Thursday, November 12, 2015

Free software: the government back – Politis

Presented in late September, the bill for digital Republic of Axelle Lemaire was the subject of a public consultation for three weeks. The procedure is unique and has a great success in terms of participation: 8500 comments and contributions have been deposited on the site by some 21,000 people. The ambition of this consultation was to improve the law through the proposals of Internet users. But the promise of “co-writing” of the law initiated by Axelle Lemaire quickly found its limits. Of the ten proposals for new items most desired, few were eventually incorporated in the text unveiled on November 6.

Exit the idea suggested by the Quadrature du Net to allow group actions that directly harm other equipment, such as the infringement of personal data and Net neutrality. Exit enrollment in the law of the right of every computer buyer to choose the operating system and therefore not be required to acquire his machine with Windows pre-installed system. No registration either in law the concept of “common voluntary”, ie the right for creators to share their work – software, images, music, texts or objects – through free licenses or Free distribution.

The government has also not desired selection of proposals 2, 3 and 7 and 9 on free software. The first suggests a “ using free software and GNU / Linux in schools and universities ,” the second as “ give priority to free software and open formats in public service national and local “, the third consider that” source code software “is a communicable administrative document alongside the records, reports, studies, reports, statistics, circular , letters or opinions and decisions. And the fourth calls the “ use of GNU / Linux in the administration .”

Are we Just insert a paragraph in the press release to clarify this choice. “ Despite a very wide plebiscite of these proposals (95 to 99.7% of positive votes), a lively debate took place, highlighting the benefits of free software (moderate cost, freedom reuse and modification) as well as questions about the best tool, legal or not, to bring these proposals “it said. The arguments that followed are somewhat contradictory. The Government refers to various existing laws advocating giving priority to free software in higher education, taking into account the offer of free software and open format documents in the choice of school resources, or yet a 2012 circular defining a general doctrine of maximum use of free software in the administration. It would have been logical that a law on digital Republic is not an “obligation”, but a general principle of “priority” or “maximum use” of the software in government and public bodies. Especially as it is written in the same press release, “ the government fully supports the development of free software and its use, particularly in the administration ” but there …. prefer to do this “ non-legislative measures, support in the field and promoting initiatives administrations and agents .”

In April this retreat has very effects damaging. “ Given the economic power of undertakings providing proprietary software, inaction is not the right solution, because the game forces are too unbalanced ,” said the association. “ We need much more proactive policies on free software. At the political level, be content with promotional, verbiage without any constraint, respite inaction. The government can not discard on public officials, who no real support, are working every day to free software. “The association also notes that the European Parliament has just passed a resolution calling for its security reasons, among others, the administration of the European Union to systematically replace proprietary software with open source software and free software to add as mandatory selection criterion when awarding public contracts in the field of ICT.

As to embody the concerns of April, it was reported this week that Microsoft’s big boss met with President of the Republic. The Redmond arrived with a big gift: 70 million euros of credits to innovation for start-ups of the French Tech (expensive initiative Emmanuel Macron), and 13 million in a partnership with the National Education for deployment of the digital to school. For its part Emmanuel Macron has just announced the guidelines for its law, very focused on start-ups and digital innovation. You said random chance?

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