# Has France been Boing Boing-ed on Open Source?

- Date: 2005-12-12T19:58:09Z


By Thomas Crampton

Looming French copyright law may not be as dire to Open Source as Cory Doctorow suggested on Boing Boing.

In one strongly worded post entitled France about to get worst copyright law in Europe? Cory said French lawmakers had  "run amok" and were "subverting the lawmaking process" to pass a law that would hinder the development of Open Source and even ban some software.

It appears that the main source for Cory's assertions are statements by an Open Source advocacy group EUCD.

Kevin J. O'Brien, my colleague at the International Herald Tribune,  contests that stance in an article on the law:

BERLIN: In the places on the Internet where free-software activists hang out, discussion groups are abuzz with news of the French government's plan to ban open-source software.


The problem is that there is no such plan. But the French do have some proposals to revise copyright law, changes that could affect programmers.


Any reaction to the clashing perspectives?