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France Endorses UN Open Source Principles

social.numerique.gouv.fr

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Re: France Endorses UN Open Source Principles

#81

Post by dgfitz »

hx8 wrote: post #57
fdefitte wrote: post #25

This makes total sense. When a country is creating public software, it should be open source by default. This is the only way to create trust. In the long run, open source and closed source government software will probably differentiate dictatorships from democracies

> differentiate dictatorships from democracies At first glance I thought this was hyperbole, but after reflection I'm not sure it's even an exaggeration. Too much critical infrastructure of power (voting, census, taxation, reporting, compliance) runs of software for us to accept anything less than full transparency from our governments.

There’s always holes. How can we know for sure the binaries running on the voting machines are compiled from the open source repo?

It’s turtles all the way down.

Re: France Endorses UN Open Source Principles

#82

Post by weikju »

resource_waste wrote: post #62
jimbob45 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh then it’s dead. LibreOffice never Just Works™. Ideological changes like this only work if they’re painless for the hoi polloi.

LibreOffice UI is so awful I'm 90% convinced there is a Microsoft plant that actively disrupts progress. I don't lurk the github, so I'm just assuming there are a few accounts that disagree with UI improvements just to kill time and fake debate. But yeah that UI is just awful. Further, you mention any UI issue on the subreddit and you get banned. Yeah... Really a shame, Fedora + Google's Office Suite has been a near…

> But yeah that UI is just awful.

As far as I can see, awful UI never stops people from using software that is "mandated" or "default". I mean have you seen Windows? MS Office? Web sites? Mobile apps??

Re: France Endorses UN Open Source Principles

#83

Post by logifail »

dgfitz wrote: post #81
hx8 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> differentiate dictatorships from democracies At first glance I thought this was hyperbole, but after reflection I'm not sure it's even an exaggeration. Too much critical infrastructure of power (voting, census, taxation, reporting, compliance) runs of software for us to accept anything less than full transparency from our governments.

There’s always holes. How can we know for sure the binaries running on the voting machines are compiled from the open source repo? It’s turtles all the way down.

> How can we know for sure the binaries running on the voting machines [..]

As far as elections are concerned, give me paper ballots every day, and make sure you count them by hand with plenty of Mk I human observers present.

Re: France Endorses UN Open Source Principles

#84

Post by hamandcheese »

IMTDb wrote: post #75
knocte wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk is cheap, did you create any PRs for the suggested changes?

This is the GH for the official LibreOffice project: https://github.com/LibreOffice Notice how they say “No PR” on every single repo ? So for sure no PR was open. Putting a bit more energy, you are redirected to a whole other system which I have never seen anywhere else (and in this case; unique doesn’t mean good). After 5 minutes of trying to navigate what is probably the least intuitive software forge I ever had th…

Seems like they use gerrit. A lot of larger projects use gerrit for their code review. It is different, yes, but many prefer it over GitHub's "pull request" paradigm which really sucks for high velocity contributors.

Re: France Endorses UN Open Source Principles

#85

Post by lblume »

dgfitz wrote: post #81
hx8 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> differentiate dictatorships from democracies At first glance I thought this was hyperbole, but after reflection I'm not sure it's even an exaggeration. Too much critical infrastructure of power (voting, census, taxation, reporting, compliance) runs of software for us to accept anything less than full transparency from our governments.

There’s always holes. How can we know for sure the binaries running on the voting machines are compiled from the open source repo? It’s turtles all the way down.

Could you not compile them on the voting machines itself? But yes, there is always going to be some level of trust involved, and the bar for manipulation seems to be lower than re: manual counting.

Re: France Endorses UN Open Source Principles

#86

Post by gbear605 »

throw10920 wrote: post #78
knocte wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk is cheap, did you create any PRs for the suggested changes?

This is bad faith. You are not obligated to contribute any sort of code to point out problems in an open source project. When I go to a restaurant and order a steak, and it arrives and tastes awful, the waiter does not have the right to say to me "if you don't like it, cook it yourself". The chef does not have the right to say to me "tell me exactly what I did wrong, since you're claiming you're an expert on steaks".…

The difference is that at a restaurant you’re paying for it. If you show up at a soup kitchen and complain that it wasn’t seasoned just right, that’s fully on you.

Re: France Endorses UN Open Source Principles

#87

Post by callc »

lblume wrote: post #85
dgfitz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s always holes. How can we know for sure the binaries running on the voting machines are compiled from the open source repo? It’s turtles all the way down.

Could you not compile them on the voting machines itself? But yes, there is always going to be some level of trust involved, and the bar for manipulation seems to be lower than re: manual counting.

Turtles all the way down. Can you trust your compiler?

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_Ref...

Re: France Endorses UN Open Source Principles

#89

Post by edhelas »

resource_waste wrote: post #60
idoubtit wrote: post #34

This is just for show, and facts won't follow. It's not the first time a French government vows to stick to Open Source. Yet most of the public money goes to proprietary software, and Open Source is the exception. Two months ago, the French government signed an "open bar" contract with Microsoft for the "Éducation Nationale" department. 152 M€, not for Open Source. Source (fr) https://www.april.org/nouvel-open-bar-mi…

[flagged]

I have some quotes about US sentiment, and it basically revolves around their need to have national grandeur despite being a lesser power.

US is all fanfare and rhetoric. Its fun stuff to play with in our imagination, but the ground reality of the world is different.

-- A French

Re: France Endorses UN Open Source Principles

#90

Post by fermigier »

idoubtit wrote: post #34

This is just for show, and facts won't follow. It's not the first time a French government vows to stick to Open Source. Yet most of the public money goes to proprietary software, and Open Source is the exception. Two months ago, the French government signed an "open bar" contract with Microsoft for the "Éducation Nationale" department. 152 M€, not for Open Source. Source (fr) https://www.april.org/nouvel-open-bar-mi…

"Yet most of the public money goes to proprietary software, and Open Source is the exception." → I've asked, twice, for the CNLL, the French Court of Auditors (Cour des Comptes) to work towards giving precise figures. This was rejected, but may reappear in a different form (given that the Court is currently running an enquiry on digital sovereignty - I hope, but I doubt, that they will be able to pull precise figures).
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