Surely, given that the French like to keep things in their own language, that should be "Renard de Feu" and "BureauOvert.org" ?

J'irai chercher mon manteau .....

Its starting already. The slow and steady decline of Microsoft. While I think Bill Gates is a very smart man, he got stuck in the early computer age and never grew.

Why should companies and governments that have hundreds of thousands of computers and large IT staffs pay the big bucks for over hyped OS systems. Linux has matured to the point that only gradual and occasional changes are needed..... and there is always Mac OSX.

After the Vista debacle and Microsoft steadfastly refusing to admit that it made a mistake, I just do not see companies waiting 3-4 more years for the next Microsoft thing.

en

How long before mickeysoft 'incentivise's them into sticking with their proprietory crapware?

How big will those incentives be?

Can I get a slice?

Doesn't look like there are all that many gendarmes on the street if they are 100,000 strong and have 70,000 desktop PCs.

IGMC.

I expect to see Steve Ballmer crash landing in France at some point in the near future to try to persuade the french bobbies to continue using Windows.

I wonder if he'll 'persuade' them with a bit of chair throwing?

Paris - obviously!

With any luck this will become a Europe - wide policy decision. i look forward to the headline: EU Declared a Windows - Free Zone, huge fines for non compliance

Wont it get really dark?

After playing on the wide open "beach" it thought was its own for ever, Micro$aft will soon get drownded if it doesn't head back for the real shore very quickly. Doesn't take many respectable establishment bodies taking a step like this before all the rest follow suit. A parliament here, a police force there, and Glub Glub Glub... Bill G has a fantastic sense of timing!

Bill will be paying a visit to Sarko soon.

Items prohibited in the M$ EULA on a per core, per VM, per client basis.

Vive La France !

liberté, egalité, et sans Microsoft!

au revoir, Monsieur Bill.

If MS has a real problem here, then maybe they should give me a real OS for business/public sector (and specifically, for me, school) use, i.e. one that provides a half-useful login dialog, especially for little kiddies (and teachers) who can't remember "cat" as a password, let alone type in ludicrous extensions to their usernames in order to get domain/local logins.

One that has some sort of alternative logon software available that doesn't cost the earth ON TOP of the Vista upgrades, Vista licenses etc. for a few hundred stations. One that doesn't take five times as long to Ghost because of the enormous (and completely useless) installation size. And one that integrates NICELY into a network for a change. Until then, you'll be selling XP Pro or nothing to any school I've ever worked at, and by all accounts it's pretty similar problems that stop larger deployments of Vista in the public sector.

If I were a gambling man, I'd lay money that XP will earn yet-another reprieve when the time comes and still nobody wants to use Vista.

this can only be a step in the right direction, all too often in schools etc. people are taught "how to make a access database" and not "how does a database work". The former approach limiting a user to use a single piece of software more often than not Microsoft based the latter allowing for general use of a technology....and inevitably more flexibility!

Nice one - there's no real need to run any MS software these days anyway.

(although I suspect that the decision was taken for financial reasons rather than technological ones, sadly)

That's the sound of da police! Woop woop! Installing da Lineeex.

But Microsoft vs the world was never going to go any other way.

This should come as a nice hint to the "Linux is too hard" brigade that Linux is actually no harder than Windows to use -- and that it's days of being "for geeks only" are numbered.

With any luck schools will follow -- as a poster above points out, too many people are being taught to use Windows and not to use computers.

There are only 70 guys on the computers, but they use an average of 1,000 each...

Entirely agree, if even the gendarmes can use it it means that you don't even need to know how to read!

is for gaming only, for the time being.

If it wasn't for CueBase and the latest games(I am still a big kid at heart) I wouldn't have an m$ OS in the house.

I hope other nations follow the French example, good of them to resist the backhanders, sorry incentives, that I am sure were offered. Now if we only had persons of honesty and integrity in the UK government.... I can dream can't I?

Goodbye Bill, I would like to say it has been nice knowing you and your software, but that would be a lie.

... get them to learn how to type with more than two fingers.

than Vista!

Can't quite see it happening here though somehow. Put ubuntu on my mother in laws machine and then found that the broadband modem was usb only. Bit of a pain but there you go.

I'd rather use OSX, then Windows, then Linux, in that order.

The problem largely with the Linux community is its a self reinforcing echo-chamber who spend 50% of their time babbling about how amazing it is and the other 50% talking about how much they hate MS.

It's impossible to have an actual critical conversation about Linux - try and find one. Anyone that dares say anything bad about it is hunted down gestapo style and silenced under a barrage of flames (and then admin'd).

Linux appears to be the only system that enforces Blasphemy laws - it's ridiculous.

Simply put if it really was that damn good it'd be everywhere by now and MS would have been ditched on a massive scale. All the statistics I have seen across the board see it holding steady at 0.3% for the last 2 years. The only reason most Linux fans think its taking over is that the only people they really listen to are other Linux fans.

Most people moving to are doing so for cost reasons, not quality reasons. Until the Linux community manages some honesty rather than zealotry and this 'ethical software' crusade then it's never going to get any better.

Apple can sell an overpriced BSD knockoff and compete with MS, yet Linux cannot despite being free?

And lets face it, the UI sucks and it looks like crap. Still.

Without wanting to be too much of a pessimist, this isn't (yet) a victory for Linux, until they have completed a relatively painless transfer and stayed with Linux in the long term without major problems. (That's not to say it isn't a big achievement for Ubuntu.)

I wonder what they are doing with their bespoke apps? Have they all been re-written? If so, I strongly suspect that the stated savings are bollocks, if they are run on Windows based VMs/Terminal Servers this isn't so much of a Linux victory.

Ah well, it'll be interesting to watch, if we see anything else about it...

More than M$ vs Linusk it the fact that they managed to get the gendarmes acquainted with a "humanist philosophy", a ubuntu constable, lol, that's a bit of an oxymoron.

zoot alors, vite, donne moi le Gutsy Garlic CD Rom Jacques!

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iU4Lq7tOR_WVOJLZ3IeRaIH03x6w

I also like this comment as I think it is very true.

"He also added that "the Linux interface is ahead of other operating systems currently on the market for professional use.""

I find it very odd that countries in Europe are still so prepared to be sellsmen for Microsoft.

No lock in, only open standards, a no brainer, but still so hard to make a change.

Spain, Germany anf France seem to get it faster.

However, lets not forget that the USA is far ahead in this respect.

Is this move more about Ubuntu being a capable trouble free operating system, or Vista being a pain in the arse?

Linux is a bit of a joke, but Vista is a one liner with the punchline being the price.

(I run Ubuntu and Vista on my two computers, and neither are "operating" systems...I don't want locks to be congratulated on boot up "Windows has recovered from a serious error" ...no, I pressed restart. or to have to trawl help sites to get a second monitor running on Ubuntu - I want a file browser, stability and hardware to work when I plug it in.)

Not having windows in jails would surely be a big security improvement?

Ah that means full support for Windows 2K is about to end shortly !

Good luck to the French officials using "open source" software. The problem is, though, as mentioned above by the anonymous poster, many of the Linux / open source people live in a kind of echo chamber where they don't listen to outsiders.

Here's one example: I sent some bug reports about one particular application, including segmentation faults (serious memory errors) and a wonky interface which grabbed the input focus in a kind of vicious circle. Then somebody went through the "bug tracker" and removed the bug reports - the memory violations only occurred under a certain set of circumstances, and the user interface bug was changed so that the interface did something else, which was still completely wonky, but slightly different from what it had been doing. Now they remove the bug reports, so they can say that their software is "bug free" without actually having had to fix any of the bugs or rotten code.

Incidentally the "open source" people say that we're supposed to help them fix their bugs, so in this case I'd actually gone and tried to look at the source codes for this application, and it was an utter mess - the broken user interface code had been cut-and-pasted into at least two completely different files in different directories, and it was hard enough just trying to work out which of these nearly duplicate bits of code actually was being called, let alone fix the bugs. In fact sometimes one of the duplicate bits of code was being called and sometimes another one of them was, so neither of them could be removed.

This isn't an isolated example, either. I've encountered exactly the same kind of attitudes from "open source" people time and time again - their software is wonderful and flawless, they are all lovely darling little volunteers, how dare anyone criticize them, etc. etc.

I think it's a huge problem for open source software that so many applications are being developed by these kinds of monkeys.

Don't worry, when the Chinese decide that they don't want Windows on their systems for "security" reasons, I am sure we will get a state-sponsered version of Linux that will be far superior to distro we've seen so far. Of course the Chinese don't give a damn about intellectual property, so they won't give a damn about the GPL. They will probably charge for their distro, and thus will have the profit motive to make Linux actually work, since they are more capitalistic than the west nowadays.

Manteau, porte...

As far as I know, the Chinese already have their own linux distro. Google "chinese government linux".

I run Linux on both of my computers as the main operating system. I really like it and it serves my purposes well. Yes, there are problems with Linux. The two biggest for me (when I migrated) were the ridiculous amount of duplication of programs (want a music player? Choose from about a bazilion with no simple way of rating them before hand. Using internet searches for reviews helps but it certainly put me off) and the lack of device drivers. The latter is a bit of a catch 22; no effort will be made to develop drivers until Linux is mainstream, and Linux is less likely to be mainstream until it has a full repertoire of drivers. Some software functions like hobby programs, but I've found that not to be the norm.

I have to say I don't understand complaining about the ui. The desktops look and function as well or better than mac or windows, you can even get the silly translucent effects and shrinking windows if you want.

As for the zealotry, there are some people out there like that but may I politely suggest that if you want a balanced conversation you approach the subject less aggressively?

Didn't the French already have a good one - Chateau D'if - if I remember rightly ??

Oops, sorry, you mean THAT kind of "Windowless" !!

@Bert Ragnarok - the 100,000 are the plods. That shouldn't include the support, and some say far better looking, staff that will (wo)man the PCs !! That also does not include the Robocops^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H CRS riot police !!

/Mine has Kevlar woven into it !!

"The problem largely with the Linux community is its a self reinforcing echo-chamber who spend 50% of their time babbling about how amazing it is and the other 50% talking about how much they hate MS."

"And lets face it, the UI sucks and it looks like crap. Still."

And there we have irony.

A) Slating people for stating hate, then stating hate

B) Stating that "Linux people" make irrational statements based on feeling, then making a statement based on feeling alone

And we can ALL come up with scenrios where this is worse for closed source applications.

So what was the application? Because if you tell us and the application really is buggy, the support terrible and the code bad, we will avoid it and we will enter a free market where we are informed consumers.

Or if we're supposed to tar all OSS proects with the same brush, we ought to slate ALL software because of the aforementioned universality of bad products.

Ug bang sticks.

While I use Linux daily and do support for it, while my company is completely MS-free, I find that many open source 'projects' are complete crap or very close to it. Not just user interface, quality problems, but *sometimes* just plain ignorance of a problem make an interesting project into a gathering of MAS (mutual admiration society) kids.

The same problems remain in Windows-based 'solutions'. The 'products' are sometimes even worse than many of those seen on Linux platforms. And most the crap-writers of these expect you to PAY for it!

Then there are the excellent (free) ones like Apache, PostgreSQL, Inkscape, HandyShopper (for Palm) ... just to name a few.

Linux certainly hosts most open projects. Because it is the infrastructure and its philosophy that support this kind of activity. OTOH MS wants *your money* (they do not care about your well being, security or freedom) and the bunch gathered there also wants *your money*. Mac crowd is different in a sense that it expects simple AND nice looking products over other things. All of them are fiercely territorial and would fight until death for their rights. ;-)

From a usability standpoint any of those three is good enough to get the job done. On certain part of UI one leads, then lags behind. Compiz on Linux is well ahead of Aero and it runs on machines Vista would not even boot. Audio on Linux either sucks or rocks, while on Windows works as advertised (in a Chinese-Engrish :-). OS X runs only on it's own hardware and still has occasional problems and glitches.

The main difference is price and security.

So what are French really doing?

- From price standpoint this is very clear: not paying Microsoft means more money to transfer apps to the other (new) ecosystem.

- From security view: they can control and adjust the operating system (if they wish to) to their own needs and are not left to the (big and bad) foreign company.

- From political standpoint they are just giving 'merde' to everyone else and keeping control and power to themselves. And that's what French are well known for. :-)

- From IT perspective: you will not be forced to re-learn everything on next-gen MS OS, but can enjoy from being standards-compliant.

While having something for free is not always the best option, but having choice certainly is. And not being vendor-locked-in is certainly one of the best choices available.

Then what about French prisons without windows? Who will be held responsible if someone gets cold? And what about not being locked-in?

--

Alfred

"Geraud cited familiar reasons for the switch: diversifying suppliers, reducing costs and gaining control of the software."

Right, just in time to (big) house Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates after the findings of the next round of the European Commission investigation. I mean, the last thing you'd want is to have them locked up someplace where the local guvna can be bought with "cheap licenses" *cough*.gov.uk*cough*, so the French seem an obvious choice. And the second last thing you'd want is to find that your lock-up gear was nobbled by vendor or external government backdoors - if the boys were able to do a runner then it would appear that even the EU couldn't put a ball-n-chain to Microsoft.

(And who doesn't want to hear French chicks saying "ooh-bu'n-too le'nukz" between cigarette puffs?)

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/14/microsoft_hit_new_ec_probes/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY

Hmmm,

There have been some silly comments made about things like "Linux is a bit of a joke"

A joke? How do you work that out?

Linux is the work of thousands of the worlds best programmers over several years. It is the most up to date, and yet also the most stable operating system ever.

Unfortunately I don't use Linux at home or on the desktops at work (due to being tied in to proprietary rubbish software) but we certainly use it on servers where scalability and reliability are concerns.

If there was no linux, then the internet would be 10 years behind where it is now, the majority of the worlds internet servers use a variety or linux or unix.

As for poor driver support, I have not come across any hardware that does not work with linux, or indeed any recent "quality brand name" hardware that isn't supplied with linux drivers on CD.

I do wish that linux would become mainstream enough for desktop use, before we get forced onto Vista, but thats unlikely, though I suspect the forced Vista "upgrade" will create several hundred thousand linux users.

I think you're missing something here. Specifically in the UK there are a few companies that now sell a complete school setup (managed AFAIK) which is based on Terminal Server principles (i.e. you maintain a few images only for the whole school). The system also allows kids at home to work, so they can submit their homework and it thus also supports a child who has fallen ill - without the need for parents to install anything but OpenOffice (AFAIK - it's already 3 years ago I saw it demonstrated at the BCS in London). Nice detail: to kit out a new school room would take about 30 minutes from fresh because you didn't need to install any software - plant the hardware, set it up for PXE boot and go.

Then there is good ol' Mark 'Ubuntu' Shuttleworth in South Kensington who actually started off coding with doing school projects (SchoolTool) and this has joined up with the sterling FOSS efforts in the Spanish Estremeduro region (I hope I spelled that right) who not only coded a whole school support system from Linux, but who then went on to create a full blown eco system so that a small business could just get a CD at County Hall and run their business on it, including interconnectivity with the Government systems (also on Linux). The whole show is maintained and supported by a couple of guys in an office.

They did it because they had zero money (it's about the poorest region in Spain), but imagine you do that in the UK. It would be dirt cheap for the benefits it could bring, and it would make Ballmer come out in a rash. It would also fail to feed a lot of people who normally have their snouts pretty deep in the through, so it'll never happen.

I know Microsoft likes to make you believe that it's the only game in town, but it really hasn't been for quite some time. What keeps MS alive in large scale deployments are consultancies that not only want to continue gaining from an investment (people, training, software) in the lock-in game, but actively support that lock in because it makes them a fortune. Please don't believe a consultancy is without bias.

Consultancies are like Microsoft: they don't really like actually solving a problem in full because you then wouldn't need more. Both sell hope - and lie like hell to stay in excessive profits, which is why I dislike the trend to hand off most of the gov thinking to consultants. You might as well send then to the Mint to pick up a few pallets of money - it's far more efficient.

Windows is an excellent platform to quickly knock together a proof of concept. The frequently made mistake is believing that a proof of CONCEPT scales as-is to a live, operational platform.

"And lets face it, the UI sucks and it looks like crap. Still."

And there we have irony.

A) Slating people for stating hate, then stating hate

B) Stating that "Linux people" make irrational statements based on feeling, then making a statement based on feeling alone

----------------------------

As a graphic designer I think I can say with some authority it looks like crap. KDE 4 - the latest and greatest - looks like crap. The interface is amateur, the buttons are either oversized or too small, there is not enough padding on elements and it just generally looks cluttered. It's buggy as hell as well.

Gnome otoh is a carbon copy of the Windows UI only it's split onto two bars instead of one. "Lets copy the Windows UI but waste loads of screen space" - great idea. I know it's a ripoff as well because the quicklaunch contains Firefox (IE), Show Desktop (Although they moved it somewhere else) and Evolution (Outlook Express).

I've always thought it was dumb to put an icon for a mail client that few people use (webmail anyone?) and it's spectacularly stupid to do so on a Live CD. It's only because the designers were blindly copying MS rather than thinking for themselves. The chance of them adding a POP mail client without them copying the idea from MS is practically nil, because it's simply a bad idea.

Its a symptom of FOSS though - MS gets flack for 'stealing ideas', yet Linux is a clean room implementation of UNIX and entirely unoriginal. It's stuck in the 70's and if anyone dares say anything about it the Linux fanboys are all over it (like the one above) dishing out the ad hominems.

As they say in AA meetings the first step to dealing with your 'problem' is admitting it's there. Until the community stops going berserk every time you point out a flaw that can't be handled by bugzilla* then nothing is ever going to get fixed as you are flaming the people that can actually help. As a developer who would you rather listen to - 20 people who think your software is perfect, or 1 person that doesn't like it? It's like the emperors new clothes!

* Bugzilla only handles bugs. UI problems, misplaced features, ugly graphics and general poor HCI awareness cannot be effectively handled by bugzilla, yet there is pretty much zero feedback methods apart from it.

"If there was no linux, then the internet would be 10 years behind where it is now, the majority of the worlds internet servers use a variety or linux or unix."

Bollocks. Linux is just a copy of Unix. If Linux didn't exist people would simply be running Apache on BSD. Apache != Linux. Virtually all FOSS works on most other platforms. The only reasons to use Linux is either if (a) Your a cheapskate (b) Your on some sad anti MS moral crusade* or (c) Your a geek and enjoy spending more time fiddling with your OS rather than using it**.

* Most people don't even buy free range eggs***. Trying to promote Linux on 'freedom' won't work.

** Of course your now going to claim that it isn't true, and possibly allege that I am paid by MS. Finding out _why_ people don't use Linux never seems to be a concern - only flaming them.

*** I buy free range.

Linux runs 85% of the top500 supercomputers. Thats hardly a joke.

However, there are a lot of people who have not bothered to try the latest distos.

The progress on the desktop, both KDE and Gnome, has been very fast during the last two years.

I think that one of the biggest problems that slows down Linux in enterprise is the fact that so many company IT-deparments where killed off during the last 10 years.

These department are now run bye a bunch of PC people with very little experience of anything but Windows.

And even if part of them used Linux at home they might have very little power when it comes to IT decisions.

I suppose the French Police deparment has a IT deparment able and willing to pull this through.

According to a fairly old US study, those who swith to open source, are either very big and the inpact in saved dollars is big, or small with the guts to do it themselves.

And I would like to tell you about the Finnish Prime Minister Vanhanen who was allowed to meet Bill Gates (at the home of Bill).

Now Bill gave Vanhanen a gift affecting Finnish shools and education.

Now poor Vanhanen has to admit that shools are not forced to accept that terrific gift by Bill.

The story is so sad and stupid that I hope sombody else writes about it.

Who knows how many "stupid" Prime Minister there are in, well, the world.

"However, there are a lot of people who have not bothered to try the latest distos."

Hang on, hang on, hang on, I've been told for years that my negative view of Linux is incorrect, and that it is 'ready for the desktop'. Are you saying that somehow that isn't true? How come you're saying that people need to "try the latest distos" as if somehow if they tried an older distro a couple of years ago it would (and you admit) disappoint them. If it was so great back then as I was assured why are you apologising for Linux from a few years ago.

I bet in a few years time I will see the exact same thing trotted out again 'It sucked back then, but _now_ it's amazing'.

"The progress on the desktop, both KDE and Gnome"

KDE 4 is buggy and nobody seems to be advising its usage. Wait for 4.1 they say while at the same time attacking Vista because the first pre-SP versions sucks. You can't have it both ways.

And Gnome is still the same old Windows knockoff - I've yet to see any signifcant improvement to usability in three years and I gotta say, there is certainly room for it!

Sure loads of bugs have been fixed but that does nothing for Usability.

First of all, what Linux distro do you use, and have you used any before.

I drive a Ford Mondeo 97, I am quite convinced that the 2008 Mondeo is better, apart from beeing bigger. That does not make my old Mondeo worthless, however.

The Linux desktop has had a lot of catching up with Windows and Apple.

Years ago, when I started to use Opera and later Firefox too, they had some cathing up too.

Today I feel that the cathing up is done and moving past the competition is what has started with Linux on the Desktop.

What I use is Mandriva and Sabayon, and I have not used Windows for years at home. KDE4 I do not use yet.

I do not think I can alter your negative view of Desktop Linux.

You might succeed better yourself.

"And we can ALL come up with scenrios where this is worse for closed source applications."

Actually I can't, since here I was actually able to read the bug tracking reports and see what kind of bug-gering about was being done to my bug report.

"So what was the application? Because if you tell us and the application really is buggy, the support terrible and the code bad, we will avoid it and we will enter a free market where we are informed consumers."

My point here isn't about the quality of the software which I mentioned, but the attitude of trying to pretend that bugs don't exist. You can discover this for yourself. Pick an open source application, find a bug, report it. See what response you get.

BTW the French National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) have already dump Windows XP for Kubuntu (KDE over Ubuntu) since a year now.

"As a graphic designer I think I can say with some authority it looks like crap. KDE 4 - the latest and greatest - looks like crap."

Then build your own fripping desktop theme and use it. It's easy. Been there. Done that. All your points can be addressed simply by either installing a different icon set and theme or building your own. Which is as simple as making a few PNG graphics and twiddling the desktop settings a little until everything is to your liking.

Good luck on the same issue with Windows (the UI of which, btw, has been looking like crap since v. 1.0 and has taken a turn for the worse with XP and Vista, IMHO).

Hat, tuxedo, cab...

Sorry just no more money for the ever braking M$ pc. Eeepc have people exited and we change to Suse, stress down things just work no more pain. bye bye