French Voters to Government: We Want More Free, Open Source Software

French fans of free and open source software have made their opinions clear in a national referendum that the government organized to help plan a new law on digital technology. Ideas for promoting open source received the most votes, save for deregulation of the e-sports industry.

As part of an initiative called Digital Republic, French citizens were invited this fall to submit proposals regarding how the French government could better use digital technologies. The government then put the proposals to a public vote, with the promise that the proposals that receive the most votes will be considered for inclusion in a new law called, simply enough, the Digital Law (or Loi numérique, for the francophones in the audience).

Several proposals related to free and open source software made the list of the 10 most popular ideas when voting ended Oct. 18. They include measures to use GNU and Linux in schools and universities, "prioritize free/open source software and open formats" for government services, encourage the sharing of software source code and "use GNU/Linux in [government] administration."

On balance, only 147,710 of France's approximately 66 million residents participated in the vote. They may well have been a self-selected group of free/open source enthusiasts. The results of the vote do not necessarily mean that everyone in the country cares deeply about open code.

Still, given that there were 662 proposals total, it's notable that ideas related to further adoption of free and open source software came out on top—especially since free/open source software was not an important item on the government's agenda when it proposed a new digital law in September, prior to beginning the public referendum. The focus then was on items such as Internet neutrality, the "right to be forgotten" and (surprisingly enough) making sure that online reviews can be verified for authenticity.

By the way, the very most popular proposal involved encouraging online sports—just in case you were wondering where that niche ranked among the things French people care about.