France

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European Commissioner Outlines Open Source Priorities

The Commissioner welcomed developments in open source throughout public administrations in Europe to seize the economic and innovative potential of open source. These include the Action Plan on Free Software and Digital Commons in France, the initiatives in Estonia, Spain and Italy, as well as the newly created Centre for Digital Sovereignty in Germany. According to the Commissioner, several factors are needed to use the potential of open source and to reach the political goals of the EU: nurturing a tech startup culture, utilising the digital single market for lean and sustainable tech industry, overcoming planned obsolescence, pooling the efforts of the EU’s Member States for technological independence and improving cybersecurity.

ACTA Goes Too Far, Says MEP

Charles Arthur | The Guardian | February 1, 2012

The French MEP who resigned his position in charge of negotiating the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has said it "goes too far" by potentially cutting access to lifesaving generic drugs and restricting internet freedom.

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ACTA Update II

Glyn Moody | ComputerworldUK | February 2, 2012

Although ACTA is billed as a global treaty, there are only two participants that really matter: the US and the European Union. If either of those dropped out, it would be completely ineffectual. I think the US is unlikely to do that, for two reasons. First, ACTA is essentially the US copyright industries' shopping list of measures that they would like to see forced on the rest of the world: it gives huge benefits to Hollywood and the recording industry, but little to anyone else.

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Adullact To Award Open Source Development Project

Gijs Hillenius | Joinup | May 27, 2014

Adullact, the platform for French civil servants working on free software, is organising an award for the best open source tablet-based solution aimed at public administrations...

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Conference in Cork on Conflicts of Interest

Jim Murray | Open Medicine EU | August 9, 2011

My friends at Health Action International have asked me to moderate a session at their conference on conflicts of interest in medicine on 24th September in Cork (“Liege” in French?) so, apart from meeting interesting people and hearing interesting things, I have an excuse (not that I need one) to go to my own country.... Read More »

Europe Pledges Support for Open Source Government Solutions

Estonia has long been the digital envy of many European Union member states. An effective and open policy approach to digital government has yielded extraordinary results—from 90%+ uptake of electronic identification (E-ID) solutions to an open source e-government platform (X-Road) to meet the ever-growing expectations of IT-savvy citizens as well as other countries wanting to pool IT across borders. Perhaps the most significant development for open source supporters is the explicit recognition of open source software (OSS) as a key driver towards achieving ambitious governmental digitisation goals by 2020. Under the declaration, European goverments will...

First Research Programme Identifies Potential Antibiotic Resistance Breakers

Press Release | Antibiotic Research UK | December 1, 2016

Antibiotic Research UK's first research programme finds a number of drugs that can break antibiotic resistance in Gram-negative bacteria. Antibiotic resistant infections are predicted to lead to 10 million deaths per year globally by 2050 at a cost of up to $100 trillion to the world economy. In the UK at least 5,000 people per year die from resistant infections. New research by Antibiotic Research UK (ANTRUK), the world's first charity created to develop new antibiotics in the fight against superbugs, has found Antibiotic Resistance Breakers (ARBs) in its first major lab research programme...

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Forza open-source: Italian military to adopt LibreOffice

Jon Gold | Network World | September 15, 2015

The Document Foundation’s Italian subsidiary, LibreItalia, said Wednesday that the Italian Ministry of Defense has agreed to adopt LibreOffice, the open-source productivity suite, in October, and that it will create its own online training courses for the new software by the end of 2016. The move was prompted, in part, by an Italian law that mandates the consideration of open-source alternatives to proprietary software for government use, which was originally passed in June 2012. LibreItalia and the military’s IT staff will release the educational material to the public at large under the Creative Commons license.

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France Becomes 64th Country To Join The Open Government Partnership

Press Release | Open Government Partnership | April 24, 2014

At the Paris Conference on Open Data and Open Government, Minister Marylise Lebranchu today announced that France is to join the Open Government Partnership (OGP).  France becomes the 64th country to join OGP, which now represents over 2 billion people around the world. 

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France Joins Open Government Partnership

Romain Dillet | Tech Crunch | April 24, 2014

French minister Marylise Lebranchu announced earlier today at the Paris Conference that France is joining the Open Government Partnership. It’s the logical next step following France’s work on open data and open government.

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France Probes App Stores Over “Lock-In,” Confirms Raid On Apple

Jeff John Roberts | GigaOM | July 1, 2013

French competition authorities confirmed to GigaOM they are reviewing the app stores of Apple, Google and Amazon for possible antitrust violations. The agency also said it conducted a raid on Apple last week. Read More »

France Votes to Expand Open Source Use

Jon Gold | Network World | October 21, 2015

French voters voiced strong support for a proposal that will see the country’s government expand the role of free and open-source software in a national referendum on technology called the Digital Republic bill. More than 147,000 people voted on the Digital Republic bill’s 662 accepted proposals, and two open-source measures were the second- and third-biggest vote getters.

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French government to use PostgreSQL and LibreOffice in free software adoption push

Peter Sayer | ComputerWorldUK | September 25, 2012

French government agencies could become more active participants in free software projects, under an action plan sent by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault in a letter to ministers, while software giants Microsoft and Oracle might lose out as the government pushes free software such as LibreOffice or PostgreSQL in some areas.

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French Intelligence Agency Sees Firsthand The Streisand Effect

David Perera | FierceGovernmentIT | April 8, 2013

The French government is learning firsthand about the Streisand Effect after Wikimedia France issued April 6 a press release stating that a domestic intelligence agency threatened a volunteer with arrest unless he deleted an entry about a military communications base near Lyons. Read More »

French Interior Ministry: open source 5 to 10 times cheaper

Gijs Hillenius | Joinup | October 21, 2013

France's Ministry of the Interior says its use of Thunderbird, a free software email client, running on its 200 000 PCs since 2008, is five times cheaper than the use of the ubiquitous proprietary alternative... Read More »