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AFUL's meeting with French Government officials
AFUL, the french Free Software
user group, held
a half day conference touting the benefits
of free software to a government panel in the French Prime-Minister's
building. The government panel (MTIC) is responsible for introducing
new technologies to different ministries. A french customs
official described
the easy introduction to their intranet of a Linux web server
which has shown itself to be very reliable. Another presentation
discussed the commercial need to force customers into an update cycle.
It compared
Windows 3.11's reliability to that of women's
stockings which are designed to break quickly.
The french city of Lille's computer department also
enjoyed
Linux' ease of use, scalability and efficiency on older
hardware. Finally, Bernard Lang's presentation did not
pull its punches. He discussed the dangers
for the French economy of relying on
foreign black-box software: proprietary software
reduces local employment, tends to
concentrate power monopolistically,
while free software
increases local employment (since most software jobs are
in the service industry),
guarantees originality, competition,
conformity to open standards,
and
a free choice of service provider. The website referred
to is the French Prime Minister's Governmental website, so
we can be hopeful things will start happening. Links courtesy of Nouvelles
Neuves Linux, and Translation services available from
Babelfish.
..how foreign goverments allow MS to supply products to key industries...
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
...?
... my native language is:
..did I double post?
English
French
German
Spanish
Italian
Chinese
Japanese
Russian
Penguinian
..
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Clear, solid, easy-to-understand reasons to prefer free software to proprietary will go a lot farther than "Linux rulez!"
I like the designed-like-women's-stockings argument; I may have to appropriate it...
Okay, I'm writing this without my usual bold comments for the sake of speed...
I find it comforting that many people are now finding that Linux, and similar free items are becoming dominant in the corporate world, and the international world.
Most people know that Linux kicks the hell out of Windows. Doh. What I'd like to know is when we might be able to get Linux as a fesable workstation system, vs. the current Windows system.
I'm hoping that the Corel Sidewinder LC systems will change this drastically, becuase they embody the ultimate in kick ass for Linux.
Let us hope in the future, as the world becomes a free thing, and we evolve to the point of Star Trek (yeah right.)
-Michael J. Lu
"The little secret that haunts Corporate America...a techonology that won't go away."
Ack! I like my info in little peices. They're easier to process this way.
"The difference between genius and stupid is that genius has its limits." -- Unknown
Beautiful demo of French Logic in action...
Let's use this great GLOBALY DEVELOPED set of OSS software to reinforce the paranoid, protectionist French economic policy. But, hey, what more should one expect from a bunch of Socialists.
Don't they know that if they buy enough software from Bill, he will grant them a certain measure of economic return? Petty Grands for Intelectual Property and what not... Extend, embrace and buy IS a global concept for MicroSoft... It's not like they're going to keep Bill out of their airspace or anything... hehe..
Don't they know if French culture has anything important to contribute to OSS, it would have (has) already happened (and will continute to happen)?
Then again, maybe it's not the "French", per say; but, goverments, in general, that just don't get it.
OSS is NOT the CPM of the 90s!
Reading the above piece, it suddenly dawned on me why the french are rude. --- They're not.
They're just indignant at cheeky furriners trying to tell them how to run their lives. My guess is that they appreciate the way day-to-day life FEELS, inconveniences and all, and like it. I know I'm looking for an OLD house right now, because half the fun of owning an old home is the smells, and the other half is the upkeep. You're in touch with reality ALL the time, and bullshit takes a back seat. Same reason I like wood heat, and stalking the wild tree, and cutting it down, and...
Hmmm... sounds a lot like us *nix enthusiasts.
The french've produced a lot of cool mathematicians, yaknow. Very abstract guys.
Ok, now you can LART me.
Just make it hurt for real.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
even though the videotext thing got thwacked by the internet, it looks like having the intelligencia running a bunch of ministries can pay off.
i must say i am far more impressed with this action than the way most US computer/science/math professors gave up on unix and embraced NT.
ah...the latest from the country that gave us wine, the best food and oral sex...who could expect less.
"I fart in your general direction" -- M. Python
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
The French are all assholes. We should either
1) Nuke France back to primordial ooze.
or
2) Invade france, tear up their mansions and shit, and build something useful, like a silicon processing plant.
I would like to see those damn grey poupon eating bastards suffer.
This shouldn't really be a new thing to the French Governemnet; they've been developing free software for some time now to support the french economy. INRIA, I love 'em.
I must say, Bernard Lang makes an excellent case. Well put. Well organized. He isn't a "Director" for nothing! :) I was wondering if the speech and the presentation was "GPLed"?? So that other countries/companies could use it in almost its entirity.
BTW, did I mention I LOVE Babelfish?
If you think about it, all the same arguments apply to the film industry. The French want to keep their niche, and Hollywood asswipes like Jack Valenti want to steamroller 'em.
here.
-- LaTeX, The Best There Is
There's such a thing called "reality". It's the thing you should check your beliefs and prejudices against BEFORE posting. Think of it.
For the "small history":
Last year, top government officials were contacted by Microsoft, which basically said that France was "behind" in information technology and Microsoft would help it improved its education system on advanced technologies. Bill Gates even met Chirac on this.
Of course, lots of people (engineers, academics...) didn't like this. The problem was that Microsoft did its marketing right: the POLITICIANS are indeed very backward when it comes to technology, and they can get misled by clever marketdroids. If I were even more cynical, I'd say that politicians think of themselves as so bright and intelligent that if they are nonknowledgeable in a particular area, then it must be that the whole country is as ignorant as them.
So AFUL was founded notably by people from INRIA. AFUL is mainly a lobbying group for Linux and free software.
Our American friends may not be aware of this, but the bugs in Windows and Linux advocacy have been discussed on prime-time nation-wide radios; not to mention the mainstream magazines and journals talking about Linux.
I begin to think that after all academics can make good lobbyists.
You're not wrong; Remy Card is indeed a "Linux luminary" due to his efforts on ext2.
On occasion any nation can come off as "jerks." The French put together the factors that they deploy a lot of political opinion/theory, do things about it, and have been doing this for several hundred years. Put those together and...
The substantial contributions of INRIA to Free Software must be considered. And sometimes other things come up; I finally saw this French translation of a paper I wrote last year; excellent translation effort. Some of the French version seems to read better than what I wrote in English...
naww... small countries are the way to go. Andorra is about the right size :-) Now free Catalonia and I'll be happy :)
wine was known to the Romans, oral sex probably goes back to the dawn of time, and the best food is a matter of taste, but I'd put it either in India or somewhere in the Middle East :)
damn, the site is slashdotted. I wonder if it runs on NoTechnology.
I like the analogy with women's stockings.
Would like to take a step further though. Just
read somewhere that Victoria Secrets' merchandise
is designed the same way, will last at most
a year. What's a good candidate to compare it
with? Windows 2000?
This coming from the country where it was (maybe
still is) impossible to own an auto parts store
because the mechanics union wouldn't allow it.
That "women's stockings are designed to break soon" is ridiculous. Basic economics will tell you that. If a company could produce longer lasting stockings (say that lasted 5-10 times as long), wouldn't they rather then sell those for 5-10 times as much (at least, since the customer wouldn't have to buy as many, and would value the time saved on trips to the store and less headache from broken stockings), and save on raw materials? Even in the absence of competition, which would spur introduction of better stocking technology, this would happen.
Gates as head a multinational corp with no loylalty to anything but himself, make him a "head of state" and Microsoft a "foreign" government (dictatorship varity) to every other country on the planet!
Every country, the USA included, would do well to adopt the Open Source Standard for it's own national security, employment, etc...
No they wouldn't. Subscription is better for companies than one buy. Hint: in the 1970s there were adverts for 20 Year garantees on a car... No longer.
I was catching up on movie star gossip in the Economist last week, and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but statistics on protectionism.
Guess which country has the highest percentage of people against free trade? Starts with U, ends with nited States.
This was a global survey. Even places like Korea, which used to execute foreigners, are way ahead of the US.
---- "If we have to go on with these damned quantum jumps, then I'm sorry that I ever got involved" - Erwin Schrodinger
..obviously ?
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
We view the State as an ally, not an ennemy. And since we believe that the State plays a positive role in Society, we do not regard a career to serve the State as something to be ashamed of. So, the best talents are naturally drawn to Public Service, rather than going into private business.
The (totally free - the State pays all tuition fees) French Public Service schools (Polytechnique, École Nationale d'Administration, École Normale, Saint-Cyr, etc.) are strictly reserved for the very best of the graduates and provide a yearly crop of extremely talented and exquisitely qualified civil servants, who upon graduation, will put their talent at the service of the State and, by extension, of all French Society.
So it is quite natural that, since it is being run by extremely competent people, a French State will more than often take the right, obvious, decision (which, incidentally, goes towards the benefit of the majority of people, rather than according to the "laws of the free market"). Like supporting OSS.
The French put intellectual achievement ahead of financial success; writers and academics enjoy one of the best perception within French society, quite ahead of successful entrepreneurs. Could there be a better intellectual achievement than collaborating in establishing a new solid and robust and open operating system standard?
After all, such an OSS OS will benefit mankind far much more than writing (yet another) book of verses, or composing (yet another) symphony or opera...
-- ----------------------------------------------
Vive le logiciel... Libre!!!
Any half-witted American historian knows that
without French dollars the U.S. would have never
won their indepedence in the 1780s.
To a great extent the French government put itself
into great debt by spending great amounts of
money on the U.S. revolution. And the taxes
that were implemented following the revolution
partially resulted in France's own revolution.
Washington's army was paid and supplied for
extended periods of time by the French. The
bumbling U.S. confederacy and states were
pathetic in their fiscal support of the
revolution.
I don't recall things like socks, shoes, other underwear, and even deodorant wearing out so rapidly. Most consumer goods _don't_ wear out rapidly in my experience, except for obviously cheap products known to fail. The big exception is electronics, where the rapid advance of technology makes computers obsolete. But I'd rather have modern computers than 1970s technology and have 1970s computers still fine. And those computers usually do still run, just not acceptably by today's standards.
Buicks were out rapidly because it would be expensive to have a longer lasting car, and people don't want to spend that much at one time. Long lasting stockings would not be prohibitively expensive.
If R&D is so bad, why does Gilette spend so much on razor research? Why do they concentrate on long-lasting razors as a design feature rather than disposables? Because people _will_ pay for higher quality long-lasting razors. Disposables are certainly more convenient for contact lenses (no annoying cleaning), but people are used to washing clothes, so I don't think disposable pantyhose has distinct advantages.