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 .....

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

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!

Wont it get really dark?

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.

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)

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 !

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.

"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.

"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.