[libreplanet-discuss] French Prime Minister issued a circular letter in favor of the use of free software by government

[Thomas Harding]

[please forgive my English]

French Prime Minister issued a circular letter in favor of the use of 
free software by government

entitled "Guidelines for the use of free software in government", the 
short letter from French Prime Minister Jean Marc Ayrault presents a 
work from the DISIC (IT direction for government).

Notably:
  * They recommends Free Software usage, also Free Software support by 
contractors
  * They expressly define Free Software as the 4 freedoms defined by FSF
  * They define Free software as *a model of intellectual property*
  * They warns on such Free Software owned by a single company
  * They define use cases on forks (see also above point: MySQL, 
Open/LibreOffice, ...)
  * They recommends to joint software development communities as an 
organization more than as individual (some arguments are specious here: 
participate, give patches, ..., is OK, but give an orientation...)
  * They strongly recommends mutual development in government branches
  * They recommends to give back to Free Software 5 to 10 percents of 
savings compared to a proprietary (fr: privatrice -- is not used) solution.
  * They defined working groups

Ref: PRMX1234912C
<http://legifrance.gouv.fr/initRechTexte.do>http://circulaires.prod.ext.dila.fr/ 
(paste the document reference in form field -- search "NOR" on right side)