“If a pair of French senators have their way, open source
software will be le forcé software of France.”
“The administrations of the State, the local communities and
the administrative services, subject to the provisions of Article 4
can use only free software of rights and whose source code is
available…“
“The proposal, known in as Proposition 495, isn’t coming to a
municipality near you anytime soon. But in France, where issues of
culture (including, apparently, geek culture) are paramount, more
than a few French officials are looking at the open source movement
as a way of both maintaining easy access to information as well as
keeping a certain amount of control over their own national
computer culture.”