Docs: Open-source collaborative notes, wiki, and documentation platform by the French government
149 points by edwardloveall
149 points by edwardloveall
Great to see this push to open source. In Germany they also had a recent push in open source software [0]. They have fund for open source software [1].
[0] https://www.openproject.org/blog/opendesk-1-0/
[1] https://www.sovereign.tech/tech
Let’s hope it’s not killed like LiMux, the push in Munich to move the entire public administration to Linux.
Sure it was a lot of work, but it still saved a lot of money.
Major coincidences: Steve Ballmer visited Munich’s mayor, LiMux was killed by the city council and the city was switched to Windows again (at much higher costs). Microsoft shortly thereafter moved its German headquarters from Cologne to Munich. Peculiar coincidences. I think Microsoft was scared LiMux would become a positive example.
I’ve never actually heard a straight story about LiMux that didn’t come from FLOSS ideologues or politicians. I wonder what it was like for people in the trenches…
You mean the people actually working in the public administration? I can tell you about it, because I also work in civil service at a university. Most people working in a city administration are actually employed for life, and they don’t have to do anything that goes beyond what was agreed upon when they were hired (no joke, this is unique to Germany, and they literally cannot be fired unless they really try). This is why the system in general is very adverse to change, and this is the usual company culture in these areas.
For this reason, many ‘soldiers in the trenches’ heavily opposed LiMux, but not because it was non-functioning, but rather simply because it wasn’t they way they were used to, despite obvious long-term benefits. It’s the old tale we technical folk all know, where we know that macOS or Linux might be better for a relative or friend, but never end up doing it because we know the person would complain about it all day and not be bothered to spend 5 minute to get used to it.
Am I a FLOSS ideologue? Yes. But it weren’t the ideologues that let LiMux fail. It were corrupt politicians (indirect bribery through increase in corporate taxation) and stubborn civil servants. A small factor were some bad players in the sub-contractors, but it’s a point that is brought up very often and doesn’t hold too much weight.
I actually talked first-hand to some people involved in LiMux (on the contractors’ side), and the biggest problem was the constant barrage of tickets and repeated, stupid questions by the users, despite proper and qualified training. It was just a lack of initiative and extrinsic/intrinsic motivation.
To shed a positive light on this, many south american countries show that projects like LiMux can work. It’s just that Microsoft is too ingrained in our minds and machines.
Wow, I had not heard of those coincidences. I remember back in the day I was so frustrated that they went back to Windows. I had hoped this example would inspire the Dutch government to do the same. But it makes a lot of sense now!
Let’s hope it’s not killed like LiMux, the push in Munich to move the entire public administration to Linux.
With the incoming administration I am not too positive. Their funding is coming from the ministry of economy and that will probably go to the party with the least interest in funding OSS. I hope I am wrong.
Great project! I love to see the collaboration of different governments to create something useful for society!
Looking forward for this initiative to also use a self hosted forge instead of GitHub!
Is there a way for those of us outside of France to use this service? I know it’s open source so could theoretically be self-hosted.
I think the linked service is the French government’s instance. So isn’t intended to be used by most people. Probably linking to the repo (as there isn’t much of a project site) would have been better.
So if you want to use this service you need to host it yourself or find someone to host it for you. I don’t think the French government has any interest in hosting this for the general public.
You need to find some organization that does things in France that you can assert membership in.
So, for instance, if you find a professional club of some sort that will let you join, that membership is enough to get an account.
There’s a link to the project’s GitHub repository from its home page, which includes a guide to installing with Kubernetes and Docker.
I wonder what the current status is regarding Federally funded projects in the US? AFAIK, legally the government can’t copyright and all directly developed software is in the public domain/open source?
But for example the status of Drupal contributions by White House seems to be dormant/archived?
At 18F, everything we did that was not directly part of partner agency work – and pretty much most of what we did that was, when we could get our way – was written with CC0 license. Public access to where the code is hosted is a completely different matter, especially now.
Yes, anything developed directly by the US government is automatically public domain. However, being in the public domain isn’t necessarily the same thing as being open source, depending on how you define open source. For example, public domain status does not imply an issue tracker, or patch submission process, or anything like that that we’d typically associate with a project being open source. It doesn’t even imply that the code is published - just because it’s public domain doesn’t mean it’s easy to access.
It’s also worth noting that a large amount of government software is developed by government contractors, who aren’t subject to the public domain rule. Often the government doesn’t necessarily have the right to publish code they’re using because the software is copyrighted by the contractor, and that right wasn’t negotiated in the contract.
(Edit to add this disclaimer: IANAL.)
For example, public domain status does not imply an issue tracker, or patch submission process, or anything like that that we’d typically associate with a project being open source.
Do you not consider SQLite open source? (SQLite is a major example of an open source project that is not open to contributions.)
I would consider SQLite open source. I think you’re missing my main point though - this is why I said “depending on how you define open source”, and why I said “typically associate”. SQLite still has a public bug tracker and a public VCS repository. Public domain does not imply these things, and my comment was much more focused on contrasting “open source” with public domain status than it was on trying to draw a line in the sand for what constitutes open source.
I focused on the former because that’s what the comment I was replying to was directly asking about.
Not only that but you can also start your own project based on it and accept contributions, as apparently some have: https://github.com/tursodatabase/libsql
(SQLite is a major example of an open source project that is not open to contributions.)
I’m pretty sure SQLite accepts contributions from people that sign a CLA. Its web page says they don’t accept pull requests. Anyhow, I have yet to find a clear authoritative summary of this, so please set me straight if I’m wrong or omitting anything.
Contributed Code
In order to keep SQLite completely free and unencumbered by copyright, the project does not accept patches. If you would like to suggest a change and you include a patch as a proof-of-concept, that would be great. However, please do not be offended if we rewrite your patch from scratch.