French Parliament Votes To Give Priority To Free Software

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday July 9, 2013 @06:18PM from the with-liberty-and-justice-for-all dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The French Parliament just wrote into law the first instance of Free Software priority in a public service, by adopting the Bill on Higher Education and Research. [Advocacy association April], after extensively contributing to the debate, especially welcomes this vote and congratulates Deputies and Senators for recognizing the importance of Free Software in the Public Service for Higher Education, since it alone can ensure equal access to the future public service. April hopes that this first step will be followed by other legislation in favor of Free Software. It also thanks all the persons who mobilized and contacted the Parliament Members."

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Free or open source? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-09 19:25 · Score: -1, Flamebait

I read the sentiments, and given the current situation in the USA *close* source software from US companies is a no-no. But 'free' as in beer is how they word their statement, which would include stuff like Skype.
Quite frankly, anyone using Skype at this point is an idiot, the likely business model for Skype is likely "get idiots to use it / sell private conversation access to NSA/ Profit".
Is that a mismatch between English and French? Liberty vs Gratis? Did they mean free as in what USA used to be, vs free as in beer? Open source free vs close source pay and spy?