French Response to Google is Microsoft 530
efp writes "Mark Liberman posted over in the Language Log that, in considering alternatives to Google's library initiative in Europe, French President Jacques Chirac would consider a partnership with Microsoft 'since he has so many views in common with its president, Bill Gates'. This comes out of talks between the French president, the head of the French National Library and the Minister of Culture, in in part 'building an alter ego to the American project, before thinking of an eventual collaboration with Google, so as not to negotiate from a position of weakness' as they plan to digitize their cultural resources."
Re:now there's one more reason to hate france (Score:1, Informative)
uh, huh? disagree with bomb-mad bush and you're a terrorist?
Support of terrorism?
How about the US funding the IRA to the tune of $100 million dollars a year - all used to plant car-bombs in shopping centers or to run "taxi-driver murder" campaigns.
You know fuck-all.
Re:What I see (Score:5, Informative)
The BNF http://www.bnf.fr/ [www.bnf.fr] has attempted too early to scan lots of books, without the right plan.
The result? a bunch of low res image in locked PDF (can't select and copy) of some two hundred years books.
What google has done, is making a few people think in France: hey! We have completly fucked up our electronic library!
Given that it has costed several millions to citizen without any results,
maybe we should try to not suck so that the docile citizen do not notice the millions of euros which have been stupidly spent for a totaly useless project!
Re:He, you Anglosaxons might have a point :-) (Score:3, Informative)
England has -always- had a rivalry with france and to a lesser extent other european countries.
this rivalry got transferred to america when it was colonised.
It doesnt have any real basis , it just exists. Its in the blood so to speak.
Re:bargaining chip (Score:2, Informative)
I'll try to quote the phrase:
"Would the president consider a meeting with Google's concurrent Microsoft, as he converges in so many point of views with its president Bill Gates, [...]? 'Why not?' answered the president."
AFAICS Chirac didn't even say they have so many views in common. And replying "Why not?" from a politician counts next to nothing...
NO as said general Patton (or was it YES ?) (Score:5, Informative)
What happened up to now is that: The president of France said that he'd rather have his own "very large digital library" rather than let google do it all on their own. What some of his "minder" said in answer of a journalists question was: yes Microsoft could be a partner. Most probably if the journalist would have asked if Oracle, or Mysql or any other organisation/person/BEM the answer would have been more or less the same.
The first issue being: Should the governement fund a public "digital library" The second issue being: How.
So I do find it very unfortunate that people make a lot of "advertizement" for a mediocre propriaitary software provider (as in you can write good things or bad things about me, but first of all write about me !), based on partial information.
For the record, I do like the google search engine, but I do think that any government should make the effort of putting as much as possible of cultural content as possible online.
Of course I do hope that when the project will start it will use Free and Open Source Software, but for the time being there is not even a call for tender
BTW the french national library is called "La tres grande bibliotheque"/"Bibliotheque François Mitterand", (socialist predecessor of Chirac) no wonder Jacques wants his own.
For those actually interested in what is there http://gallica.bnf.fr/ [gallica.bnf.fr]
Re:Well,,, (Score:3, Informative)
"Pour ma part, je souhaite la bienvenue à nos nouveaux maîtres français des bibliothèques borg."
Re:You could say three other reasons. (Score:3, Informative)
1. The US didn't save anyone in World War I. By the time the US got involved, the war was practically over. Also, the US got involved because of the threat of a war on its own soil - didn't you learn about the Zimmerman telegram at school? - and not because of any altruism it felt towards France.
Without US intervention, France would still have been on the winning side.
2. The US played a role in liberating Europe in World War II but it didn't save the day single-handedly. Again, the US got involved way after the party started, being the last of the combatants to join the war. And, again, that US involvement was for its own reasons - because Hitler had declared war on the US in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbour - and not because of any altruism it felt towards France.
Without US intervention, France would still have been on the winning side, only it would probably have been gifted with a communist government by Soviet liberators.
3. The US involvement in Indo-China was a disaster. By the time that the US decided to involve itself, France had realised that its postition there was untenable. The US, however, once again decided to get involved for its own reasons - to stop the "domino effect" and the spread of communism in that part of the world - and not because of any altruism it felt towards France.
Without US intervention, France's borders would still have been secure.
Ask yourself this: In all three cases if the US really had French interests at heart then why didn't it help out its ally right away? Why did it always stand back and watch until it was practically dragged kicking and screaming into things?
The men of the US armed forces did the peoples of Europe a great service once their nation finally entered WWII. But to pretend that they were sent to war for anything other than fighting a threat to their own country is the sort of revisionist crap that I expect from a Hollywood studio.
Re:Yup, lots of similarities (Score:5, Informative)
That would be a ken-by-ten . [answers.com]
Re:He, you Anglosaxons might have a point :-) (Score:4, Informative)
2 first hand accounts, and 1 second hand.
I know a French-Canadian girl who just *hates* the people of Paris. She just can't believe how people will talk to her when they hear her accent.
I know a woman at work who is *from* France, but not Paris, and will tell you that Paris earns it's reputation when it comes to the "rude Frenchman".
Also at work I've heard a few stories of French-Canadians going to see the "homeland" and are just left dissappointed with the reception they recieve.....
Two years ago I spent 2 weeks in Paris and although I don't speak French (You should have seen me trying to get McDonald's to go... "Umm....'dans le sac'????") I never really had any trouble... tho I did find the younger people to be more willing (or maybe they just knew more English) to help me.
Re:Ayn Rand comes to mind (Score:3, Informative)
Anyway, there's a counterargument, although it's purely anecdotal: the NIH's PubMed [pubmed.gov] system. It's an online index of most biomedical research published in the last 50 years. Probably the most essential web page for every biologist in the country, created solely by the US government.
So this type of project isn't necessarily a bad idea. The major differences, of course, are that PubMed was probably created by scientists who knew exactly what they needed, and there's a huge incentive for journal publishers to have their content indexed. As a result, it's self-sustaining and I doubt it costs much to keep running. There are few government projects I can think of that have been such spectacular successes.
Re:Here is an absolutely fantasic fact. Must read. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where there's smoke there's fire (Score:3, Informative)
In a small store, whatever is on display, is there to bring the customer in. Its not to be touched and many shopkeepers spend hours to arrange the things in the display. He probably had another piece just like this in the back of his store. If you would come to him and say you want that thing, he would bring it to you and if it would be the last one, he would (maybe) take it out of the display to sell you.
By just taking it yourself, you have probably offended him, by being a foreigner, the reaction was multiplied. He probably cares more about his store, than he actually cares about the profit. And you have violated the decor of the store. Its very hard concept, especially for someone brought up in a consumer society, but just take it on my word, what you did is an extremly rude thing.
Would you go in bar, ignore the bartender, pull a bottle from display a pour yourself a drink? I guess you would get thrown out of the bar by a bouncer even if you would be offering to pay for the drink.
Re:France surrendering? (Score:2, Informative)
As for the article, I see slashdot as usual: many people shooting at France at first sight without having read the article. An unknown administrative staff has answered "why not" to a journalist's question and this is news? WMD in Irak was not a lesson?
There was the same disinformation in the previous slashdot article about Jeanneney (head of Bibliothèque Nationale) on Google, where if you followed all the links, you would find out that there was really nothing as aggressive as was portrayed, just the fact the Google example should be followed. But it seems that some never like disinformation as much as when it involves french.
Disclaimer: I have number of very close american friends. I have a lot of respect for them and so do they for me.
Translation Error (Score:5, Informative)
Le président serait-il prêt à s'entretenir avec le concurrent de Google, Microsoft, puisqu'il a tant de convergences de vues avec son président, Bill Gates, qu'il a longuement reçu à l'Elysée? "Pourquoi pas?", répondent les conseillers de M. Chirac.
The initial translator wrote "Would the president be ready to make a deal with Google's competitor, Microsoft" which is incorrect.
A correct translation would be:
Would the president be ready to talk with Google's competitor, Microsoft, since he has so many views in common with its president, Bill Gates, whom he has long welcomed to the Elysée?
Quite a different meaning, don't you think ?
Slashdot FUD (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the snippet from Le Monde's article : Dans l'esprit du chef de l'Etat, il s'agit de bâtir un "alter ego" au projet américain, avant d'envisager une éventuelle collaboration avec Google, pour ne pas discuter en situation de faiblesse. Le président serait-il prêt à s'entretenir avec le concurrent de Google, Microsoft, puisqu'il a tant de convergences de vues avec son président, Bill Gates, qu'il a longuement reçu à l'Elysée ? "Pourquoi pas ?", répondent les conseillers de M. Chirac.
Translation : "In Chirac's mind, the idea is to build an "alter-ego" to the American project, before thinking about a collaboration with Google, to have a good position in negociations. Would the president be ready to talk with Microsoft, since he has many common ideas with Bill Gates, whom he has met at the Elysée ? "Why not ?" is the answer from Chirac's advisors."
In summary, Chirac wants to build a French language online library, to have a good collaborative work with google. Should that work be done with Microsoft ? Maybe yes, maybe not. But the stated goal is to work with google, whatever that goal that can be achieved with Microsoft or not.
If you need to work with Oracle, what do you do ? You call an MS sales man to leverage your negociations with Oracle. Well, France wants to work with Google, so it doesn't forbid itself from working with Microsoft, if that gives it a better negociations position.
Slashdot has become more and more a FUD machine, with more or less every headline in contradiction with linked article. Worse, since the actual content of the article is from Le Monde, and is in French, many non-French speaking readers won't be able to see the utter non-sense that the Slashdot article is. This is more and more becoming the Fox News for Nerds, and it's starting to seriously upset me.