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France Hostile To Open Source Software?

Posted by Zonk on from the no-frog-jokes dept.

AdamWeeden writes "According to the Free Software Foundation of France the French Department of Culture is telling free (as in speech) software providers that 'You will be required to change your licenses ... You shall stop publishing free software,' and warn they are ready 'to sue free software authors who will keep on publishing source code.'" From the post: "It appears that publishing Free Software giving access to culture is about to become a counterfeiting criminal offence. Will SACEM sue France Télécom R&D research labs for having published Maay and Solipsis (P2P pieces of software used to exchange data)? Up to this point, the rather technical debate surrounding the issues addressed by DADVSI bill (copyright and neighbouring rights in the information society) makes one ask: Just how much control do the Big Players in the field of culture want to seize? It now looks like years of quibbling have put an end to compromises." More information on the DADVSI bill is available at Infos-du-net.com. They've come a long way since last year.

15 of 524 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting by ToasterofDOOM · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's interesting to see that while people rag on America all the time for being a bunch of corporate shills, we are very friendly to OSS, the Gov't even makes its own publicly available (think World Wind, SELinux), and OSS adoption is high. Meanwhile, our french friends are hostile to it. And they say OSS is a liberal thing.

    --
    I am Spartacus
    1. Re:Interesting by ToasterofDOOM · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I meant liberal by the common American definition. Europeans use liberal to mean classic liberal, which I am and open source is. One French leader even refered to Thatcher and Reagan as extreme liberals

      --
      I am Spartacus
    2. Re:Interesting by DarkOx · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well that is the dirtly little secret the news media does not ever tell you. Here in America racist is a villifing term. Someone calling you a racist publicly is more then enough to ruin your career.
                The thing is its not like this in Europe their are lots of racists there and nobody seems to care about. Here in America the media tells us how much better and more egalitarian Europe is when the oposit is in fact true. Just look what happend in France a few weeks ago, hint more then anything else it was a race riot. Hint number two the people in power their are the RACISTS, one of the things that started it is certain officals called those groups "scum". In America if Bill Frist called a group of people that he would be out of office practically before the press conference was over. People here get in trouble for complementing former racist politions on their service at birthday parties for pete's sake. Get a clue slashdoters Europe and UN have just as many scoundrels as we have here in the stats. People are probably more clueless about reality, and for every good move the EU makes the USA proably made 10. Stop looking to a place with higher unemployeement, higher poverty rates, and more cultural hate issues, while at the same time paying farmers $40 a day to own cows(why?) as the bright spot for good ideas around societal evolution. Sure Europe gets it right some of the time but they are very far from perfect.

      --
      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
    3. Re:Interesting by Yartrebo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      French people have no hate of Linux. There are even several French distros available for those Frenchmen who cannot stand to buy US products. The adoption rate might not be as high as in Sweden or Brazil, but it beats the USs. Any Linux opposition in the country can generally be blamed on the right wing, big media friendly government.

      The US, on the other hand, has neither much government support or private support of open source software. We're down there with India in terms of open source contributions per trained programmer. Our federal government is in bed with Microsoft, and buy american sentiment can only help Microsoft whereas it would hurt in other countries. A few local governments might try to push for non-Microsoft products (all in blue states as far as I know), but many more agencies write specs that require the use the MS Office and MS Windows.

      I'll eat my words about the US supporting OSS when the US releases Red, White, and Blue Linux to compete with China's Red Flag Linux.

  2. Re:Is there a French word for "Backroom Deal"? by Scrameustache · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Maguilles de coulisses"

    Litterally, I think, "backstage swindle".

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

  3. In Other News by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... The French Government is preparing a referendum to see if French citizens are awake yet.

    From what can be gathered, the majority of French went to sleep about the time that Renault and Peugeot withdrew their products from the US market because their cars were not competitive, and judged to be too unreliable and lacking in innovation.

    Sorry. I shouldn't be so snide. I actually LIKE most of the French people I know. The trouble is, their Government wants to have its own planet. Ain't gonna happen.

    You simply can not legislate prosperity (and jobs) into existence. If people are willing to work for free and produce quality output, that is a force you cannot stop.

    Even the French can't do it.

  4. Re:Actually... by interiot · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Is closed-source DRM-defeating software more legal somehow? Why was open source mentioned at all?

  5. Re:well that seals it by kertong · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Just a couple months ago, we mailed a "thank you" gift to a family friend in Paris. We shipped her a nice cashmere sweater.

    We then found out that our friend had to pay an extra ~$50 fine to pick up the sweater - it was held by some sort of customs agency. Apparently, France has a ban on 'imported textiles' - if someone ships you a sweater, some socks, or even a tshirt, you'll be fined.

    Lame, snobby, and stupid. If you don't like someone in france, send them a sock each day.

  6. Misunderstanding? by hackwrench · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Maybe this is all just a misunderstanding and France isn't upset abut the actual terms of the license, but that the license isn't written in proper French legalese, and thus is a pox on the French language.

  7. Actually they lost there as well. by geekoid · · Score: 2, Interesting

    LPayed 6.5 million
    Made New zealand rapid about anti-nuclear.
    They where anti nuclear before the sinking, buit the pretty much cemented it.
    Finally:
    "Operation SATANIC was a public relations disaster.."
    you think? who the hell allowed it to be called that? I mean, it could have brought world peace, and that name still would have made it a public relations nightmare.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  8. google bombing by da5idnetlimit.com · · Score: 1, Interesting

    This particular search is a well known google bomb that is said to have been instigated by Wbush et friends, when trying to sell his Holy Crusade to Irak (from Wikipedia)....

    It is elsewhere attributed to a Mr Cox.

    Another example of his (Mr Cox) successfull Google Bombing are "weapons of mass destruction" that was sending to a nicely crafted 404 page.(http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=7312 72003)

    Also of note are "miserable failure", that sent you directly to W Bush latest Biography, and "litigious bastards" , that directed you to SCO...

    After this small precision, I would like to be the first to welcome our French Neighbours, 52nd state of the USA, by the will of our Overlords Microsoft and Vivendi Universal....

    It's gonna be much harder to have fun at the french, now that we have so much in common....

    --
    It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
  9. Extraterritoriality by overshoot · · Score: 2, Interesting
    This, were it to pass, would effectively shut out France and French OSS developers while not changing a damn thing anywhere else. OSS will still be available to anyone in France who wishes to download it, but France will have been cut out of a large and quickly growing segment of the tech industry.

    It would indeed affect everyone else. France has, in the past, had no reservations about enforcing its own censorship laws outside of their borders. Put another way: if you can somehow get access to something from France, the government of France claims jurisdiction.

    How will they even route their Internet traffic?

    I think that problem will solve itself when there isn't any.

    --
    Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
  10. Online Petition by vagabond_gr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is an online petition against the bill here. It started today and there are already 2087 signatures by individuals and 40 by organisations. Go on and sign.

  11. I RTFA and I still confused. by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can anyone explain how this has anything to do with "Culture"?
    I guess we can soon mark France off the list of "free" countries. You can't publish your own software with source? What about websites since the "source" for XHTML, CSS, and HTML are by nature open?
    Will French websites soon be illegal?

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  12. Re:No biggie...Let's go commercial! by Yartrebo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Hmm, I guess going commercial wouldn't, but the value added tax would violate the GPL (thus making GPL software illegal in that country) since you are forced to add a restriction on redistribution (namely that a tax must be paid since anyone who redistributes is a manufacturer and subject to the tax).

    But seeing that is what the French want, I guess they are not too likely to complain about that.