Latest articles in english

• [Cahier de recherche] How free software developers work. The mobilization of “distant communities”.

  30 juillet 2006, par Didier Demazière, François Horn, Nicolas Jullien

  Nous abordons dans cet article la question des incitations à participer au développement d’un logiciel libre. Nous avons réalisé un travail d’enquête auprès des développeurs de logiciels libres français (et aussi des personnalités défendant cette forme de production, les « figures » du libre). Notre objectif a été de déterminer l’importance respective de ces motivations et éventuellement d’en identifier d’autres, ainsi que de définir les caractéristiques des personnes impliquées dans ces projets.

  Une version française de l’article

  ABSTRACT.

  We analyze the question of the incitations for a developer to participate to FLOSS (Free-Libre-Open Source Software) development. We have interviewed some French developers and personalities advocating this form of development (FLOSS “figures”). Our goal was to determine their motivations, the relative importance of these motivation, and the characteristics of people involved in such projects.

  Keywords : FLOSS, incentives, developers, production organization.

• [Rapport] Public service information. Results.

  16 May 2006, by Bertrand Cabedoche, Denis Ruellan, Florence Le Cam

  This study on public information focused on the realization of a panorama of Breton city councils and the selection of some council’s websites, more precisely those of Rennes, Saint-Brieuc, Brest and Lorient. The content of these four websites has been analyzed using the methodology developed by Roselyne Ringoot (2004) on editorial identity. The author considers this editorial line as the combination of enunciative strategies that creates the editorial identity, thus, on the one hand, as a discursive creation that differentiates one newspaper from the other (centre of interest, tone, style, ideology...) and, on the other hand, as a discursive precreation of the journal: policies in terms of heading, styles, quotations... the editorial line also embodies what is established throughout the discourse of the journal.

• [Cahier de recherche] Les perspectives du secteur des TIC en Europe.

  30 avril 2006, par Christian Genthon, Godefroy Dang Nguyen

  Résumé.

  Nous analysons ici les principales caractéristiques de l’évolution du secteur des TIC. Sa dynamique repose sur le progrès continu du secteur des composants, liée à des « non-convexités » dues aux effets de réseaux et aux coûts irrécupérables. Elle peut conduire à des régimes concurrenciels de type Schumpeter Mark I ou Schumpeter Mark II. C’est-à-dire que dans certains sous-secteurs, la structure du marché sera plutôt concurrentiel (Mark I) et dans d’autre plutôt monopolistique (Mark II). Mais un autre facteur déterminant est la « convergence ». La numérisation rend compétitive l’intégration de plusieurs systèmes ou objets de traitement de l’information, de communication ou de loisir sur un même support. Ce qui a comme conséquence que Schumpeter Mark II se développe au coeur, où la production logicielle domine, et Schumpeter Mark I à la périphérie de l’industrie.

  Dans ce contexte, l’industrie européenne est potentiellement prise entre deux forces : l’avantage-coût des pays asiatiques et l’inventivité et le dynamisme de l’industrie étasunienne. Pour sortir de cette situation difficile, il faut créer en Europe les conditions permettant de restaurer une dynamique d’accumulation de savoir dans un sous-secteur clef des TIC, la production logicielle. Pour cela, l’Europe peut s’appuyer sur sa tradition de coopération et de partage de connaissances, et sur des institutions qui ont montré leur capacité à stimuler des coopérations inter-régionales. En se focalisant sur un programme ambitieux de production de logiciel libre dans les systèmes embarqués et les réseaux domestiques, l’Europe peut atteindre plusieurs objectifs : permettre le libre accès à une ressource essentielle, stimuler la concurrence, faciliter la réalisation des objectifs de Lisbonne, et restaurer la compétitivité européenne dans les TIC.

  ABSTRACT.

  We present the main trends of evolution of the ICT sector. Its dynamics, supported by a constant technical progress in Ics, compounded with “non convexities” such as network effects and high sunk costs, may either lead to a Schumpeter Mark I or Schumpeter Mark II competition regime. This means that in some segments, the market will be more competitive (Mark I), while in other it will be more monopolistic (Mark II). But a key trend is also the so called “convergence”. Digitization makes it cost effective to integrate different communications, information processing and entertainment systems and devices. Hence, Schumpeter Mark II grows at the core where software production dominates, while Schumpeter Mark I is established at the periphery.

  In this context, the European ICT industry is potentially smashed between two forces : the cost advantages of Asian countries and the inventiveness and dynamism of the US industry. The way out of this very difficult situation is to create the conditions of restoring knowledge accumulation in a key sub-sector of ICT, software production. To do this, Europe can rely on its tradition of cooperation and knowledge sharing and on a set of institutions that have shown their ability to stimulate inter-regional cooperation. By concentrating on an ambitious project of open source software production in embarked systems and domestic networks, Europe could reach several objectives : to make freely accessible an essential facility, to stimulate competition, to help reaching the Lisbon objectives and to restore the European competitiveness in ICT.

  Keywords : ICT, industrial policy, competition regimes, knowledge based society, open source.

• Tourism and Internet: exploratory study of strategies for the search of tourist products on the Internet

  18 April 2006, by Christine Petr, Nicolas Guéguen

  Nowadays, the Internet and tourist websites contribute largely to the evaluation, choice, spontaneous decisions of product purchase or search of tourist information (major destinations, short stays, tourist destinations, appeal for a new region, well planned week-ends, unscheduled departures...). Despite this increasing interest (one out of two journeys bought on the Internet by tour operators), there is little known about the strategies of information research and decision-making of the net surfer when s/he is searching for a holiday’s destination or is gathering information about a tourist offer.

  The objective of the project was to explore this decision-making processes so as to better define the reasons why some tourist website or other is less or not visited at all and whether it receives purchasing acts (booking). This allows modelling the major driving forces leading to giving up, or on the contrary, to the final act of purchase or of favourable decision for a destination. The second step of this modelling was to formalize graphically and semantically information on the websites of tourist product providers, in order to measure its relevance on the net surfer’s behaviour. It could be of great interest for all designers of such websites which could see their appeal strengthened by a better knowledge of what is advisable to highlight. With respect to the concern of the regional orientation of our researches we conducted our scientific investigations in the framework of the valuation of local tourism.

• Result synthesis from the MAC work for 2005

  14 April 2006, by Annie Blandin-Obernesser

  "My mobile phone, I like it.” Even if not every user express such an enthusiasm, numerous are those that are fond of speaking or simply speak about it. Anyway, their word is invaluable. Because the usage they make of it feeds largely the research work in different academic disciplines. In both disciplines to which we refer predominantly, sociology and law, there is a certain number of in-depth works, notably in the domain of sociology of uses. On a quantitative prospective, perhaps it could be said that the subject has induced less specific work in the field of law, even if the comparison of ICT and employment law is a largely explored question.

• “Residential” survey: methodological warnings

  20 February 2006, by Jocelyne Trémenbert

  Before reading any results or comparing the figures of our region to those of other regions (in France or Europe) or to national averages, it is important to well know the specifications of the survey.

  As the AEC, observatory of Aquitaine area, wrote it down in its 2005 diagnosis: “the figures abound, methodologies differ from one study to another, the periods of reference seldom line up and it is sometimes difficult to identify what some formulations cover”. The « SOURIR » network, through the gathering of 12 French-speaking areas, leads investigations on the ICT uses in their regional space, and tries to remedy to this problem by establishing especially compatible methodologies and indicators.

  It is also in that sense that M@rsouin publishes its methodological report and warnings.