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Re: Linux Adoption in France

On Monday 27 November 2006 10:26 High Plains Thumper wrote:

> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> 
>> A few days ago:
>> 
>> French National Assembly switches to Linux
>> 
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| Linux, OpenOffice and Firefox favoured
>>| 
>>| [...]
>>| 
>>| One deputy in favour of the move is Bernard Carayon,
>>| commissioned by the Prime Minister earlier this year to
>>| report on how European businesses could play a greater
>>| role in developing global industrial standards, in order
>>| to reduce Europe's economic dependance on other regions.
>> `----
>> 
>> http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?newsid=7687
> 
> This is something that felt would be coming, and it did.
> 
> https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
> 
> CIA World Fact Book:
> 
> European Union —
> GDP (purchasing power parity): $12.18 trillion (2005 est.)
> 
> United States —
> GDP (purchasing power parity): $12.31 trillion (2005 est.)
> 
> European Union IMO wants to compete and establish independence
> from other world markets.  Its economic power at least from what
> the CIA states is equivalent in buying power to the US.  I have
> a feeling that Europe will become the Open Source driver.

You just said a mouthfull.
I believe that the "establish independence" bit is absolutely key.

imo, it's not a question of "competing" on the OS, replacing one tyrant with
another, but rather a completely new model.
At the moment, Europe (and everybody else, but Europe in particular) depends
on a single source of supply, a single company, which is centred in a
foreign country.
All development, all new direction, all changes, are done at the whim of
what is best for that company and its bottom line, and any limitations on
the power of that company is at the whim of that foreign country.

There's no doubt in my mind that for many years to come, the U.S. will be
central or at least a big player in IT, but the (forced, if needs) adoption
of an Open OS and of Open Standards would change the picture from something
which is totally unacceptable to something with which everybody would be
happy.

All the puerile arguments here re. who has the best fonts, whether or not
DVDs play, who has the best games, who has the drivers, are trivial by
comparison.





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