French Parliament Votes To Give Priority To Free Software 98
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."
About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Free, open source software is much more educational by its very nature than closed source shit. One can't learn from source that one can't read.
Re:What about on its own merits? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares?
Even if it's available to the merely curious, at least it helps demystify some of the most ubiquitous tools of our time. Children should be encouraged to know what's happening behind the scenes as well as how to use their apps.
Kids don't magically morph into CS students overnight.
Nevertheless, French Army confirmed MS contract (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's the wrong thing. (Score:3, Insightful)
If open source is so much better, it ought to win on merits. Of course, in civil service merits usually don't count, which is why they have lots of rules, and ultimately the whole doesn't achieve much of anything. So much so that bureaucracy is a byword for exactly that.
An example of how to do it is the LiMux project. There, the city of Munich stuck out its head, made a plan, adjusted as necessary (because, due to scope turning out much larger than expected, they needed a much longer timetable), and now has a rock-solid integrated software suite to do most if not all their many, many little departments' bidding. As a side effect, they have a clear picture of what sort of thing is in use, where previously that was a complete unknown (and turned out to be much more disparate than expected). That suite is made up out of many open source parts integrated with their own glue.
Real results always beat legislation that say someone else should something. This legislation will cause a lot of arsecovering and tickboxing and ultimately make the notion of open source part of the rules establishment, of an obstacle to be skirted, not part of the solution. And that is really quite sad, seeing its strong "scratch an itch" genesis.
Thus I predict that French governments will not see serious open source adoption for decades to come, if ever.
Re:Actually, it's the wrong thing. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
How so? Keeping their IT spending local is likely to improve their economy, at the expense of foreign countries that they would previously have bought software from...