This latest verdict is probably in line with the current French legislation. But since France is a member of EU, they will eventually have to implement the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD). The French parlament are in fact discussing this, the proposed french law is called "Droit d'Auteur et aux Droits Voisins dans la Société de l'Information" (DADVSI), and though opposition is tough it will certainly come to life soon, as all EU directives must in all member states.
Then P2P networks and the use of them, even to share innocent files, will be illegal. This law will also affect Open Source software development, so it might matter more than you think.
You can help the French community by signing a petition here:
A lot of the people here have high hopes for OpenOffice to be the killer app that could bring enterprise users to Linux. Hence the many suggestions and ideas about what Sun should do with it.
But to me, the key is not OpenOffice but OpenDocument. With the widespread adaptation of an open document format, in a few years people will stop caring what Office suite you are running - just like I don't care about your brand of email client, I just assume you can read the emails I send you.
For that reason, Suns ownership of OpenOffice has been all for the good - they could probably not have justified the expense to their shareholders if they had just given it all up to a foundation - and we should all be very grateful. Now we have ODF, we have a working implementation (OO.o), and all FOSS developers can choose to work on their Office software of choice, as long as they are ODF-compliant, which will in the end lead to real choice for all of us that are mostly users.
As for Sun keeping OpenOffice or giving it to a foundation - who cares?
Slashdot Mirror
This latest verdict is probably in line with the current French legislation. But since France is a member of EU, they will eventually have to implement the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD). The French parlament are in fact discussing this, the proposed french law is called "Droit d'Auteur et aux Droits Voisins dans la Société de l'Information" (DADVSI), and though opposition is tough it will certainly come to life soon, as all EU directives must in all member states.
Then P2P networks and the use of them, even to share innocent files, will be illegal. This law will also affect Open Source software development, so it might matter more than you think.
You can help the French community by signing a petition here:
http://eucd.info/index.php?English-readers
A lot of the people here have high hopes for OpenOffice to be the killer app that could bring enterprise users to Linux. Hence the many suggestions and ideas about what Sun should do with it.
But to me, the key is not OpenOffice but OpenDocument. With the widespread adaptation of an open document format, in a few years people will stop caring what Office suite you are running - just like I don't care about your brand of email client, I just assume you can read the emails I send you.
For that reason, Suns ownership of OpenOffice has been all for the good - they could probably not have justified the expense to their shareholders if they had just given it all up to a foundation - and we should all be very grateful. Now we have ODF, we have a working implementation (OO.o), and all FOSS developers can choose to work on their Office software of choice, as long as they are ODF-compliant, which will in the end lead to real choice for all of us that are mostly users.
As for Sun keeping OpenOffice or giving it to a foundation - who cares?