Microsoft's New Problem: The French Military

Story: French Tax authorities switching to ThunderbirdTotal Replies: 10
Author Content
henke54

Dec 11, 2009
8:07 AM EDT 		quote by Nicholas Kolakowski :
Quoting:French Ministry of Defense made the executive decision to switch to Mozilla Thunderbird, an open-source e-mail platform, from Microsoft Outlook. According to a Reuters article on the topic, Mozilla's open-source design allowed the army to create security extensions, something it allegedly couldn't do with Microsoft's system.

Thunderbird, along with a modified variant called Trustedbird, currently runs on about 80,000 French military computers, according to the article. Other French ministries are also apparently adopting open-source software for some of their own systems.

When queried by moi, a Microsoft spokesperson offered a curt, "We are not commenting on this topic."
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/web_services_browser/...
caitlyn

Dec 11, 2009
10:24 AM EDT 		From your thread title I thought maybe the French were about to declare war on Microsoft. Pity they didn't.
tuxchick

Dec 11, 2009
10:37 AM EDT 		Is this the same French Ministry of Defense that put Windows on their fighter jets, which were grounded for weeks because of Conficker? Maybe they learned something from that... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/4547...
gus3

Dec 11, 2009
12:04 PM EDT 		I'm sure Microsoft has offices in France, but a lot of the work there would probably be sales and i18n. How much actual programming for Microsoft goes on in France?

I know of one French programmer who has made a lasting contribution and impact on Linux: Rémy Card, with his extfs and ext2fs designs.

Given how xenophobic Paris can be, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that ditching Windows stems from a tit-for-tat mentality against Redmond.
dinotrac

Dec 11, 2009
12:16 PM EDT 		>maybe the French were about to declare war on Microsoft.

Not til they've finished work on the Maginot Firewall.
tuxchick

Dec 11, 2009
12:21 PM EDT
Quoting: Not til they've finished work on the Maginot Firewall.


Owwwww
chalbersma

Dec 11, 2009
12:27 PM EDT
Quoting: >maybe the French were about to declare war on Microsoft.

Not til they've finished work on the Maginot Firewall.


Cue French Military Jokes.
gus3

Dec 11, 2009
12:28 PM EDT
Quoting:Cue French Military Jokes.
No need. Google already took care of that.
hkwint

Dec 12, 2009
8:14 PM EDT
Quoting:Given how xenophobic Paris can be, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that ditching Windows stems from a tit-for-tat mentality against Redmond.


The xenophobia is not the case here, given the Gendarmerie uses Ubuntu and not Mandriva. Visit the banlieu's of Paris and you'll see they're not so xenophobic after all, because most of the people there have roots beyond France. True, there's some xenophobia, but not much more than in most other countries. Le Pen is gone. I suppose you're confusing with chauvinism / patriotism. You should be careful because you're making a political statement here!

No, they have other - and better - reasons, which is why of the large countries in the EU they have the highest market share of Linux desktops. They are - together with Brazil - the only nation where a large / important portion of the government understands vendor lock-in. You might have noticed "the municipality" of Paris was also opting for Linux, but went Windows after a considerable rebate made by someone important for Redmond. They would have devised Parsix if they were truly anti-Redmond, but as you probably know Parsix is not made by Paris.
hkwint

Dec 12, 2009
9:55 PM EDT 		Read the original Reuters article:

Quoting:France's military chose open source software after an internal government debate that began in 2003 and culminated in a November 6, 2007, directive requiring state agencies "Seek maximum technological and commercial independence."


Gendarmerie was part of the army, and that's why in the new future all their 170k (or so) computers will come with Thunderbird. And also some people of three other ministries started using it... It will not be long until they will wonder why they need IE, MS Office and Outlook at all, and the next step could be Windows.
TxtEdMacs

Dec 12, 2009
10:11 PM EDT
Quoting: [...] and the next step could be Windows.
See it's not even me, the shill speaking*, Windows is unbeatable!

YBT

* I expect a fair share of the check's amount, any currency will do. Hope it doesn't bounce like mine have.

Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]

Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!