FR: Candidate Royal: Open Source vital for public IT

The use of Open Source software and open standards is vital for public IT, says Royal Ségolène, French presidential candidate of the Socialist Party. "Publicly financed IT should in general be free. That means these applications should use formats that are really open, without limitation for developers or users. This is essential to ensure the preservation of the data of public administrations, communities and services and to preserve free competition on the software market." Ségolène's position on Open Source, open standards and software patents was published yesterday by April, an association that wants to increase political interests in these issues. April posted a list of questions to the candidates on a special website, www.candidats.fr, in February. Ségolène is one of the main three French presidential candidates. Her competitors, François Bayrou of the Union for French Democracy and Nicolas Sarkozy, of the Union for a Popular Movement, have so far not responded to the call by April.