Director of DISIC, France’s inter-ministerial Directorate for IT
France’s public administrations are encouraged to increase their use of free software. Public administrations should become active participants in free software development communities, for example by allowing their software engineers to work on free software. Already 60 per cent of France’s civil servants daily use free software. Working together on these solutions will greatly increase the quality and support. And that will further increase the use of free software.
Government strategies on free software must go beyond volunteering and altruism. Policies and actions must go beyond relying on the skills of a small circle of enthusiasts. We must reinforce governance, and allow civil servants to devote a significant fraction of their working hours to working on free software. Policies must include economic and technological criteria and national self-reliance, analyse the full cost of deployed software, including performance and security. In their IT policies, public administration should take into account obsolescence and sustainability of the technology that they relies on.
To invigorate the use of free software across public administrations, a team from across government departments needs to coordinate actions and organise institutional support. It is time to form a real community to tend to the use of free software in public administrations. To avoid duplication of efforts, we must get involved in taking care and nurturing these solutions, and collectively undertake their implementation.
