France Challenges Microsoft in Software Re-Fit

Published on:

Adding to cities jumping ship, the French State announced its intention to look seriously into free software for its nearly 1 million desktop PCs. The current IT budget is 300 M€ and the state is looking for a 50% savings.

N.B.: Mr Dutreil who's quoted by Reuters as saying "Open-source software -- uncopyrighted software which has no license cost -- like Linux, OpenOffice, Mozilla, Apache, MySQL and Evolution -- was 'very credible,'" was reported by Reuters France as saying "les logiciels libres, de type Linux, OpenOffice, Mozilla, Apache, MySQL, Evolution, constituent aujourd'hui une 'solution très crédible'".

Translating logiciels libres as either Open-source software or, worse, uncopyrighted software, instead of free software (or software libre), is a very stupid mistake from Reuters.