GNU/Linux and ChromeOS Now at 6% in France, According to statCounter

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 08, 2024

TODAY'S numbers from statCounter (as ODF) remind us of the latest FSF award, which was given to the French. Quoting the FSF's Greg Farough: "This year's recipients of the awards are Bruno Haible, Nick Logozzo, and the French Free Software Unit of the French government. The award ceremony was conducted both in person and virtually."

Haible said: "I've been a GNU hacker for many years. Receiving the FSF's award for the Advancement of Free Software is a great honour, because it's an honour to be mentioned in one line with Alan Cox, with Theo de Raadt, with Paul Eggert, and Jim Meyering. I receive the award for my work on GNU Gnulib. But this project is not an individual's work, it's a team effort: by Paul Eggert, Jim Meyering, Simon Josefsson, and many others."

This is the part about the French:

The French Free Software Unit of the French national government was presented with this year's Award for Projects of Social Benefit, one given to a project or team responsible for applying free software, or the ideas of the free software movement, to intentionally and significantly benefit society. The French Free Software Unit has made great strides in increasing the use of free software like LibreOffice into the daily departmental work of the French government, a space where nonfree software like Office365 typically dominates.

Accepting the award was Bastien Guerry from the Unit. Upon receiving the award, Guerry stated: "we want public administrations to have a voice in the free software ecosystem. By contributing directly with commits. By funding free software solutions. By awarding key maintainers. By pushing for a digital commons approach in critical free software projects. The French Free Software unit exists since 2021. [...] We take this award as an encouragement to set up more Free Software units in European countries and beyond."

Anyone can voice their support for free software in the government in France, as well as the work the French Free Software Unit does by wearing a blue hat, Guerry also explained.

It's good to see France as a whole adopting GNU/Linux, even if it could be done at a vastly larger scale. We'll release a video very shortly about what that means to national security.

We also see ChromeOS at 13% in Sweden, whereas in Norway it's about 20% GNU/Linux/ChromeOS, only about 60% Windows. █