French Parliament Votes To Give Priority To Free Software

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."

Comments

Re:Makes sense

[ozmanjusri]

No. It only makes sense if you're hawking proprietary software and want to hide how it works.

Words, but also actions?

[Errol backfiring]

The Dutch government has put all kinds of open-source-friendly laws into place as well, but does not even abide their own laws, especially when it comes to open source software. So I am waiting for the news that the French actually DO switch to open source software instead of just saying they will.

Re:Makes sense

[Bert64]

The root cause of this is that those who learned to program before college did so because they were interested in the subject and usually sought out the information themselves...
Those who first learn in college generally have no personal interest in the subject beyond getting a job, and so they invest the minimum required effort in order to get paid and not fired, same as anyone else who's doing a job they don't enjoy.