In my view of the world, the code to train, the software to run, that's open source joy.
Now... should the trained, and vectored data be free? Maybe so.
But I bet this UN thing doesn't cover that.
Llama models have usage restrictions that go against any mainstream definitions of open source.
Anyhow, I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth, simply stating my thoughts. And I focused on data because I see OSS code everywhere, so presume there is no issue there.
Also, https://opensource.org/ai/endorsements shows code.gouv.fr in the list.
Cette licence permet d'utiliser, reproduire, modifier et distribuer librement le code avec attribution, mais impose des restrictions pour les opérations dépassant 700 millions d'utilisateurs mensuels.
https://opensource.org/ai https://salsa.debian.org/deeplearning-team/ml-policy
The UN has a nine figure IT budget for starters.
For the big project, my mental image is a public call for proposal, followed by one of the bigger groups (e.g. Cap Gemini) coming up with an initial solution that gets deployed. From there it becomes a mix of the public agency staff doing the day to day operation and maintenance, potentially including small bug fixes and updates, and external contracting again for wider range feature additions or changes like system wide security compliance.
The bureaucracy was painful enough that we just removed from the French App Store and when someone complains we tell them to write their representatives to stop with these misguided laws.
Excuse me, monsieur, do you have a license for that math?
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 complete replacement for me. Although Sheets could be improved a bit.
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 the displeasure to witness, you understand that clearly these guys live in a different UI/UX bubble than the rest of us.
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".
No. Anyone can complain about a thing, and the fact that they haven't tried to fix the code themselves is utterly irrelevant.
It's trivial to throw a million or two dollars at making sure some project ultimately goes nowhere (but survives), and that particular bugs don't get fixed or particular features don't get added. I've got no story to tell, and I've never heard solid evidence of it happening, but it would just be unbelievably tempting to do.
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.
* The Federal Reserve
* The Interstate Highway System
* The Postal Service
* Homeland Security
* Medicaid/Medicare (does this even fit the list?)
* Other entitlements I'm also not sure fit this list
Did I leave anything major out? But getting to the point, I think the question is relevant because in order for something like this set of principles to take hold in the US I think we'd essentially have to kill certain classes of software in the private sector. Can you imagine the sorts of craziness that would ensure if the US government tried to adopt LibreOffice? Maybe it could happen at the state or municipal level, but we can't even agree that the government should own any of the power lines.
You've limited your list to federal services. But state and local governments provide plenty more "public utility in a Capitalism society", don't they? Schools, fire protection, police for example.
Federal Communication Commission keeps part of the wireless communication spectrum open to the public.
National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management keeps some public land available for everyone to use.
The Library of Congress.
National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service probably satisfy "Public Utility" as much as Medicaid.
Federal Emergency Management Agency would be another stretch, but not something I would consider an entitlement program.
if you’d love to see it then do it?
The trouble is that simple concepts are not necessarily simple to implement. Tuning software for performance (e.g. to handle a large user base), security, and maintenance are all resource intensive. Then you have to consider that large user bases have diverse needs, which results in more complex software. Then there are the largest hurdles of all, training people in the use of new software and interoperability during the transition.
I'm so sick of this argument. I'm using Linux for more than 20 years, hosting and sysadmin stuff for companies and non-profits and the day people care to understand why Microsoft or Google is used everywhere and not Libreoffice or nextcloud might be the day some honest progress is made.
UX matters and say what you want about American tech companies they have (or had before the all encompassing saas and ai enshittification) mostly solid ux and code. Especially in the enterprise context.
Meanwhile at least German companies in this space just sell shitty php frontends for samba and I've yet to see meaningful technical contributions from the loudest of them.
It will take a while to get some of that software culture to Europe and the fish smells from the head - technical excellence is something leadership here does not understand or want. It's all about cost cutting and selling a thrown together solution to government that is broken by design to be able to get more money out of the contract. Open source enables that.
There are so many low hanging fruits in samba or other Foss enterprise software that would solve problems and I've yet to see the pr from the companies. Linux vendors do most of the work.
It's that bad. It's not that American software is that good - it's that the alternatives are that bad.
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-microsoft-le-ministere...
A few days after that, a major state-owned institution (Polytechnique) announced it was migrating (including the email system) to MS Office 365. Even if it violates several laws and official decrees (it's a semi-military school). Source (fr) https://cnll.fr/news/polytechnique-men-office-365/
and its coming on the back of US and Trumps tarif shittalk..
there's also talk about moving away from american software giants, among government sections in my country. Recently one such section moved from AWS to Hetzner (saving money in the process)
i've also heard talk about making EU-based alternatives to the office suite, etc.
- you won't see angry letters in the news about services sticking to open source after they chose to move in
- the reason the CNLL can point the finger at Poytechnique is because there are explicit directives. Not even having those would be way worse.
- "Most of the public money" : Open Source contracts won't be in billions of euros most of the time, especially as a lot of the money will go to internal hiring and only a slice to external contractors.
France is all fanfare and rhetoric. Its fun stuff to play with in our imagination, but the ground reality of the world is different.
https://lwn.net/Articles/1013776
I hope this sets a strong precedent for open source public software.
MilnerRoute•3h ago
https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/05/04/2350224/the-un-ditc...
johnea•3h ago
https://unite.un.org/news/osi-first-endorse-united-nations-o...
Is there other access to the French announcement?
That Mastodon link: social.numerique.gouv.fr, isn't viewable for me...
bzg•3h ago
No, there is no official French announcement (yet).
johnea•3h ago
pabs3•1h ago
https://github.com/jwilk/zygolophodon