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."

Comments

Good for them!

[tttonyyy]

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. :)

Re:Good for them!

[caluml]

the French just get in there and do it

That is true. They are very good at delivering projects too, at least from my UK perspective. We worked with them to make Concorde. They built that huge new bridge above the clouds in France.
I like many things about France. Let's hope they don't become too Anglicised/Americanised.

Re:I'd quite happily move to France.

[Feyr]

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.how about melissa theuriault :)

Re:This has a European scope ...

[arachnoprobe]

I don't think the french can be lured by money. They are very patriotic, and the political decision to spend money on French products instead of giving it to a U.S. based monopoly-accused company can be hold up easily.

Re:This has a European scope ...

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Don't forget that Mandrake^H^H^Hiva is almost as close to a French national distro as Red Flag is a Chinese distro.

Re:What do you expect?

[bibi-pov]

Not that I want to be off-topic or a troll at all, but...

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 ;-) ) think that state and religion are to be separated and religion is a private matter.

Re:OpenOffice is pretty sweet.

[Bert64]

Email replies should always start at the bottom, unless your writing in a language that reads from the bottom upwards (do any exist? theres a few left to right languages but i`m not sure about bottom to top)...
Trying to follow a conversation where the reply comes BEFORE the original question is a horrendous thing to do, this is known as top posting... And consider the following short example:

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

Ever noticed how on slashdot, the story is at the top, and the comments descend from there, with child posts being below their parents etc... Now imagine the whole thing upside down.