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EuroLinux Alliance <petition.EuroLinux.org>

For immediate Release

Paris, Munich, Amsterdam - 2001-11-21 - France Committee for e-Government announced today that the French Agency for e-Government (ATICA) would be in charge of selecting open standards to be enforced all over public administrations in order to guarantee full interoperability. The French Agency for e-Government, which is also officially in charge of promoting open source / free software, is going to select in 2002 the copyright license, based on existing open source / free licenses, under which future software developments may be published.

EuroLinux welcomes this move. An EU country now officialy endorses open standards and open source / free software through an application law. It confirms the adoption of open source / free software within European public administrations. For Harmut Pilch, president of the FFII, "projects including the GnuPG cryptographic software, the SLIS communication server for schools, the Mioga toolkit for extranet or the Yihaw portal component for Zope have proven that the use of open source / free software through customisation and maintenance contracts between public administrations and commercial software companies is an efficient and sustainable economic model for software infrastructure."

Bernard Lang, Vice President of the French-speaking Linux User Association (AFUL) adds: "Open Source / Free Software is the best guarantee for citizens to know what kind of information they exchange with governments". With Open Standards & Free Software, e-Government preserves privacy, individual liberties, and the right for every citizen to access public information. "Open Standards & Free Software are the best technologies to build trust between e-Government and citizens" says Luuk van Dijk, Spokesperson of the Dutch Open Source Association (VOSN).

Open Standards and Open Source / Free Software are also required to accelerate the construction of e-Governement at the European Union level. As stated by French MP Jean-Yves Le Déaut back in an April 2000 proposal of Law, "open communication systems and source code availability are compulsory in order to guarantee at the European level a high level of interoperability between information systems of public administrations". EuroLinux strongly urges all national governments and the European Commission to officialy endorse open standards and to consider the use of open source / free software.

EuroLinux suggests to upgrade the IDA programme of the European Union into a European Agency for e-Government in charge of harmonising open standards between national e-governments and coordinating the publication of reference Open Source / Free Software implementations. The adoption of Open Standards and Open Source / Free Software in Europe is the fastest path to an open, trustable, privacy savvy, interoperable and competitive e-Governement in Europe.

"Next generation e-Government has two requirements: interoperability and transparency. These are the two strengths of open source software. Therefore, I am taking little risk when I predict that open source software will take a crucial part for the development of e-Government in the years to come" summarises Michel Sapin, French Minister in charge of Public Administration and e-Governement.

References

ATICA - http://www.atica.pm.gouv.fr/

Application Law which creates ATICA - http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/citoyen/jorf_nor.ow?numjo=PRMX0105055D

The Carcenac report which agrees to enforce open standards in public administrations and adopt open source / free software - http://www.internet.gouv.fr/francais/textesref/rapcarcenac/sommaire.htm

The Le Déaut / Paul / Cohen / Bloche proposal of Law which suggested the creation of an Agency in charge of enforcing open standards in public administrations - http://www.osslaw.org

The Laffitte / Trégouët / Cabanel proposal of Law which suggested the creation of an Agency in charge of enforcing open source / free software in public administrations - http://www.tregouet.org/senat/prop_lois/PL 117 12-99.html

SLIS - http://www.ac-grenoble.fr/carmi-internet/slis/

GnuPG - http://www.gnupg.org

Mioga - http://www.mioga.org/ and http://www.cgm.org/extranet.html

Yihaw - http://www.eionet.eu.int/EIONET_Tech/Yihaw

IDA - http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/

Michel Sapin Statements on e-Governement - http://www.fonction-publique.gouv.fr/leministre/lesdiscours/discours-200111151520.htm

About EuroLinux - www.EuroLinux.org

The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture based on Open Standards, Open Competition, Linux and Open Source Software. Companies, members or supporters of EuroLinux develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for operating systems such as Linux, MacOS or Windows.

The EuroLinux Alliance launched on 2000-06-15 an electronic petition to protect software innovation in Europe. The EuroLinux petition has received so far massive support from more than 90.000 European citizens, 2000 corporate managers and 300 companies.

Press Contacts

France & Europe: Jean-Paul Smets <jp@smets.com> +33-6 62 05 76 14 Germany & Europe: Hartmut Pilch <phm@ffii.org> +49-89 127 89 608 Denmark and Northern Europe: Anne Østergaard <aoe@sslug.dk> Belgium: Nicolas Pettiaux <nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org> Netherlands: Luuk van Dijk <lvd@mndmttr.nl>

Permanent URL for this PR

http://petition.EuroLinux.org/pr/pr15.html

Legalese

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Index Mode   |   Flat Mode   |   Thread Mode   |   Thread Flat     Talkback(s) Name  and Date   British...    Lord Haw Haw Nov 21, 2001, 22:28:40     Cool and Scary    a.c. Nov 21, 2001, 22:44:15     Sick and tired    Bojan Smojver Nov 21, 2001, 22:56:50     Tony Blair is a bit of a sycophant    someguin Nov 21, 2001, 23:25:57     First Lady Liberty, now this!    Flash Fyre Nov 21, 2001, 23:57:21     Re: Sick and tired    flacco Nov 22, 2001, 10:50:13     Setting an example    Dom Nov 22, 2001, 12:53:47     Isn't encryption illegal in France?    Colin Nov 22, 2001, 14:08:34     Encryption    qdm Nov 22, 2001, 14:31:25     UK Govt and Free Software    Hugh Nov 22, 2001, 14:32:39     Re: Isn't encryption illegal in France?    Arnold Maestre Nov 22, 2001, 15:29:29     Re: UK Govt and Free Software    Wol Nov 22, 2001, 15:44:59     The REAL benefits are...    Jerry Nov 22, 2001, 16:16:53     Re: Re: UK Govt and Free Software    Hugh Nov 22, 2001, 18:20:24     Blair govt becoming increasingly dictatorial    SM Nov 23, 2001, 03:40:01     open source in France    manchot empereur Nov 24, 2001, 14:20:51     All Cheer France    Alexander Timmins Nov 25, 2001, 22:09:38     Home | Search Talkbacks | Customize View    Top of Page   Enter your comments below: * Your Name: * Your Email Address: * Subject: CC: [will also send this talkback to an E-Mail address] * Comments: Tags allowed:<I>,<B> and <U>. See our talkback-policy for more about talkback content. Fields marked with * are required!