France Towards Open e-Government --
   Government Agency to Enforce Open Standards and Promote Open Source /
   Free software

   EuroLinux Alliance <petition.EuroLinux.org>


   For immediate Release

   Paris, Munich, Amsterdam - 2001-11-21 - France Committee for
   e-Government announced today that the French Agency for e-Government
   (ATICA) would be in charge of selecting open standards to be enforced
   all over public administrations in order to guarantee full
   interoperability. The French Agency for e-Government, which is also
   officialy in charge of promoting open source / free software, is going
   to select in 2002 the copyright license, based on existing open source
   / free licenses, under which future software developments may be
   published.

   EuroLinux welcomes this move. An EU country now officialy endorses
   open standards and open source / free software through an application
   law. It confirms the adoption of open source / free software within
   European public administrations. For Harmut Pilch, president of the
   FFII, "projects including the GnuPG cryptographic software, the SLIS
   communication server for schools, the Mioga toolkit for extranet or
   the Yihaw portal component for Zope have proven that the use of open
   source / free software through customisation and maintenance contracts
   between public administrations and commercial software companies is an
   efficient and sustainable economic model for software infrastructure."

   Bernard Lang, Vice President of the French-speaking Linux User
   Association (AFUL) adds: "Open Source / Free Software is the best
   guarantee for citizens to know what kind of information they exchange
   with governments". With Open Standards & Free Software, e-Government
   preserves privacy, individual liberties, and the right for every
   citizen to access public information. "Open Standards & Free Software
   are the best technologies to build trust between e-Government and
   citizens" says Luuk van Dijk, Spokesperson of the Dutch Open Source
   Association (VOSN).

   Open Standards and Open Source / Free Software are also required to
   accelerate the construction of e-Governement at the European Union
   level. As stated by French MP Jean-Yves Le Déaut back in an April 2000
   proposal of Law, "open communication systems and source code
   availability are compulsory in order to guarantee at the European
   level a high level of interoperability between information systems of
   public administrations". EuroLinux strongly urges all national
   governments and the European Commission to officialy endorse open
   standards and to consider the use of open source / free software.

   EuroLinux suggests to upgrade the IDA programme of the European Union
   into a European Agency for e-Government in charge of harmonising open
   standards between national e-governments and coordinating the
   publication of reference Open Source / Free Software implementations.
   The adoption of Open Standards and Open Source / Free Software in
   Europe is the fastest path to an open, trustable, privacy savvy,
   interoperable and competitive e-Governement in Europe.

   "Next generation e-Government has two requirements: interoperability
   and transparency. These are the two strengths of open source software.
   Therefore, I am taking little risk when I predict that open source
   software will take a crucial part for the development of e-Government
   in the years to come" summarises Michel Sapin, French Minister in
   charge of Public Administration and e-Governement.

References

   ATICA - http://www.atica.pm.gouv.fr/

   Application Law which creates ATICA -
   http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/citoyen/jorf_nor.ow?numjo=PRMX0105055D

   The Carcenac report which agrees to enforce open standards in public
   administrations and adopt open source / free software -
   http://www.internet.gouv.fr/francais/textesref/rapcarcenac/sommaire.htm

   The Le Déaut / Paul / Cohen / Bloche proposal of Law which suggested
   the creation of an Agency in charge of enforcing open standards in
   public administrations - http://www.osslaw.org

   The Laffitte / Trégouët / Cabanel proposal of Law which suggested the
   creation of an Agency in charge of enforcing open source / free
   software in public administrations -
   http://www.tregouet.org/senat/prop_lois/PL 117 12-99.html

   SLIS - http://www.ac-grenoble.fr/carmi-internet/slis/

   GnuPG - http://www.gnupg.org

   Mioga - http://www.mioga.org/ and http://www.cgm.org/extranet.html

   Yihaw - http://www.eionet.eu.int/EIONET_Tech/Yihaw

   IDA - http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/

   Michel Sapin Statements on e-Governement -

http://www.fonction-publique.gouv.fr/leministre/lesdiscours/discours-200111151520.htm

About EuroLinux - www.EuroLinux.org

   The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
   open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
   united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
   based on Open Standards, Open Competition, Linux and Open Source
   Software. Companies, members or supporters of EuroLinux develop or
   sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for
   operating systems such as Linux, MacOS or Windows.

   The EuroLinux Alliance launched on 2000-06-15 an electronic petition
   to protect software innovation in Europe. The EuroLinux petition has
   received so far massive support from more than 90.000 European
   citizens, 2000 corporate managers and 300 companies.

   Press Contacts

   France & Europe: Jean-Paul Smets <jp@smets.com> +33-6 62 05 76 14
   Germany & Europe: Hartmut Pilch <phm@ffii.org> +49-89 127 89 608
   Denmark and Northern Europe: Anne Østergaard <aoe@sslug.dk>
   Belgium: Nicolas Pettiaux <nicolas.pettiaux@linuxbe.org>
   Netherlands: Luuk van Dijk <lvd@mndmttr.nl>

   Permanent URL for this PR

   http://petition.EuroLinux.org/pr/pr15.html

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