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French National Assembly Embraces Open Source
eldavojohn writes "The French National Assembly is in the news as they have recently switched to Linux, OpenOffice.org & open source software at the request of several deputy members. Bernard Carayon wrote it it into the proposal entitled 'On Equal Terms' [French PDF]. From the article, 'IT staff at the National Assembly have almost six months to prepare the switch to open source.' The same document urged France to adopt ODF as a standard. Hopefully things go more smoothly for them than the Birmingham library effort."
I guess now we'll have to stop making fun of the French... ~:->
I'd quite happily move to France. Just thought I'd say that. As long as I could have a girl like Letitia Casta, or Virginie Ledoyen.
Get your own free personal location tracker
... and, as far as I could understand (I lack some French) is focussed on a better usage of economic resources - that is - why pay M$ Euros. Good move.
And my bias is that France (for short) will not be bribed by M$s.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Freedom software... that's 'freedom' as in 'fries'.
The real Ralph Yarro posts as Anonymous Coward. Anyone else is an impostor.
Whilst cheering them on, don't forget to order your Freedom toast or Freedom fries from your favourite -restaurant- or -cafe-. ;-)
They've given up on Windows?
Don't hold your breath man...wearing burqas is forbidden in France.
While the rest of the world umms and ahhs about OSS and things like nuclear power, the French just get in there and do it. Despite the poor attitude that many have towards the French (you know who you are!), you've really got to admire them sometimes. :)
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
Embracing the enemy
Vichy Windows
Well, what can you say? The French like their women Open-source.
http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
...considering that the assembly recently voted the infamous DADVSI law on copyrights etc. remember when there were talks here on slashdot about a global licence for music and everything? well, everything got thrown out, and the so-called "Universal" amendments were brought in. Universal referring to the music magnate of the same name. Essentially, it is illegal in France to distribute or even promote software that "obviously" aim at sharing copyrighted material. Downloading and sharing mp3s is still assimilated to counterfeiting and thus theoritically punishable by up to 300 000 fines and some years in jail. Other amendments are so clearly incompatible with OpenSource practices that many companies, associations, and experts have repeatedly sent petitions and warnings. To no avail. And today the assembly annouces it will run Linux. Maybe they will realize that in order to view DVDs legally bought, one has to circomvent protections (which is illegal according to the DADVSI law). As a Frenchman though, I welcom this annoucment even though it is a small joy after the DADVSI fiasco. At least the inner workings of our democracy will not depend on a foreign company's goodwill.
~~~ Paf. Le chien.
Bullshit, you trolling francophobe you! Go eat some liberty cabbage.
The burqa ban applies to schools only.
Burkas foridden in France ?
Are you on crack ?
Oh, all right.
I, for one, welcome our new open-source software embracing surrender-monkey French overlords.
viva le Tux!
The same parliament voted recently for the most restrictive copyright law in Europe, a law that could potentially kill french open source projects, and that was practically written by the French RIAA, there is a sweet smell of irony in the air...
On the other hand that was probably the plan all along: write a stupid law to placate the RIAA/MPAA of this world. A law so totally impossible to enforce, that any case brought in front of a court would be laughed out of the justice system. And then, benefit from Open Source, safe and sound in the knowledge that you [the members of Parliament] have taken your bribe, and you get to benefit from Open Source on top of it. Bastards.
And if you think I am making this up, I invite you to read the documents in the link above and discover the whole sorry mess for yourself.
[As a side note: I am French, and I despise all these wankers, so take this not as a troll, but a letting off steam.]
[Side note 2: also, I was one of the few French who actually took the time to protest the whole thing, so don't give me the "you should have done something" line Mmmmmm'kay?]
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
The wearing of the Islamic veil can lead to exclusions from schools in France; Though in half the cases taken to court, the student gets back to school. For the anectode, the French justify it by saying that religious symbols shouldn't be allowed on school premises. It was only a matter of time before somebody went after the Christmas tree. How do you like'em apples! http://www.clubic.com/forum/rapport-explosif-des-
I'm not French, but it sure seems to me like we could all learn something from them.
Res publica non dominetur
Having lost my Office CD a few months back in an unfortunate smelting accident... Okay I stepped on it... I was forced to switch to OpenOffice myself. I'm still using Windows due to compatibility issues with my hardware components, but everything besides Windows and IE7 has been replaced with OSS. My personal opinion: 1) OpenOffice Writer is 95% as good feature-wise as Office imho, and the PDF support is a boon. My two biggest complaints are the somewhat limited spellcheck, and the fugly Office 97 interface. Needs some polishing, but other than that, it is a perfect replacement for Office, for me. Additionally, as a law student, the excellent cross-program file support is a boon. I started using OO originally to open WordPerfect documents (WP is heavily used in the legal profession), and it didn't need the darned Office CD to do it! :) Odd cursor behavior, occasionally, and the default word completion are annoying...
2) Thunderbird is a great replacement for the mail component of Outlook. However, again, interface problems make it a little more difficult to use than the Microsoft offering. Visually, the interface is a little more up to date than OO. However, some default settings are very irritating, like starting a reply message at the bottom. Plus, some options are difficult to locate, but I do like the ability to adjust settings for all accounts on the same screen.
3) Gaim. Please make the cursor work correctly. It is a wonderful problem, but for some reason, on some of my machines, there is no text cursor.
Not that I want to be off-topic or a troll at all, but...
;-) ) think that state and religion are to be separated and religion is a private matter.
Yeah right, like wearing burqas was a way for women to free themselves... On second though, maybe not ! Maybe next step is to allow men to pour acid on unfaithful women because, clearly, they deserve it and by not allowing it we impede men's freedom.
But, wait ! Burqas are not forbidden in France, they're only forbidden in public school (along with kippas or too big christian cross), because, we (you should have guessed I'm French by now
do you really want to be embraced by a Frenchman?
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I thought the French were all going straight to Hell.
As some friends also pointed out later in the thread, the burqa applies only to schools. Sorry, my mistake.
But anyway, I did not in any way mean it as an insault to the French people. On the contrary, I have been to France, it is one of the finest and most civilized countries in the world, and apparently they are very careful not to let religion get in the way of certain aspects of life. Hence, the burqa ban on schools. One of the foundamental ideas of the French democracy is Egalité which means that all people are equal. Letting people discriminate others or themselves would apparently heart the implementation of that idea.
In fact, I wish that more countries could have the boldness to tackle sensitive matters like that in an active way.
I'm curious "which linux" they're switching to...
Are they...
1. "Rolling their own" like Munich? (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux/)
2. Picking a vendor/distro? e.g. RedHat/RHEL, Novell/SuSE, etc.
3. Going with an established distro like Debian?
Anyone know?
Here's to the crazy ones
Burkas is the whole body (hands and face hidden).
The things that has been forbidden is the islamic veil (to hide hair) and only at school. It is only applied in their public school (there are already muslim private schools for those who cannot live without it).
Immigrants in France are from North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and so on) and Turkey. There are no burqas tradition in these countries (Burkas is from Afghanistan I think).
In the US a lot of crap is technically illegal. For the most part, when it is really stupid, we just ignore it. See "prohibition" for one instance. See "speed limits" for another. And so on. It may take us some years, and unfortunately, some times it takes decades, but eventually a lot of stuff gets sorted out for the better.
C'est forte intelligente!
... whenever you want.
But with a name like Carayon one would make a lot of success here in Brazil...
"76% percent of the country's electricity generated from safe, clean, and abundant nuclear power."
You put the words "safe" and "nuclear power" in the same sentence. That's an oxymoron.
Mandriva is as close to a French national distro as Red Hat is an american national distro or SuSe a german national distro.
Red Flag is state-founded, others aren't.
Please inform yourself before commenting or moderating inappropriately.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Pardon, :)
We like them WYSIWYG
The French hate the Americans way to much to ever become like them. :) I totally applaud their move to open source and I'm hoping one day to see my government (Canada... once we get rid of the conservatives) move toward open source. The cost of switching would be initially high but once we stop forking out shitloads of $$$ to M$ we would for sure come out ahead. Create a nice chunk of IT related work too!
I would even like to see a distro that caters to multiple levels. One for home users, another for goverment, another for law-enforcement, health care, intel, military.. etc. Has this idea ever been looked at before?
"Toughting"? And what does my EKG explanation have to do with this thread?
Sigh must I explain everything. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
I was pointing out your error in the spelling of the word 'taught'. Thought I'd explain some english to you. Guess we missed that boat, eh.
That means, not economically viable.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.