that places do acquire reputations for a reason.
I'm not saying everyone in France is rude, I'm saying that on average in France you are going to find more people who are seemingly rude (seemingly is key, more in a second) to you than perhaps if you travelled elsewhere.
I have a few friends who have travelled to France (including outlying regions beyond paris) and the only one who enjoyed the experience is someone whose wife spoke fluent French.
This effect is aggravated by the "seemingly rude" point - there are some things people do in other cultures that strike Americans as rude. Part of that for my friends was some sort of service issue at restaurants, I forget the detail but some seemingly inconsequential thing they wanted was looked on in outrage by the waiter. Perhaps he also viewed the request as rude, but the response basically discolored my friends opinion of restaurants in France.
My own example along those lines is from a trip to Barcelona - myself and a few friends (two of which spoke Spanish pretty well) went into a toy store to browse. Now there was this cool thing in the window that I wanted to buy, so I took it from the display to take up to the cash register -well let me tell you the owner of the store flipped out! He was yelling and cursing at me like I had just set fire to his dog. Even after we explained calmly that I had not meant to offend he was incredibly angry and demanded we leave the store that instant! Well no toy is worth an altercation but to this day none of us can figure out what set him off to that degree. While it did not make me think of all Spaniards as lunatics, it certainly made me think a little bit inside that shopkeepers there were on something of a power trip with little respect for customers.
So reputations of other countries being difficult may stem from the degree of cultural differences between two countries. And to some extent, I have to say that given that the reputation is correct as far as the average person goes. Even though the behavior there might not really be rude, to the traveller it might seem that way and really that's the same thing as far as the traveller is concerned!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yes, I know about Vichy France, which the U.S. originally recognized before we joined the hostilities. At that point we supported de Gaulle and the Free French, but never whole heartedly, because de Gaulle was such a pain in the ass (from the Anglo-American perspective).
You might note that the Free French 19th Corps participated in Operation Torch. And it's been said that the fight was easier because many Vichy soldiers went over to the Free French side, rather than fight the Allies.
Still, one of the funnier Churchill quotes is, "The heaviest cross I had to bear during the war was the Cross of Lorraine." The Cross of Lorraine was the symbol of Free France, and de Gaulle was Free France.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
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.