French Military Says Oui to Open Source

by Lisa Hoover - Dec. 10, 2009Comments (0)

The French military has outfitted more than 80,000 of its computers with Mozilla's Thunderbird email client as part of a larger plan to incorporate open source software throughout the government. Military representatives say it was a logical choice, given the restrictive nature of commercial software options. According to Reuters, the French military also felt Thunderbird was more secure than Microsoft Outlook.

Despite the added security native to Thunderbird, the military beefed up the system with a customized extension, built by the Gendarmerie Nationale police.The code for the new extension was released to Mozilla under the name TrustedBird, part of which ended up shipping in Thunderbird 3.

"The primary changes (the military) have made allow them to know for sure when messages have been read, which is critical in a command-and-control organisation," said David Ascher, chief executive of Mozilla Messaging, told Reuters. It's a big step forward for Mozilla and the larger open source community because, according to Reuters, the additional security extension "qualifies it for Nato's closed messaging system, and the French military has shown TrustedBird to Nato."

French officials say the move to adopt open source software throughout the government is partly a way to save money and also in response to a mandate that requires state agencies "Seek maximum technological and commercial independence." Many government computers already run Linux and rely on OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office.