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French Military Police Switches to Firefox
Oslo_the_CKC writes to tell us that French Magazine Linux Pratique recently published an interview with General Brachet of the Gendarmie Nationale. In the interview he discusses why they have moved over 100,000 personnel over to Firefox and Thunderbird (70,000 and 45,000 respectively). This follows on last year's switch to OpenOffice.org so it seems like the French Military Police are enjoying the success of open source.
Linux Pratique: What are the most important features of Firefox 1.5?
Général Brachet: These features are independent of the version number. The most important things about Firefox are its compliance with W3C standards and its availability on several platforms (Microsoft, Linux and Mac). When the Gendarmerie will deliver application on-line to homeland security organisations and, in the future, to citizens, it will not request the users to use any particular platform or piece of software from specific vendors. Using Firefox or any other Web-standards-compliant browser will be requested, independently of the platform (...)
Linux Pratique : How many seats are going to be deployed, and how long will it take?
Général Brachet : Starting January 1st, 2006, Firefox will be the browser of choice for the Gendarmerie. (...) This migration will impact every PC connected to the Intranet and the Internet, totalling 70,000 seats, before the end of the year 2006. Most of the Web services will be W3C-compliant by then. (...)
Linux Pratique : OpenOffice.org (last year), now Firefox, when will you swich to Linux?
Général Brachet : Thunderbird will be deployed as the only mail client on 45,000 seat in 2006. The idea is to provide every unit with a workstation and have it used daily. Every Gendarme will have four tools at his disposal: a bureautique suite, for writing documents and doing procedural work, a browser to access the Information Systems, a mail client to communicate and an antivirus. Our first goal is to migrate all the upper layers of the workstation to Open Source Software to be independent of the Operating System.(...)
It's a great pleasure to see this important project being finally revealed to the general public, and to see Gendarmerie Nationale understand the importance of Open Source Software and Web standards. It uses them, and even gives back some code the the community, while telling the world about it. If I had a wish for 2006, it would be to see large users do the same, and tell publicly that they use Open Source projects. For them, it would be a way to give back to these projects something they really need: visibility.
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Just to clear things up the blog is talking about the French Gendarmerie, the french national police force.
It does not mean the actual French Military Police as we would think of it; the police force of the miltary.
the french army only has 136,000~ soldiers!
It is not the same thing. It is more like our National Guard than our police.
This has been a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.
It's the Gendarmerie Nationale. What you would call "The Feds," not what you would call the MPs.
KFG
According to Wikipedia they do more than police the military. "The policing of countryside areas and of small towns, usually populations under 10000, outside of the jurisdiction of the French National Police."..."Crowd control and other security activities." etc. So, according to Wikipedia at least, they do a lot more.
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2a) No, and it probably isn't next year, either. Most people that I have conversations with about such things either believe that it's for the best or don't believe me at all. Unless people stop believing things just because Congress said so, or the TV/newspaper/etc said so (or we replace those with something trustworthy), this attitude is not likely to change. People seem to be too lazy to actually verify what they hear.
;-)
2b) Yes, I can remember having contempt for France for as long as I knew their history. My humor about France hasn't changed in at least 20 years (coincidentally, the period over which I've made jokes at France's expense). My opinion of France went down over Iraq II, but not because they opposed it. It was because of the backroom deals that they were brokering with Iraq. I also oppose the US meddling in foreign governments. If it weren't for the treaties and such that France had agreed to, I wouldn't care that they were making deals with Iraq.
3) You forgot a significant portion of Africa from the list of places with reason to hate France.
1/4/5) I agree! New France jokes would be very amusing.
Seriously, Slashdot is indicitive of the follow-the-leader mentality just as much as Fark, Digg, Kuroshin, or most anywhere else. People like to fit in, they like being modded up, and they're often somewhat afraid of standing out for voicing a different opinion.
BTW - GP was a joke; lighten up!
Yeah, I like a good Gallic gouging too, but I recently read The Glorious Cause, as well.
The US has a lot to thank the French for, in the way of underwriting the Revolution (for all their motives were questionable). There were more French at Yorktown than Colonials, and the French fleet was key at Virginia Capes (though later kindling in the West Indies).
Would that more Yanks had clue #1 about history.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Yes, France opposed the war in Iraq because of OFF. Lets look at that logic.
1) How can you claim that it had nothing to do with 75% of the French public opposing the invasion? After all, it's not like leaders in democracies who act contrary to the will of 75% of their populace on major issues tend to have trouble getting reelected.
2) What is the logic of France risking their trade with the US to make a small fraction of the few billion dollars involved in the Oil For Food program? This trade involves 2,400 French subsidiaries in the US employing 500,000 people with 160B$ turnover, and the converse (US subsidiaries in France, which employ 580,000 people with 135B$ turnover). France owns 143B$ of US stock, a fourfold increase in the past decade. The US owns 55B euros of French stock, doubling over the past decade. In 2003, the US imported 23B euros worth of French goods; France imported 22.4B euros worth from America.
3) The oil for food program involved roughly 4-5B$ (over its decade long lifespan) in kickbacks to the *Iraqi government*. Most people here are painfully unaware of how it worked, so let me clarify - it occured just the same way that it happens in third world nations all over the world to enrich the pockets of government officials. An unscrupulous company
offers to sweeten the pot (in this case, to the Iraqi government) by raising their prices artificially. The government selects the contract of the overpriced goods. The company then discretely pays the extra money under the table to the Iraqi government. The company gets the contract, and the kickback-receiving party (the Iraqi government) manages to divert money from protected funds to their pockets.
Many people confuse kickbacks with the accused payoffs of officials. Some payoffs have been confirmed, and resulted in convictions. Others have been proven to be false, and resulted even in successful libel suits against the accusors. Part of the problems in the list of the accused may be the source - it came from the Iraqi Oil Ministry, which at the time was run by the Iraqi National Congress (not exactly a beacon of truthful information). The payoffs tend to be small - usually a few tens to a few hundred thousand dollars (compared to the billions in kickbacks under OFF, and tens of billions in oil smuggling). The highest ranking French official accused is former interior minister Charles Pasqua and his aide Bernard Guillet. Not only has Pasqua denied all of the charges (and is actively working to clear his name), and not only would the interior minister not be prominant in a decision to go to war, but he hasn't even been in office since 1995. There are two other French former officials under investigation - Jean-Bernard Merimee and Serge Boidevaix - but they likewise had not been in office when the alleged crimes took place.
"WANTED: Sinking ship seeks rats."