The commission about which I was writing Wednesday confirmed the Free Software amendment and corrected its wording.

It now states

“Art. L. 123-4-1. – The Public Service for Higher Education provides digital services and educational resources to its users.”
“free software is used as a priority.”

The compromise version, on which members of the Senat and of the National Assembly agreed, still has to be voted by both assemblies in plenary session.

A similar provision on a bill dealing with primary and secondary education was strongly watered down by the French government two weeks-ago, probably because of ignorance. Let’s hope that the government has learned from its mistakes in the meantime.

• Writing to / calling your representatives isn’t very hard

If I had known this I would have started doing it earlier.

– No need to be a genius or an expert on the topic. Telling them why you feel concerned seems very efficient!

– You probably will not talk to the actual elected person but with his/her assistant(s). They are often young and the ones I talked to were always very friendly and helpful.

– Telling your own story helps! On Wednesday I talked about my cartography courses at university, on proprietary software costing a few hundred euro per licence. Of course I was never able to use the knowledge acquired during the course anywhere else.. Universities have to choose. Do they want to

• teach how to use a proprietary software that one student per class *may* use professionally;

•  or give free and Free tools and knowledge to all students, who will then use is for any project/course/research/job for which could need it?

This – and many other things, is what I told the MPs and Senators. It’s not hard, anyone can do it! We could organise “Call your MPs” workshops: the first call is the hardest one.