French Police Ditching Windows for Linux

esocid writes "In another European blow to Microsoft the French paramilitary police force said Wednesday it is ditching Microsoft for the free Linux operating system, becoming one of the biggest administrations in the world to make the break. The gendarmerie began severing its ties with Microsoft in 2005 when it moved to open source office applications like word processing. It switched to open source Internet browsers in 2006."

Comments

Better headline

[osgeek]

French police surrender to Linux

Yes, yes, it's more of a cliche than a joke.

Re:Better headline

[Creepy Crawler]

That's just getting stupid.

They only surrendered to the Germans for one real reason: their artwork and architecture. I really cant fault them for that, considering the pictures I've seen in the aftermath of England.

I also keep in mind that they also made our current word: sabotage... that words origin comes from Nazi occupation of France, when the peoples would jam up factories and machines to help Germany.

For what situation France got stuck in, I really cant blame them.

Re:Better headline

[Chris Mattern]

They only surrendered to the Germans for one real reason: their artwork and architecture.

They surrendered to the Germans because 1940s France was a bitterly divided nation with an ineffective government, and some political factions favored surrender over working with their political enemies (the Communists were strong in France at the time and operated as a fifth column, because of Stalin's alliance with Germany at the time--ironically, they would become some of the most effective of the Resistance later when Hitler invaded Russia), and also because of a strong strain of isolationism at the time--many Frenchmen in 1940 were actually convinced it was all Britain's fault, an opinion that was reinforced when the British bombed the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir to prevent it from falling into German hands. The catastrophic military loss they suffered--the result of poor training, poor organization, poor leadership, and most of all, horrid communications (the French supreme HQ's picture of events was routinely several days behind what the front lines were seeing)--may have been the proximate cause, but the kind of disaster France suffered in 1940 takes a political and moral collapse as well as a military one. Read Shirer's "Fall of the Third Republic" sometime, fascinating read.

I also keep in mind that they also made our current word: sabotage... that words origin comes from Nazi occupation of France, when the peoples would jam up factories and machines to help Germany.

Um, no, it doesn't. While the Resistance in France certainly practiced sabotage, they didn't invent the word. The word comes from the French railway strike of 1910, in which the workers destroyed the wooden shoes that held the rails in place. The shoes in French were called "sabots", hence "sabotage".

Re:Better headline

[Pig Hogger]

French police send SWAT team to kick in Linux's doors. They like what they see, and confiscate it for their own use.

Er, no. Unlike the US, which is a rogue state in respect to property rights, the French police will actually uphold the law and will not seize property from innocent people.

Re:Better headline

[gweihir]

Actually ''sabotage' has no connection to the Germans. It suspected to have originated in a railway strike in 1910, were a part of the rails called a "Sabot" was removed to render the rails inoperable. An alternate (according rto Wikipedia unlikely) origin is that of throwing wooden shoes (also Sabot) into mecanizes looms to kill them. Again no connection to the Germans.

Re:Better headline

[ericferris]

That's also what I learned. In the early 1800s, the French tapestry manufactures started to purchase the newfangled Jacquard mechanical looms that got their patterns from punched cards. The silk worker corporations didn't like it one bit. Fearing for their employment, they started a Luddite campaign against the devious machines, discreetly throwing wooden shoes (French "sabot") into the delicate mechanism while the foreman wasn't looking. Hence the word.

Of course, as is often the case, the machines actually increased employment in French manufactures by lowering the price of tapestries and increasing productivity . Fear of automation is nothing new.

Re:Better headline

[Profane MuthaFucka]

How about "Microsoft surrenders to Inspector Clouseau" then?

Re:Better headline

[00_NOP]

What the parent said. Worth also repeating that the British were as beaten as the French except they had the channel to protect them, a government that said it was prepared to die choking on its own blood than to surrender and the RAF and Royal Navy to seal the deal. The French could have retreated to Algeria, then part of metropolitan France, but their homeland would still have been occupied.

The contrast with France and Italy is interesting: there were a lot of anti-Republicans in France in 1940 and they backed the armistice. They were then left utterly discredited (though obviously haven't gone away - see Le Pen), but the battle that was started on 14 July 1789 was settled forever on 20 August 1944. For Italy, though, because so many fascists got away with it (especially as some of them could say they were behind the capitualtion), the country has been described as being engaged in a low intensity civil war ever since.

Re:Better headline

[Chris Mattern]

Like a lot of "good story" etymologies, this one gets repeated a lot because it's such a good story, but isn't supported by the evidence. There are no known contemporary sources reporting the flinging of wooden shoes into machinery, nor is the word "sabotage" used in this way before 1910, whereas the supposed shoe-throwing would've happened in the mid-nineteenth century.

C'est évident:

[Pig Hogger]

Tous vos bureaux sont nous appartiennent!

How about some donations?

[LingNoi]

"In 2004 we had to buy 13,000 licences for office suites for our PCs," he said, "but in the three years since then we've only had to buy a total of 27 licences."

That's great, but maybe you could appreciate what you have gotten for free and give maybe 10% of what you were paying before back to those open source projects?

Re:How about some donations?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I fell for it, it's Slashdot. But the French didnt switch to pay money... They switched to SAVE money. The faster Linux geeks figure out that a very large percentage of you will never see thin red cent for the work they put in the faster Linux will evolve. Linux is used by people because they either love it or two they got something for free. It's developed by big business because it's a free pool of talent that is more then willing to work for free, and it's used by big business because some other big bushiness takes all your free work and slaps a support price tag on it. Nothing more nothing less. It's not a life style for companies like it is for some of us, it's way of saving a few dollars. Everyone please get over yourselves, and we can move forward.

Re:How about some donations?

[filbranden]

That's great, but maybe you could appreciate what you have gotten for free and give maybe 10% of what you were paying before back to those open source projects?

Or better yet, contribute code. With 10% of what you were paying for licenses, you can hire or pay developers to improve open source projects, you may even choose the features that you need. You contribute them so that others with the same needs may use them as well.

Open source economics is based on the fact that code is worth more than money. Code you may share as much as you want. Money you may only split.

Re:How about some donations?

[PHPfanboy]

They are, you just need to know how to take the donations :-) No point begging for it, that won't get through a Purchasing department.

France is a hotbed of open source activity. Loads of top companies are well LAMPed and this provides a good market for developers and university grads. On top of this, there are plenty of university courses with open source projects associated, like the very excellent VLC multimedia player (and server).

There are system integrator companies like Linagora who provide full service for Open Source to institutions like the Ministry of Finance http://www.linagora.com/societe/presse/articles_de_presse/ministere_de_l_economie_contrat_record_dans_les_logiciels_libres_-_le_monde_informatique_ar884.html

Crap

[Nimey]

Now we'll have to rename Linux to FreedomOS.

Re:Crap

[flyingfsck]

Yah want a server wiz dat?

Re:Linux does make sense.

[Pig Hogger]

The Police Agency if anything like in America are always on the border of huge funds or cutbacks.

Er, no. It is the french Gendarmerie, and they are part of the armed forces.

Yup, in France, the roads are patrolled by soldiers. And no one fucks with them, as well as by being soldiers, they don't fuck with anyone either, quite unlike the pityful police farces too often seen in the US.

Re:Linux does make sense.

[AvitarX]

It's true.

Even in the nice areas there are stations that have people armed with assault rifles outside keeping watch.

For the record, it didn't make me feel safe.

Re:Linux does make sense.

[jalet]

> And no one fucks with them,

Just like with Slashdotters, unfortunately ;-)

Re:Linux does make sense.

[basiles]

More precisely, the Police Nationale is in charge of cities, and the Gendarmerie Nationale is in charge of rural zones (at least in principle) See french wikipedia: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gendarmerie_nationale_(France) And the Gendarmerie has also specialized units. More to the point, the Gendarmerie did pay several contractors (and also internal IT) to do the migration. AFAIK, the military status of the personel did help: they had to obey (and didn't complain that much).

Re:Linux does make sense.

[sxpert]

No the standard weapon for the french military forces is the french built Famas

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAMAS_(rifle) for more information

the thing is very reliable and doesn't jam

Re:Free as in "Freedom Fries?"

[rprins]

Utter nonsense. If language support was lacking Windows would never have been embraced at all. Microsoft publishes all it's programs in every European language imaginable. And if not, French would be the first they'd support, they're not stupid when it comes to marketing.

Anyway, maybe they're switching because it just makes sense financially?
A more interesting question is, what is keeping the US government from switching? Are they more deeply locked-in or are they more willing to throw some money towards a good friend?