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THE PROVEN TRACK RECORD:
France isn't experimenting—they've been doing this successfully for 20 years. The French Gendarmerie (national police, 100,000+ employees) pioneered this approach:
TIMELINE:
• 2005: Migrated from MS Office to OpenOffice
• 2008: Started Ubuntu desktop deployment (GendBuntu)
• 2014: Majority migration complete
• 2024: 97% of workstations running Linux (103,164 computers!)
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
• €2 million/year in licensing cost savings
• Additional savings from eliminating 4,500 servers
• Total 2004-2008: ~€50 million saved
STRATEGIC INVESTMENT:
In October 2025, France became the FIRST national government to officially partner with the Matrix Foundation—not just using it, but funding its development and participating in strategic decisions. This ensures the protocol evolves to meet European government needs.
So when we say France is "building bundles," they're really packaging, hardening, and supporting mature upstream FOSS (Linux, PostgreSQL, Matrix, etc.) with French hosting, governance, and integration—not reinventing everything from scratch.
GendBuntu: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu
Gendarmerie case study: https://canonical.com/blog/la-gendarmerie-nationale-upgrades-85000-pcs-to-ubuntu-desktop-edition
#Matrix
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