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Transcript of SFP#16: Free Software in France with Hugo Roy

Back to the episode SFP#16

This is a transcript created with the Free Software tool Whisper. For more information and feedback reach out to podcast@fsfe.org

WEBVTT

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Welcome to the Software Freedom Podcast.

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This podcast is presented to you by the Free Software Foundation Europe.

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We are a charity that empowers users to control technology and I am Bonnie Merring.

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Our guest for today's episode is Hugo Ra.

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Hugo works as a lawyer in Paris and is mainly active in IT law, data protection and

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free software licensing.

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Hugo is also a longtime volunteer of the FSFE since 2008.

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In his work for the FSFE, he has coordinated the France FSFE Group.

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He has joined the legal team and is still a member of the FSFE's legal team and he has

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also been part of the FSFE's translated team.

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So he was quite active in a lot of teams in the FSFE.

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Apart from the FSFE, Hugo has also been active in many other tech organizations like French

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data network or the data rights.

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Welcome to the podcast, Hugo.

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I'm very glad to have you here.

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Thank you, Bonnie.

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I do have a first question.

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The question is, what are your first thoughts associated with free software?

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What I think the first thoughts that I associated with free software were really about the impact

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that technology is having in our lives.

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So it was not focused about free software, but free software was more a response, a way

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of viewing the problem of the interaction between technology and society.

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And society becomes increasingly technological, software is everywhere.

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We all carry in our pockets a computing power that is equivalent to the computing power

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of mankind globally 50 years ago.

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So that's just crazy when you think about it.

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And so that's really where free software came from for me in terms of ideas.

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However, in practice, just a very, I think the first time I realized free software

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with a thing as a concept was when I looked at all the programs I was using to play around

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computers basically.

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And all these programs that were giving me the ability to play with technology, they

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were free software.

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And when I realized that they all shared that characteristics, I started to look into

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what free software was and that's what led me to the thinking of the increasing importance

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of technology in society and in everybody, every individual's lives.

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And you believe that should be all free software, right?

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No, I mean, I think free software is really a building block

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to general freedom and just enabling effective rights in our society.

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So I mean, there's no question for me that it's essential without free software.

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I mean, if we try to live in a society where free software doesn't exist, whereas there

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is no such concept, we would be in trouble because without free software, there's a very

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limited technical ability to check the on the power of the developers.

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And especially with proprietary software, you have a tendency for centralizing the

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power in the developers hired by a big company.

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And so free software has a response to that, it's more competition, it's more accountability

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for people providing software, whether it is to individuals or companies.

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And it's giving you know more ability for our society to check on what software is doing

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in our lives.

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So it's essential without it.

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We would not be where we are today, we would be in a much worse situation.

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And I say worse because obviously free software is essential, but it's not enough.

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And we need a lot more than that, unfortunately the situation is not so simple.

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Software is not the answer to everything, it's part of the answer.

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But if you look at the situation today in our society, obviously there's still a lot

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of work, a lot of work that must be done.

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Okay, quite some fascinating thoughts for the first thoughts about free software.

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How invited you to join the FSFE?

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I think I was looking at basically organizations that were active to defend free software,

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to push or free software.

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And I was looking at which organizations are the most effective and seem to be the most

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interesting work.

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And you know the, at the time, so this was around 2008, something like that.

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So free software for National Europe was only seven years old at the time, something

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like that.

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Which in 2008 seemed pretty established already.

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And FSFE was doing a lot of interesting work, but also was doing something unique at

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the time.

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It was getting involved in the lawsuit for the European Commission against Microsoft

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on the anti-trust lawsuits.

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And so basically the lawsuit was about how Microsoft was using the monopoly power that they

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had on the desktop and leveraging that power into the server market to push for companies

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to adopt Microsoft solutions in the server market.

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And one of the problem that free software was facing in that market was interoperability,

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which is a very easy way to say in English and very glad I chose that word right now.

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Anyway, interoperability that was of course very important to enable choice, competition

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and to prevent a lock-in.

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And Samba was a free software solution that was designed to technically give the ability

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of interoperability in the server space to fight against the lock-in for Microsoft.

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And free software for National Europe was there to support the Samba developer, the Samba

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project, and to support this project in Europe in the lawsuit against Microsoft.

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And that was a very important piece of work to support free software in this lawsuit.

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And this work, nobody else was doing it.

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And it was very effective.

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It's not very popular, it's a lawsuit and everything.

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But it was interesting to me to see this organization doing this very effective work, not for

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the spotlight, not for nobody will thank the lawyers for doing this work because it's

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like the CSAT means, if you do the work, nobody sees it, it's only if you don't do it,

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that people start complaining.

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But if he was doing that, and the quality of the work was really impressive to me.

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And that's what I thought, okay, that's where I want to put my energy.

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So he joined.

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Yeah, so I joined and anything is, you know, at the time I was quite young and I was studying

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political science, and I was as fairly out of high school, you know, but you already

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had the interest at law.

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Yes, yes, I had, but you know, my interest in law really came from free software because

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if you look at free software, if you look at the philosophy, basically the view of the

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problem of the world that free software gives you, you know, understanding the power of

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the developer.

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What is the power of the developer?

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It's not an immediate thing to understand for everyone because when you use your cell

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phone, when you use, I don't know, an email service, it's an enabler.

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It enables you as a user to do so many things that to think, okay, technology enables me

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to do things, but it may not only be doing that to understand that is not so obvious.

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And free software gives you the keys to understand that this ability that technology gives you

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is also a huge enabler of power for the one providing you this technology, designing this

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technology, making the choices of what you will be able to do and not be able to do technically.

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It's a huge power and when you mix that with software being used in government, with software

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being used in infrastructure, when you see that, you're like, okay, this is a huge responsibility

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and should it be just left to the developers or should it be more of a social and political

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problem that we should solve in a way and free software is a response to that.

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It gives you a solution, part of it at least and that's also what drew me to think, okay,

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what can the law do about these two?

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Because at the end of the day, free software is using the law, you know, copy the left software

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licensing.

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These are legal tools that the free software movement grabbed for this political purpose.

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And so thinking, okay, the law is also a tool that you can use to better regulate technology,

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to better protect user rights, to better think of the framework between civil rights for

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environmental freedoms and technology.

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So that's what led me to think about the law and, you know, again, in the legal field,

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you have so many things you can work on.

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I mean, I started on software licensing because I wanted to help the developers of free software

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to manage the legal issues to help them not be hurtled by the legal issues I wanted to

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enable them.

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And, you know, from there, I also started working more on privacy, take the protection,

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which is an important field in law, especially in Europe, that also gives you keys to understand

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the importance of computers and processing of personal data.

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And so, you know, that's what led me to study law and political science and then to become

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a lawyer.

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And FSCV was a huge enabler in that life for me because at FSCV, I was able to meet

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the people working on the antitrust lawsuit.

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I was able to meet the best software licensing lawyers in the world, you know, try to imagine

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I'm a 19 year old guy and I'm being said to Amsterdam by the FSCV to be part of organizing

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the most important software licensing conference in the world for open-source and free software.

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That's where you have the people from, of course, the NGOs, but also from the companies

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that are the biggest contributors to free software and the biggest founder for free software.

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That's where you, you know, you meet the people who draft the licensing that is used

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the GPL, the Apache, whatever, you name it.

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So you meet these guys and not only guys, fortunately, it's getting better at the time mostly

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guys.

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And so you meet this person and that's where the legal community, that's part of the

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legal community was thinking of, okay, giving the legal tools for free software to thrive.

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And I was able to meet these guys and to have wonderful discussions and a lot of help.

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So FSCV was just great in enabling me to go that down that road.

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Oh my God, quite a happy memory, or?

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Yeah, of course, and a lot of happy memory.

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I mean, the community, of course, when you start and you see the organization from the

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outside, it's not always obvious, especially in 2009 because, you know, I think we did

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a lot of work now to better communicate about the community behind FSCV, you know, but

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at the time, it was different, it was a different community, it was a different organization,

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but the community at FSCV is just great.

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I mean, I love it, it's really open and welcoming, it's really, and you have a lot of things

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you can do.

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I wanted to mention that earlier, but the first thing I did at FSCV before I was in

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intern, I joined the translators team because that's very easy to do if you know how to

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read and write in English and French, you joined the French translation team, and it's

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just great because you contribute, it's, it's, everybody is so thankful that you do that.

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Nobody sees the translation part as being non-important or minor, quite the contrary.

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We value it so much because we know it's important to get the message out there, and

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we know translation is not easy.

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It's super interesting if you're, if you're a linguistic nerd because I think it's

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very interesting to start looking into the languages, the differences, how they work,

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to understand, but it's, it's seen, I saw it as a small contribution to get started, but

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it's valued immensely, and you know, it's, you look at many people, I think a lot of

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people started at FSCV through the translation team because it's, it's very, you know, and

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it's so useful because when you start doing the translation, well, you also read a lot

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about the work that is being done, and you learn about what the FSCV is doing.

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And so it's, it's like a double win, you contribute, and you learn a lot.

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And actually when you translate, when I, when I translated the stuff on the FSCV website

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into French, I realized, okay, wow, they do so much great work, I mean, there's so much

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going on here.

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We saw little resources, I mean, you know, so that's, that's just the community that I was

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able to meet there is, yeah, a lot of very good memories, and the European vibe, you

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know, I'm meeting so many people from Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Slovenia, you know,

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I mean, what else, Romania, when I was in intern, there was a person living, who was a

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Romanian, who was living in Spain and enjoying, and you know, this, you know, so many nationalities

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and communities, it's just, I mean, I love it, it's really, everybody, it's an international

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organization.

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It is, it is.

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Yeah.

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No, I do love this as well, I do get a very happy feeling from your happy feelings about

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the FSCV.

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Oh, yeah.

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Yeah.

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So it just made you stay with the FSCV for such a long time then, or?

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Yes, and you know, you look at the FSCV timeline, for instance, that Max put together, you

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see all the most important events that the FSCV, how it sees itself and all the actions.

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You look at the yearly report.

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These latest years I've been busy with, you know, with other things, with other organizations

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and obviously with work.

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And so, of course, I've done less in the latest years, but, you know, when I look at what

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other people are doing in FSCV, you know, it's just, I just feel very proud, even though

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it's not what I'm doing, I just feel very proud that I contributed at some point to that

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organization and to see that where it is today, it's just, yeah, it's just great to see

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that.

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Because, yeah, I've been a part of it.

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Yeah, and also just, you know, seeing that it's still, I think, doing things in the right

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direction, it's good that it's better at communicating what it's doing and, you know,

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there's so much to do in this area that, yeah, it's important that we keep on doing it.

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The mission is not accomplished yet.

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Okay.

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And in this regard, I would like to go over to my next question.

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We have already touched a bit that there's quite a legal framework around FSCV and I would

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love to get an introduction from you, how the sticker framework for FSCV is in France.

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So yeah, I know that in 2012, you had a circular eye roll.

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It's a French word and my French is not very good.

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I do speak it a bit, but yeah, so please excuse my pronunciation.

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Yeah, yeah.

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No, that's fine.

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Yeah, I always think Prime Minister at the time, something like that, oh, yeah.

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So yeah, I mean, the legal framework in France, so I mean, obviously the legal framework

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for developers, meaning copyright, patent, et cetera, is more or less, more or less the

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same in France as everywhere else in the European Union.

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So that's a good thing.

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However, I think on this side of things, France is maybe a bit lagging behind compared to

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Germany, for instance, if you look at the number of established decisions in courts in

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France, it's not as good and as well understood as it has been Germany, for instance.

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I didn't like the law enforcement.

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I mean, I mean, in civil courts, how to apply the law to enable free software to enforce

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software, free software license compliance for the judges to understand where the free

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software licenses are about, how they work, how they should be applied, the understanding

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in the community, it's, you know, it's not as good as maybe some other countries in

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the European Union, even though in theory, it's more or less the same.

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Now the other side of it also is the legal framework in terms of policy.

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So more in terms of what the French government and the French state, the official institutions

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are doing to, you know, go in favor of free software to, you know, to support this wonderful

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ecosystem that we have in France and in Europe of people doing the work to develop free

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software.

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In this area, France is doing a lot of positive steps, but it's maybe still lacking

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a clear political vision in favor of free software.

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It's getting there, your statements, you have more and more statements from officials who

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are going to support free software to say it's a good thing, and for sure the situation

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is much better now than 10 years ago, I mean, now we can find a, I don't know, an official

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Twitter account of some French government institution who may retreat the free software

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foundation Europe account and maybe say, okay, look at this, a campaign from the FSFE.

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So this is something we would not have 15 years ago.

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So you have a lot of positive things to look at.

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But I think it still lacks a bold political stance.

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It's not there yet.

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So I don't want to give a, you know, there's still a lot people can do.

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So if anyone who's listening to this wants to, you know, push, if a free software in

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French policy, I want to, you know, kick the owner's nest and yeah, there's still a lot

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that can be done.

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And in this area of the FSFE has not been as strong as it has been in other countries.

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So I think it needs, yeah, there's still a lot to be doing.

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And I think the political momentum in France is more in favor of free software now than

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it was before.

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So it's the perfect opportunity to see and to get work done.

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To be completely transparent, I'm not going to be the one doing it because, you know,

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I mean, the time of my life where, you know, free time is not something I had as much

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now as a party.

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It's very valuable to have some free time.

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Yeah.

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So, so, you know, yeah, I do understand quite good.

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What would be the ultimate goal for you that politics would do for free software?

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I will, I mean, I think, you know, there are a few things.

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For instance, I wish that the people in the ministries and in the political positions

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would stop buying the silly arguments that some of the French proprietary software industry

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or non-French proprietary software industry are pushing against the software.

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Like, I've heard so many ridiculous legal arguments, you know, used as excuses for not

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doing political stuff.

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Like an example, I, you can hear in terms of public procurement, you can hear arguments

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like, oh, no, we cannot favor free software because it would break equality in a public

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procurement process.

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And that is an argument that has been put forward, which is first, not in line with decisions

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from the conceded data, from the courts, which are the relevant, the relevant courts in

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that field.

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And second, it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what free software is about.

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Free software is not about a different technical solution.

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It's not about enforcing a business model.

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It's not about supporting a side of the industry against another side.

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It's completely stupid to look at it this way because if you look at proprietary software

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nowadays, they use turns of free software too.

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The proprietary software companies would not be there today without free software.

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They all use it.

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Microsoft today is one of the biggest contributors to free software, whether we like it or not,

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that's the reality.

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So, you know, when you have a politician buying the argument that they should not push

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too much in favor of free software because it would be supporting one side of the competition

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against the other, that's really not the way to look at it.

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It's just a fundamental misunderstanding because it's not about business models.

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No, it's not about technicality.

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It's about, yeah, it's a requirement.

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You can totally say that the software needs to do A, B and C.

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Exactly.

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That's totally different, right?

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You can say in your procurement that, okay, I want to buy a solution.

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I want to get services or software, you know, you define what you want, but when you define

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what you want, you have the technical requirements and you also have the legal requirements.

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In the legal requirements, if your requirement is, I want something that has been audited

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by the security community in this area or whatever, you know, you want the legal

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procurement could be, I want the ability to, you know, to have unlimited right of copy

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of the software because I want that in, that's how it would work for us.

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That could be legal requirements, which per se could exclude some other legal requirements,

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but that happens all the time.

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You know, you always have to set some legal requirements and then the set of framework

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for the software.

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Exactly.

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And free software can be, of course, you're not going to put a requirement that says,

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oh, I only want something that is using, I don't know, some, you give some name of

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company or whatever because these are a free software company, of course, you're not

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going to do that because it would be silly.

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No, but nothing prevents Microsoft from going to a public procurement and offer a free

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software solution for that procurement, nothing prevents them from doing that.

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And in reality, a lot of their offers in certain areas would be full of free software.

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So, you know, that's, it's a very complicated matter.

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I think you really have to edit it at some point.

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So maybe I can give you a shorter answer right now.

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Yes.

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Go ahead.

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But yeah, in public procurement, yeah, it's too complex.

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I don't think it works.

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It's okay.

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I did like your explanation quite a lot and yeah.

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And back to the situation of like the free software in France.

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And very, you think the League of Framework purpose of best heading in France, like we have

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all this organizations like Italy, for example, which somehow also connected to the government

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and yeah, it's doing also great work for free software.

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Yeah.

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I mean, in this area, let's say that we've been lucky that some very smart and some very,

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let's say dedicated individuals have been able to go at the right places in government

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at large to push for the message.

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And so today, you know, we have in organizations like et al-ab, we have the blue hats.

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So it's like the developers and hackers who are making the French public institutions

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more able to contribute to free software, they enable them to use free software effectively,

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contribute back, et cetera.

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So that's very important.

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And well, to be fair, there's a lot of good open data movement in France in the last

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years.

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There's been a lot of work in that area.

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You know, you have people who, for instance, sued to obtain the right to obtain the

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source code on software used for public decision making, things like that.

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So tremendous work that pushed the barrier back to give more room and more space to people

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who can't do free software in government.

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And that's where we are, a lot of steps that, you know, once about the time, we're getting

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there.

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And, you know, a lot of people who are doing good work there.

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Yeah.

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Hmm.

27:51.200 --> 27:52.200
Okay.

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And in general, what would your summary be about how the League of Framework situation

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of free software is?

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Like after we covered all those parts of it, we'd say it's a good standing for free

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software in France or we say, there's still a lot to improve.

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And what would those exact points be?

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I mean, for sure, it's better now than it was 10 years ago.

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A lot of positive signs that free software as a thing is not seen as some fringe idea.

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It's in the mainstream.

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That's very important.

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You have some small policies in favor of free software.

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You have some teams getting hired to support free software in the French sector, in the

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French public sector, etc.

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So, you know, a lot of improvements.

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But in the face of the challenge that free software is about, these are baby steps.

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It's welcome.

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We have to start somewhere.

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And we have to be patient at the end of the day, FSFE was founded in 2001.

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So 21 years ago, that's nothing.

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Even in terms of technology, it seems like a very long time because we're used to having

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a very fast-paced change in technology.

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But when you look at legal, when you look at policy, when you look at shifting the ideas

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in the ideology and the economy, you know, in all of these, you have a lot of power.

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You have a lot of money of people who would not want free software to succeed.

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And so it's a very, you have to be patient, you know?

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So I can't be pessimistic about it.

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I mean, baby steps are very good.

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It's much better than nothing.

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And you know, it's being patient.

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Of course, I think we lack, yeah, we lack a bold stance from policy and too many times

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I hear legal excuses being used to defend a status quo position.

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Some of the examples I've given are the public procurement where they would say, oh, no,

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we can't do that because it should be a distortion of competition where it's not.

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So that's one part missing and the other part, I think, is really a strategic vision for

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the IT economy that realized that free software is an asset and should be a core asset in the

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strategy.

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Today, it's not, and it's a bit, I think it's sad.

30:37.120 --> 30:38.120
Okay.

30:38.120 --> 30:39.120
Thank you very much.

30:39.120 --> 30:40.120
You're welcome.

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Dan, thank you very much for the introduction into the legal framework of Free Software

30:48.360 --> 30:50.800
in France.

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And I would like to close with my favorite question.

30:54.680 --> 31:00.400
As you probably know, we have to allow free software day every year on the 14th of February.

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I'm a huge fan of the campaign.

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And yeah, on this day, we encourage people to say thank you to Free Software Projects

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or to people who are working behind Free Software.

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And yeah, I would like to ask you which project you would like to say thank you to or to which

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people would like to say thank you to.

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I'm trying to think, for example, because, you know, we've been doing I Love Free Software

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for so many years now that I'm running out of, so I have to repeat myself now.

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So I'm a bit trying to find new ones.

31:40.080 --> 31:46.480
You know, I think, yeah, I think I will choose a Calix OS.

31:46.480 --> 31:55.600
So Calix OS is an Android based operating system for mobile computers, basically, that

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is built to give as much privacy to the user as possible.

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And I chose this project because, you know, it's all the bits that enable us to use Free Software

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and to have privacy at the same time and security.

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And of course, all of that without depending entirely on Google, you know, because I think

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it's very important that the work they're doing, because I mean, first, I don't know if

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you've tried Calix OS, but the installation setup is one of the most accessible and simple

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I've ever seen for a non, you know, for putting Android based operating system on your phone.

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You know, we've been doing that for some years now in the Fsefi, you know, helping people

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to take control of their data on their phone and on their mobile computers and to get

32:57.880 --> 33:04.560
rid of the Google sign of things and to replace it with a still Android based, but with Free Software

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on top of it.

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And you know, it was, you know, it was hard several years ago, you know, we had to have

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these parties, right, to help people get together and help each other do that, which was great

33:16.720 --> 33:21.320
to meet people, but at the same time, you know, we had to do that because it was scary,

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it was complex, complicated, people would be afraid to break their device, to avoid

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the rarity, et cetera.

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But Calix OS, wow, that was so easy, I just loved it.

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And it was so easy, not just to install it, but to have all these systems, you know, it

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comes with microG, it comes with Afterroid, you know, all these things are already integrated

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when you install it.

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And so, you know, it's really to use, it's, you know, it just works.

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And that's what we want, you know, as user who are very busy with other things, we may

33:54.480 --> 34:01.120
not want to spend an entire week and installing a new operating system, or whether I, I may

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be, if I want to install the operating system for the weekend, maybe I want to install some

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obscure operating system on some obscure device, and maybe not on one of the most important

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devices I have today.

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And so, Calix OS enabled me to do that.

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And, and you know, it's such a strategic area, the mobile device because it's such a

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central device in the lives of people in France and in our societies here.

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So yeah, I think, I think I owe it to them to, to, to say thank you.

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Thank you, you go for your drive.

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Thank you, Bonnie.

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Thank you very much for inviting me.

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It was nice to have you.

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This was the Software Freedom Podcast.

34:47.480 --> 34:51.040
If you liked this episode, please recommend it to your friends and rate it.

34:51.040 --> 34:54.600
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34:54.600 --> 34:58.280
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34:58.280 --> 35:02.000
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35:02.000 --> 35:05.640
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35:05.640 --> 35:10.240
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35:10.240 --> 35:11.720
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