Learning French...a lesson in open source acceptance

I don't know how I overlooked this article in InfoWorld last month about open source in France but it is an interesting read. My only qualm was that the article should have taken regional realities into account, i.e. North American. Instead it focused solely on the U.S. when bringing Canada into the picture might have shed additional light on the points made. Nonetheless, facts are facts and France headlines a Europe that as of today, is light years ahead of the U.S. in terms of a general openness to open source adoption at a national level. Why is this? In my experience interacting with a number players (vendors, third party integrators, customers) on both sides of the Atlantic, there are several factors at play:

• More comfort closer to the cutting edge. Initial success with open source leads to more mission-critical investments faster in Europe. For example, from an operations perspective, I've noted less apprehension related to making major migrations to open source platforms like Linux. While the use of leading open source development tools such as Eclipse and Subversion, is roughly the same, adoption of open source testing tools such as Selenium, FIT/FitNesse, and soapUI is higher and closer to leading edge in [Western] Europe.


• More interest in making strategic investments. In the US, widespread momentum to continue to push further exploitation of the opportunities afforded by the open source movement has yet to take hold across the board. As an example, I see the current level of interest in using open source technologies in the infrastructure layer for application services and data services, e.g. business intelligence (BI) and enterprise service bus (ESB) capabilities, as being dwarfed by the quality of options available.

• Progress is prized similarly to "readiness." I was able to contact one enterprise architect from a fairly large IT shop in France who described an enterprise-wide initiative at his company to bring a full stack of open source software to user desktops. He was adamant that the program's progress has been slow and rife with challenges associated with migrating users and installations from existing Microsoft productivity tools to open source alternatives. And no, the company doesn't think that Microsoft is going anywhere anytime soon. They are just aware of the benefits (and savings) to be realized by taking a long term approach to opening their desktops.

Still, any subject related to cultural and political differences is never so easily transcribed that a single article or blog post can do it justice. So while there is a certain comfort in the fact that source code and application binaries transcend national boundaries and cultures with relative ease, the reality is far less objective. There are few absolutes with regards to even technology adoption. And the following should be considered:

• Regions prove more diverse than general trends. For those who've noticed, [North] American decision-makers tend to remain more concerned about the potential downsides of open source than their European counterparts, but this doesn't qualify as grounds to fully quantify adoption.

• Open source adoption remains a nebulous term. Quantifying use of a fully open source project is still more art than science. As a result, we've yet to reach a point where fully reliable usage rates can be produced...especially for entire regions.

• Worldwide consumption still exceeds participation. Organizations worldwide have yet to realize the benefits to be gained by contributing to vibrant open source ecosystems. This consumer-focused stance is typical of most large IT organizations. In short companies, across the world are still focused primarily on consuming open source and maybe establishing dedicated internal support teams. I eagerly await the day this changes.

What can be taken from the article is that the French, from a national level down, have demonstrated very high levels of open source acceptance. That doesn't mean that the French sell the most open source products or can boast the most open source companies. Neither does it mean that France is suddenly the pre-eminent hotspot for open source activity across the globe. It simply means that the country has set an example for others to follow in its footsteps.

Technorati Tags: global adoption | open source software | North America | Europe

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[fernando santos quaresma]

what i have to say ,is for all communiti of open source , i never had a change to study,actualy im pretty dumb,do you whant to know why ?? i believe in god, but its not that that brings me here, its ....my whill to say thanks to all people that believes that things should be free , in real life and in virtual life, thats why i believe in open source it gave me a change to learn that when you have strong abylitie to chage one thing that you whant you will get it no matter what ...but in the end i notice that before i had a change to stablish a live , but i gave it so hard that i stuck in one website... the site of my life, but know i can actually design it but i cant stablish a life that allows me to put it online that site is g4ever.nationvoice.com, g4ever comes from gamer 4 ever , it means playing game of live 4 ever , nationvoice is the voice that whanted me to go there and that nation voice is USA , actually all my heros are from there, since seinfeld, or macgayver or pretender even rambo and much more your movies kept me alive all this years and they are my font of inspiration 4ever , i will keep trying i hope that you make the same because i will dye trying to get there ...by foot some day that i could not handle this side anymore, and yes when the day comes , the day i arrived to america you will see my eyes and you will see the truth, until than thanks 4 your courage to give everyone a change to be what god whants them to be ... for me ... a designer , and i dont rip, i used already make ones to study them because i was a little bit lazzy to read all tuturials on internet , and everybody knows the boring it is, know i know and i never used the ones that i study for final product , i just was trying to find my style... and i did ... thanks and keep fighting 4 all ikuaL

The true Fernando dos Santos Quaresma , owner of HTTP://g4ever.nationvoice.com
[email protected]
made in 2005 in aveiro city whit a canadian server provider.
P.S. if i ever "catch" the true in the air remember that only God works whit true. keep them in your heart.
and yes im not crazy .. pretty cleaver.

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