I can't agree with you more. At least here in the States the law enforcement agencies use specialized software that runs only on windows (Think report writing, ticket tracking, officer tracking, booking systems, accident reconstruction, computer forensics, etc). Do the French LEA use software that's cross platform? Or did they already move to web-based software so that the workstation OS is a non-issue?
As the parent stated there's a lot more to an IT eco-system than the icons and games. Surely the French used special LEA software, and I'm wishing the article included details about that.
"the project is one of several similar migrations of French public bodies. To mention just a some examples: the French National Assembly in 2007 decided to run Ubuntu on their 1145 workstations; the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery switched their servers to the Mandriva GNU/Linux distribution in 2005; the Paris council will use several open souce applications on their laptops, as decided in June, 2008. These developments thus clearly show how open source software is used increasingly in the French public sector."
Apparently they aren't the first in France to move to OSS so the interoperability is easier to handle.
As the parent stated there's a lot more to an IT eco-system than the icons and games. Surely the French used special LEA software, and I'm wishing the article included details about that.