[Associations] The April association episode 3: Libre à vous! and Libre à lire!

Walid Nouh: Welcome to Projets Libres, LinuxFR.org’s podcast where we talk about free software, open data and the digital commons.
I’m Walid Nouh, I’m delighted to be with you today for the third episode on April, the April association. I encourage you to go and listen to the first two episodes if you want to have an introduction and learn more about the history of April (episode 1, episode 2).
Today, with my three guests, we are going to talk about two of the important parts of April, the important actions of April which are Libre à vous!, April’s radio show, and Libre à lire!, which is the site with all the transcripts. You’ll see, it’s exciting. A subject that is close to my heart since I myself with the podcast, with the transcripts, I have a lot of questions and opinions on the subject, it’s going to be very good.

I am delighted to welcome today Isabella Vanni who is coordinator of associative life and project manager at April, Marie-Odile Morandi who is a member of April’s Board of Directors and head of the Transcriptions group, and Julie Chaumard, who is an administrator of April, columnist and member of the management team of Libre à vous!.
Ladies, welcome to the Projets Libres podcast, it is with great pleasure that I welcome you today. I hope you’re doing well

Isabella Vanni: Hello Walid. Thank you for this invitation. For my part, I’m doing very well.

Julie Chaumard: Hello Walid. It’s Julie. Thank you also very much for the invitation, very nice podcast.

Marie-Odile Morandi: Hello Walid. Thank you too.

Presentation of the guests

Walid Nouh: Very well. We’ll start with the introductions. I’m going to ask each of you, as I go along, to introduce you, tell us who you are, how you discovered free software and how you got to April and, a little more detailed, what you do there. I’ll let Marie-Odile begin. Marie-Odile, to you the honor, can you explain to us who you are please?

Marie-Odile Morandi: Hello. I’m Marie-Odile Morandi. I married an Italian a long time ago and since then, of course, I have been living in Italy. For a very long time I was a teacher of Technology-College at the middle school of the Lycée Stendhal in Milan, which is in one of the French high schools abroad and, since 2013, as they say, I have exercised my rights to retirement and I am retired.
How did I discover free software? As a technology teacher, I obviously did research on the Web, I even managed a mini-network, and then I regularly bought magazines like Linux Magazine, which offered, in addition to the magazine, a CD-ROM that contained many free software ready to install. Following the creation of Framasoft, I think that’s when I became more interested in free software and obviously I followed Framasoft. I even had the opportunity to meet and bring Alexis Kauffmann to Milan when he was a mathematics teacher at the French high school in Rome, when I realized that it was him. He came to Milan to give a lecture to teachers on the subject [See Alexis’ interview on the history of Framasoft, episode 1].

So much for my encounter with free software. I forgot the following questions.

Walid Nouh: When did you discover April and what do you do there?

Marie-Odile Morandi: I discovered the April one summer, it was very hot, I was in a little draught, at home, I was browsing the Web, and the April, that summer, had done an April Camp. An April Camp is a meeting that is usually held over the weekend, a meeting of volunteers, members of April, people who love Free Software, I heard what was happening, what I heard I liked a lot. I bought into the idea and very quickly, the following month, I joined April. I think it was in 2011 that this April Camp took place. That’s my encounter with April.
I’m not a programmer, or a translator, or any of that, I wanted to get involved with April. The transcriptions group existed, it was led by our president, at the time it was led by Bookynette. So I started making transcriptions, I started to get involved in this group little by little, and very quickly, Bookynette asked me if I wanted to replace her as the facilitator of this group, which I accepted. So since 2013/2014 I’ve been the facilitator, that’s a big word, of the April Transcriptions group. That’s it for my work at April.

Walid Nouh: Thank you Marie-Odile. I suggest that Julie introduce herself.

Julie Chaumard: Yes, Walid. I live in Paris, but I spent almost all my childhood in the southwest, that’s why you’ll hear that I have an accent. My job is computer science in systems engineering and programming. In my personal life, I am also a musician, I am very involved in the arts, which is why three years ago I created a web agency in the cultural and artistic field essentially.
How did I discover Free Software? Surprisingly, I didn’t know free software at all even though I was in the field of computer science, it’s something that I find crazy today. I discovered Free Software about two years ago with the radio show Libre à vous!. How did I get on this show? At 50, I decided to resign to live other adventures and I did well because I discovered a lot of things, especially the field of Free Software. I had seen an ad from April, which was looking for people to manage the show, and I was interested in it – I’m interested in sound, in live broadcasting, even in live performance. The radio and its control room attracted me and it was while doing the control room at Libre à vous!, that I listened, and I quickly said to myself “it’s really great”, I really liked what I was hearing. That’s how I discovered April. It was really a great discovery. It started with the show Libre à vous!, I saw passionate, caring, professional people, with values that corresponded to me perfectly. I saw that they were looking for people to run stands, to speak at conferences, things like that, so I volunteered. I liked it a lot, so I became a member, I tried to invest myself as much as I could and then, some time later, I became a member of the board of directors. So much for my story.

Walid Nouh: Thank you. Isabella, do you want to introduce yourself?

Isabella Vanni: I’m Isabella Vanni. I also have a little accent, I was born and have lived a good part of my life in Italy, I am Franco-Italian. I struggled throughout my youth to find my way. I purposely chose a very generalist faculty, political science in Italy, which has nothing to do with Sciences-Po in France, which allows you to study a lot of different things. I loved studying, but I didn’t really know where to go. I even tried research with a doctorate in research on the history of political thought, but it didn’t suit me because I was always alone, in archives, I didn’t see anyone, it depressed me more than anything else. So, I did an international cooperation course, I started working in humanitarian work, in particular, at first, in communication and fundraising, but I didn’t find my place either.

Finally, at almost 40 years old, I discovered April because I was looking for a new job. I saw an ad from an association that dealt with free software, I had no idea what it was. There was a lot of information on the site, so I was able to acquire a lot of information very easily. I found that the association was very serious, transparent, professional too and the values that were conveyed on the site corresponded to me. So, I applied and I got a job at April. That’s how I discovered Free Software. In fact, I realized that I had already used free software in the past, I was not aware of it at all, I had not been aware of it at all and I was not at all aware of the stakes. I must say that in a very short time I became a free software player. I often say, in my interventions, that I promote Free Software in the context of my work, in my professional context, but I also do it on a personal level because it is a cause to which I adhere 100%.
Today, within April, I am mainly concerned, not only, but also with raising awareness among the general public. For example, I am required to produce resources and communication tools, I coordinate the national initiative Libre en Fête, I organize April’s participation in various events – stands, interventions – and it is at this point that Julie responds to my calls for volunteers! I myself may be called upon to speak as an official speaker at April. And of course, I prepare and host Libre à vous! shows alternating with my colleagues, Étienne Gonnu and Frédéric Couchet.

April’s main missions

Walid Nouh: We’ll come back to Libre à vous!. Before, Isa, could you define in a few words, for people who haven’t listened to the other two episodes, what are the main missions of April?

Isabella Vanni: April is a French-speaking association, which works in the French-speaking world, and which aims to promote free software to everyone, so the general public, associations, companies, institutions, really all levels of society. It really promotes the principles, the philosophy, the ethics of free software. We don’t provide technical support, there are a lot of associations in France that do it in the field, local associations and that’s fine, you have to be close to people to be able to help them with IT. Above all, we promote why it is important to defend our computer freedoms and to use information technology that respects us.
There is also a political advocacy axis, which is taken care of in particular by my colleague Étienne Gonnu. That is to say, there may be bills, decisions, that undermine free software, that endanger our computer freedoms. The idea is to carry out a legal watch, to analyze bills, to contact parliamentarians, political decision-makers when we see that things can go wrong for free software and this is an axis that only April does in France for free software because, already, you need skills, it also takes time, of salaried time. So we are the only ones to do it.

Presentation of the show Libre à vous

Walid Nouh: Very well. Thank you.
First chapter of this interview. I would like us to talk about your radio show Libre à vous!. Can you explain what Libre à vous! is, what its goals are when, did it start? Julie maybe.

Julie Chaumard: When did it start? Episode number 1 took place in May 2018 [May 29, 2018], it’s been going on since 2018, and today I don’t know what number we’re at, 265, season 9.
It started on the radio called Cause Commune , which had also just been created a few months before. It was the opportunity, I wasn’t, Isabella, I don’t know if you were there.

Isabella Vanni: Yes, I was there.

Julie Chaumard: You can tell us more why.

Isabella Vanni: In 2017, the association Libre à Toi , which, at the time, managed a homonymous web radio station around the sharing of knowledge and which had, moreover, already covered several events around Free Software in which April had intervened, had responded to a call for tenders opened by the CSA, the French Broadcasting Council, to obtain an FM frequency in Île-de-France, It should be noted that the opening of frequencies is a fairly rare event. Libre à Toi proposed a radio station, Cause Commune, around the sharing of knowledge. Her case was very strong, it seduced the jury, and she obtained this frequency. We already appreciated what the web radio was doing, it was completely in line with our values. We thought we could propose our mission and take advantage of this opportunity to have another channel for communication and promotion of Free Software.
The goal of Libre à vous! is to give the keys to understanding the challenges of free software and computer freedoms, to propose means of action, to also discuss current events, this is something that the radio show and the live broadcast in particular allow us to do, maybe we will dig into the subject later.

Walid Nouh: So this radio show is for everyone, it is not for an audience that already has special knowledge on the subject.

Julie Chaumard: This show is really for everyone. We don’t talk geeky, we don’t use technical terms and, if we say them, we explain them, but it’s not made for computer scientists. Moreover, the subjects are quite open. That’s what I found very interesting when I discovered the world of Free Software, I also discovered a whole world, it’s really very interesting, it taught me about politics, about living together, about gender equality. Computer freedoms are a social issue and that has taught me about this society too. It’s really open to all subjects, but if you’re a geek, there’s something to your liking too.

Walid Nouh: I confirm. Marie-Odile, do you want to add anything?

Marie-Odile Morandi: It should be remembered that in May 2018 the first issue took place. At the beginning it was a monthly show and, very quickly, we decided to do a weekly show, so every Tuesday from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., which requires, it must be stressed, a huge amount of work on the part of April’s employees because a week goes by quickly, you have to find the speakers, etc. So, to retain the audience, if possible, we decided that it was better for it to be a weekly show.

Isabella Vanni: Absolutely, Marie-Odile points out the problem of loyalty. If you only do a show once a month, it’s complicated. People don’t remember if it’s the first or the second Tuesday. In short, for loyalty it is really important that it is, at the very least, weekly and it also allows us to deal with more subjects. If you take away the months of the summer holidays, there would have been only ten episodes per year, which is not a lot, when we have a lot to say! Doing a weekly show also makes it easier to deal with the news.
So yes, it takes a lot of time, it requires a lot of hours of preparation for each and every one of us, but it’s worth it, it’s completely in line with our axes of promoting free software. We are therefore happy to continue to have a weekly newspaper run for eight years.

Walid Nouh: What are the advantages you find in being on a radio? We have started to list a few of them. What are the advantages for you of being on the radio, compared to producing your own content yourself as I do, for example, through podcasts?

Julie Chaumard: The radio medium is something very important because, already, it has a slightly different broadcast on the airwaves than the podcast. It’s great that Cause Commune is on the FM band because it reaches a different audience than the podcast. The fact that it’s on the radio is also a whole radio atmosphere, I’m not going to describe a radio atmosphere now, it could last a long time, but it’s a special atmosphere. I don’t know, Isabella, what you think of it. Marie-Odile, from a distance, I don’t know how you experience it, but live is really a special moment. Our whole body is really immersed in the moment. It’s direct. The moment to live is different, moreover the guests say it, they are generally very happy to experience this, I have only seen happy people. The radio medium still allows another accessibility to a certain audience.
In any case, we also have the podcast format. For me, what is very important is to diversify the formats.

Walid Nouh: It’s true that you will then rebroadcast the content you recorded live as a podcast. Marie-Odile, do you want to add anything?

Marie-Odile Morandi: Our podcast format is not at all a format on which interventions are reworked, cut, repeated, etc. It’s a job to remove the incongruous sounds, to remove a few things to remove the “uh” that the speakers can pronounce, but nothing extremely sophisticated. It’s always very close to live and that’s the desire that has been shown: to stay as close as possible to live broadcast.
It should be noted that not only is the programme broadcast on FM radio, 93.1 and DAB+, but it is also broadcast on the web. I listen to the radio every week on the streaming of the Cause Commune radio, so a large broadcast.

Walid Nouh: I must admit, having recorded the second episode myself, the story of April, on the radio, that it is indeed a very different atmosphere from what we are doing at the moment. I find it quite complementary and I must also say that Libre à vous! is a format that I like a lot because it is very complementary to what I do, moreover I often use it as a source and I regularly encourage people to go and listen to topics that have already been covered on Libre à vous!, which I take up to treat them in a slightly different way on the podcast.
Isa, did you want to add something?

Isabella Vanni: Yes, I wanted to bounce back on the atmosphere Julie was talking about, her words had a lot of resonance in me. Of course, speaking on a set, knowing that you’re live, it’s a source of stress, pressure, but, at the same time, it pushes you to be very focused, which is not bad and allows you to live a different experience. We take advantage of that, the concentration, the energy, the good waves that we transmit to each other. The fact that we are on the FM band also allows the show to be discovered by audiences who are potentially distant from our subjects or who do not know our subjects. The potential audience is very large, even if it’s complicated to know how many people are really listening to us live.
The fact of making a native podcast, i.e. a podcast that is born as such, means that the people who listen to this podcast are mainly people who already know this subject or who have done, for example, a search on the Internet. Whereas when we make a show and we know that we can have people who don’t know our subjects at all, we necessarily have a less technical language, in any case, as Julie said, we try to explain certain concepts or certain acronyms in order to remain accessible to everyone. That’s why the radio show is really the format that suited us in order to speak to as many people as possible, to the widest possible audience.

Management of the duration of the show and the speaking time of the guests

Walid Nouh: What’s interesting is that you have a format that is constrained, I guess you can’t exceed the time allotted to you, which is very different from what we’re doing where, in the end, it’s not that time doesn’t matter, but it’s much less serious if you do a long format.

Julie Chaumard: That’s right. When you host the show, you have the time constraint, so it contributes to the energizing effect of the live show. We have very important subjects, priorities and we know that we have to fit them into the half hour, the time of the subject. So we’re going to lead more or less: if these are really priorities, we’re maybe going to cut a current topic to say “we also have to talk about this”; On the other hand, we are also amazed by what people say, the discussion we have, so, sometimes, we may want to make it last two or three minutes longer because it’s super interesting, there too we adapt with the control room, the host, maybe we’ll put a little less music, We’re going to cut it, maybe not even put on music. We’re going to adapt, so there’s a game, but we shouldn’t exceed an hour and a half sharp, I’d even say an hour and twenty-seven, at the end there are very quick classified ads and the credits. It’s indeed a game when you’re preparing the show and when you’re hosting the show. Isabella animates a lot.

Isabella Vanni: About once a month, but it’s true that staying on schedule is a real challenge and I think that’s what put the most pressure on me at the beginning. But, as you say, it’s okay if you skip a musical break, it’s okay if you shorten the end announcements, I’d say it’s part of the joys of live broadcasting. We are not professionals. We’ve been doing the show for several years, we’re starting to have a little bit of skills, but it’s not our job either. I think we’re already doing pretty well like that.
Another very important challenge that concerns more the radio format, I think that a podcast for which we are editing, so not a podcast like the one on Libre à vous! which takes over the show right on the spot, is the distribution of speaking time. We are live and we want to promote all the people who are invited on the set. When there is more than one, having this vigilance is an additional challenge to ensure that everyone can express themselves. We want people to have a good memory of their experience in Libre à vous!.

Walid Nouh: Marie-Odile, did you want to intervene?

Marie-Odile Morandi: Isabella said that they are not professionals but, from the outside, I can say that they have become perfect professionals. When I listen to mainstream [mainstream] shows, when journalists continually interrupt people who are speaking, it has become unpleasant, horrible! When there are three journalists against one person who is questioned, it’s quite unpleasant, whereas in Libre à vous! there is one person who leads the program, the people involved have quite the time to express themselves freely, moreover they often admit it, they have time to say everything they want to say, to speak. Isabella and the other people who lead the interventions are very benevolent towards the workers and this is to be emphasized. It’s really something that you have to recognize in them, that I find extraordinary, that I like very much. It’s up to you! should be an example for many of the programs that we hear now.

The people involved in the show

Walid Nouh: This brings me to the following question: who is involved in the realization and creation of Libre à vous! inside April? Of course, there are the different guests, but not only. Who are the people who work to make the show Libre à vous! exist? Isa, do you want to start?

Isabella Vanni: There is an editorial team that is made up of three people from April’s salaried team, Étienne Gonnu, Frédéric Couchet and myself. We manage the show, we keep the schedule up to date, we plan for future shows. Normally, we try to prepare and host one show each and every month. You have to find topics, you also have to find the people involved, set the date, if possible have the person on site, if it’s not possible to do it remotely. It’s only very rarely that we record a show, it’s really when we can’t set a date. It happened very recently with elected officials who have a very full agenda, we couldn’t do otherwise. But even when we record, we do it in live conditions, without editing, the words remain as they are made by the people.
Finding the subjects, finding the people, I think that on this, Walid, we have the same experience, it’s something that can be very time-consuming, that is to say that there are people who immediately answer “I’m in, here are my dates” and we manage to set something up quite quickly; There are people who say “I’m in”, but to find a date, it’s difficult. And then we also have to brief the speakers, give them all the practical information, prepare the show beforehand, because the goal of our show is to give voice to actions and projects around Free Software that we like and that we want to highlight. The ideal is to ask the person, beforehand, what are, for example, the subjects they absolutely want to discuss, because the goal, again, is for people to be happy with their intervention.
All this preliminary work, pre-recording, pre-broadcasting, can take a lot of time, but it’s essential for the future, so that everything takes place in good conditions.
For the show, we are on site. There is a facilitator, the people involved and then there is the need for the control room. So we also have to make sure that there is a person from the control team available, they are all volunteers. This allows me to remind you that there are only three of us employees in the program Libre à vous!. All the other teams, maybe we’ll list them in a little more detail later, are made up only of volunteers, I think we can easily count between 20 and 30 of them. It’s huge, it’s really a collective project and clearly Libre à vous! could not exist without the long-term investment of all these people.

Walid Nouh: Julie, do you want to add anything, for example about your involvement in Libre à vous! ?

Julie Chaumard: The show Libre à vous! is on Tuesday afternoons. It so happens, as I said, that I resigned three years ago, that I am no longer an employee, so I try to make myself available as much as possible on Tuesday afternoons. I still have another job and I do things, I’m not available every Tuesday, but I try to be available as much as possible, especially since I love going there. There are other people who are in the management who also come voluntarily: Bookynette, who is the president of April, comes regularly; we had Élise, at the beginning of the year, she left for projects that were a little distant, but, officially, she is still part of the team. When it comes back, I hope soon, it will resume. Otherwise, there is the salaried team that rotates. So we have a managed schedule, we register, “we’re free on Tuesday, Tuesday”. So much for the management room. I don’t know if you want to explain what the control room is or if, Walid, you want to talk first about the other people who are involved in post-production, for example.

Walid Nouh: I was going to ask you, afterwards, about the somewhat technical way in which you work on production. So you can, with great pleasure, start explaining who works on the different topics.

Julie Chaumard: For the animation, the preparation, the stage management, I’m not an expert at just now, Marie-Odile and Isabella will also help me.
Once we finished the show, the control room team and the host finished their work, it was broadcast live, it was recorded during the live broadcast, what do we do with the recording? He goes into post-production to process the podcast, to improve the sound, we may go into more detail later.
There is a breakdown of the podcast, a chaptering, there is an online posting of the podcast. By the way, there is a website Libre à vous!, we will also have to talk about it, where people can find the chapters of the podcast.
There is the transcription by Marie-Odile.
So there are all the people who take care of the website, all the people who take care of this post-production, they are coordinated teams, who also have a schedule like for the control room, everyone in turn does things, there is maintenance to be done on the website, there is a designer, There are people who take care of the site, there is the transcriptions team. I’d like to give names, do I give names?

Walid Nouh: Of course!

Julie Chaumard: I give a few names and then Isabella will help me.
In post-production, for the treatment, all the people are volunteers, we have Élodie Déniel-Girodon, Julien Osman, Lang1. For the processing of the podcast, we also have Olivier Grieco, the radio station’s director, who does a treatment before putting it online on the radio’s website.
At the break of the podcast, we have Quentin Gibeaux, Théocrite, Tunui.
Antoine Bardelli designed the website, Jean Galland and Vincent Calame take care of the site.
These are the names I have. Isabella, do you have any more?

Isabella Vanni: I am pleased to announce that, following a recruitment, we have managed to recruit two new people who have recently joined the podcast team, Nicolas Graner and Sébastien Chopin. We are delighted because the processing of the podcast takes a few hours and volunteers from the podcast team had told us that the frequency at which they were working on this task was starting to be a little too intense, they had only three left; This is the life of associations, volunteers arrive, volunteers leave. Expanding this podcast team a little bit was a goal this year to allow them to be able to breathe a little bit between one treatment and another, but you shouldn’t have too many people either to avoid losing control, it’s a technical task and if, each time, We have to go back to the procedure, it’s getting a bit cumbersome.
Otherwise, at the level of the website, Julie you have said everything.
I would like to remind you of Vincent Calame’s contribution to the music database. Vincent Calame, Swiss Army knife, he takes care of the website, but he is also a database specialist and it is he who developed the database that allows us to collect, filter and quickly choose the titles that we will broadcast during the three musical breaks of the show.

Walid Nouh: Okay. Marie-Odile, do you want to add anything?

Marie-Odile Morandi: I thought to myself that we could talk about the programme Libre à vous! for hours and hours, so many things are being done there!

Isabella Vanni: Marie-Odile, there’s Laure-Élise. You mean what she does?

Marie-Odile Morandi: There is Élodie Déniel and Laure-Élise Déniel. Élodie is the person who takes care of the podcasts, right?

Isabella Vanni: Absolutely.

Marie-Odile Morandi: They are sisters. Laure-Élise lives in France and when I was doing columns, as I hate hearing my voice on the radio, really, Laure-Élise offered to record the column I was writing. I wrote the column and Laure-Élise, who is a professional in these professions, recorded the column by giving it the tone, by giving it the right intonations. So we have two sisters who are volunteers for April.

Isabella Vanni: Laure-Élise also gives the way to our jingles exactly.

Marie-Odile Morandi: Exactly, Élodie is exemplary in her speed to deal with the podcast when it’s her turn. The show is recorded on Tuesday evenings and on Thursday or Friday the podcast is processed, it is available to send to Olivier Grieco for the final touches and to be published on the Libre à vous! website.

Columnists

Walid Nouh: Here, we just briefly, quickly, talked about the columnists, yet the columnists are an integral part of Libre à vous!. How many columnists do you have and who are they? Isabella.

Isabella Vanni: Today, if I am not mistaken, we have ten columnists. We have ten columns, but we cheat, because, in reality, there is a column that is hosted by two people [A cœur vaillant], Laurent Costy and Lorette Costy , who is his daughter. We’ve had other columnists in the past, but, as I said, they’re volunteers, some have stopped. We have the pleasure of having an official columnist with us, I will let her speak.

Marie-Odile Morandi: Are you talking to me, Isabella?

Walid Nouh: It’s Julie’s!

Isabella Vanni: Two columnists, so it wasn’t easy to understand who I was talking about.

Walid Nouh: Marie-Odile, if you want to start.

Marie-Odile Morandi: Indeed I did columns for a while, the columns were called ” Transcriptions that give back the taste for reading “. I would take two or three transcripts that were particularly interesting on a topic and try to group things together, draw conclusions, highlight the people who are speaking in those transcripts. But I admit that it requires a lot of work and time being what it is, and transcriptions require a lot of work, I left this work of the chronicles a little unresolved. That’s how it is. I’ll let Julie talk about her column.

Julie Chaumard: Indeed, I haven’t done a column since September either. Personally, in my life, at the moment, it’s a bit of a rush. You wouldn’t think so, but even a ten-minute column a month is a lot of time, because, as Isabella says, I have to look for the subject, I have to find the people, I have to frame with them what we’re going to say, prepare the subject a little. I say that, but there are people who manage to do a column every month very well, at the moment I can’t do it, but I haven’t given up. The column is called “À la rencontre du libre”.
Of the nine columns that there are currently since September in follow-up mode, each one has a little bit of their own way of doing their column and their subjects, it’s super interesting, we can talk about it.
” À la rencontre du libre ” is not a column in which I talk to myself about a subject, I like to invite someone and that’s also why it takes to find someone. I like to invite someone to tell them why they use Free Software and how, quickly, in ten minutes. It can give ideas, right and left, to the people who are listening.

Marie-Odile Morandi: Still on the subject of chronicles, I wanted, if possible, to give particular importance to the chronicle, I like to say backwards, run by Lorette Costy and her father Laurent who is also an administrator of April. It’s a column that even had the honor of being at a very important event, a free software day organized at the Ministry of National Education with Mr. Le Baron [Adran le Baron, Director of Digital for Education]. And then we also give a particular emphasis to Gee’s column, to Luk’s column, which are particularly scathing columns, which can shake people up a little or make us question a certain number of preconceived ideas that we may have.

Walid Nouh: Isabella, to talk about recurring topics

Isabella Vanni: A recurring topic, which has a monthly frequency, what is important is Au café libre, a debate around the news of Free Software, it’s good that it’s once a month. For this format of subject, we have a team of six people, again volunteers, of course, who alternate in numbers of three to debate the burning news.
We also have Parcours libristes, interviews with a single person to talk about his or her personal and professional career and here, the frequency is not established, the objective, we try to do three or four per year. In fact, the last two free software courses are those of two women. One of the actions we carry out to highlight women in the world of Free Software is to give them the floor for an hour to make them known, to value them.
There are also programs called ” Au cœur de l’April “, one or two per year. In this type of subject, we really talk about our actions as April. We can also talk about Libre à vous!, we take the opportunity to interview, for example, the volunteers who are involved in the various tasks.
We also have interviews with local authorities, it is rather my colleague Étienne Gonnu, in charge of public affairs, who deals with this type of subject. I would like to talk about the last topic: he managed to talk about the free software policy of two major French cities, Grenoble and Lyon. This is important because it is completely in line with our promotion and advocacy axis: priority to free software in public administrations; show examples of municipalities that practice, use, promote free software or have recently made a transition to free software. And, a very important point, we are not only inviting people from big cities but also those from small municipalities precisely to show that it is possible to do so if there is the political and decision-making will. If you get good support, it’s possible to do it. So, thanks to the radio show, the podcast, the transcription, we have media that we can share, that others can also share because it’s under a free license, of course. We therefore hope to encourage and comfort other communities to take the plunge.

Walid Nouh: Very well. I must admit that the Parcours libristes is something I like. By the way, quite recently, you did the interview with Elena Rossini and it was great because I interviewed her and I didn’t say the same thing again, I just told people “go listen to her journey on Libre à vous! “, so that I could focus on other subjects. It’s a format that I really like. I had already done the same with Agnès Crépet from Fairphone [episode on Libre à vous, episode on Projets Libres], last year or two years ago. It’s a really nice format.
Julie, do you want to add something to that, or not, if not, if not, let’s move on to the next question?

Julie Chaumard: I think that what surely pleases the audience is the fact that at each show, on Tuesdays, they are a little surprised by what is going to happen, if it is a recurring subject like At the Café Libre with the news, a Parcours libriste, or if we’re going to invite someone to talk about a subject on Free Software like the show you were talking about, Isabella, with two politicians from Grenoble and Lyon, two people who came to talk about free software, it was issue 262, a really very interesting show, especially since these two people talked as much about strategy as about very practical issues. That’s what’s interesting about Libre à vous!.
So there are these long subjects with two columns, each time, in addition to the long subject, which can be very different. We haven’t talked much about the chronicles.
We have, for example, Gee’s column, in a humorous tone. He explains what irritated him a little in the non-free world and that could be improved.
Vincent Calame tells us about his reading.
Laurent Costy and Lorette, who we talked about, are a two-person voice, also more focused on humor, puns, really superb, very different from Vincent’s or even Benjamin Bellamy’s whose title is ” The thing that almost no one has really understood but that concerns us all “. Last time, he told us about printers. I wondered what he was going to be able to say about the printers, but yes, I discovered things.
Florence Chabanois, in her column ” F/H/X “, talks to us about gender equality. You have to know that in the world of Free Software, too, you have to bring back girls. In the two years that I have known Libre à vous!, as I said, I myself have evolved a lot. I realize the culture I had, I worked in a geeky computer environment for 20 years, I know what it’s like. I was pretty much the only girl, I had taken bad habits myself as a girl, now I realize it and I find it amazing thanks to all these columns.
We also have Isabelle Carrère.
We have Jean-Christophe Becquet who will talk to us about free software practices, resources.
All this plus the main subjects, it is really incredible, very rich and very pleasant to listen to. I feel like I’m promoting!

How to find the guests of Libre à vous

Walid Nouh: I would like to ask a question. You have begun to introduce the fact that you are taking action to highlight and make women more visible. I can’t do it from one episode to the next, but I try to have parity over a few months: when I do an episode with only men, I will do an episode with only women to be sure, at least over the long term, that there are always women talking. At first, I found it quite hard and then, in the end, it’s not very hard. You just have to be curious.
I wanted to ask you how you spot the guests you’re interested in? For me, for example, it’s a lot in conferences that I can watch, that I can go to. We talked about Elena, Elena came right after me in a conference, otherwise I wouldn’t have known her. How do you find your guests?

Isabella Vanni: As far as I’m concerned, lately the guests have come to me. I was on a stand at the Capitole du Libre and a lot of people came saying “I’d like to deal with this subject on the radio”, which is good because it was in the subjects that I deal with personally, which are more related to raising awareness among the general public. Of course, everyone tries to find the subjects that speak to them the most. I wasn’t venturing into a slightly more technical subject, it will rather be my colleague Fred, a computer scientist, who will take care of that. So that’s how I made a show, for example on the spaces of Doing, so hackerspaces, fablabs, etc.
Sometimes, partnerships are also set up. For example, the ABF, the association of librarians of France, asks us to map libraries that promote and set up a survey to evaluate the use of free software in libraries, I say to myself “that’s a great subject! We will talk about the results of the survey, we will invite other libraries that are doing these actions. »
Other times it’s my colleagues who do monitoring, who follow a little bit what is happening in the free software news and who propose topics.
There are therefore several possible entries.

Listeners’ feedback, in what forms?

Walid Nouh: OK, very interesting. Last question about Libre à vous!, in my opinion not the least, we already talked about it together, Isabella, not very long ago. I notice and I know that people are listening, there is feedback, for example on Mastodon, thank you very much to these people who give feedback, but overall I have feedback from most people when we meet physically. I would have liked to know how you get feedback on what you produce. Are there people who give you feedback online? Is it more when you meet people physically? I think it’s important to have feedback, to have people say that they listen, that they like it, that it’s too long, that it’s not long enough, in short, in many different ways. How is it going for you? Who gives you feedback and in what form? Julie, do you want to start?

Julie Chaumard: At the beginning, I didn’t know about Free Software and April. After a few months I started to want to participate, so I went to conferences, seminars, days or weekends where we all meet around a subject like the RPLL, the Professional Meetings of Free Software, in Lyon, and there, I realized that everyone knew about Libre à vous!. It took me a little aback, it’s very pleasing. I had come especially to do interviews, I said “I’m Julie from Libre à vous!. “Yes, we know. Everywhere I went, obviously in the seminar of free software players, but still, everyone knew it.
The other day, I went to an aperitif, to an evening meeting of the radio – I say the word aperitif because I also drank the aperitif – which doesn’t only broadcast Libre à vous!, and there I met someone who discovered Libre à vous!, I don’t really know how, and who started talking to me about it.
So obviously, I stay in the computer and radio world, but in that environment, the show is still very well known, at least from what I see around me, and appreciated too. When people say they know it, they say that they really like the diversity, the tone is serious or less serious, that there is a little bit of everything I hear. When I give interviews, everyone is pretty happy to want to participate.
This is my experience, my feelings about the returns. Isabella will explain to you that they are taking steps to get feedback.

Isabella Vanni: Also, indeed.
After each show, we systematically ask you to give feedback on the show: what you liked more, what are the points of vigilance. It is possible to do this by commenting on the page of the show, by sending us an email on bonjour@libreavous.org.
We can also get a little more robust feedback, let’s say, if people fill out a questionnaire that we have put online to get to know our auditor’s office a little better, to try to understand. It was also suggested that suggestions for subjects to be dealt with and people to be invited.
From time to time, we do slightly more extensive questionnaires, we did one in June 2025 for example, in which we also asked for feedback on the columns. The feedback is generally very benevolent, even the criticism is constructive, with encouraging words. It is especially Marie-Odile and Julie who have benefited from this feedback.
And then, there is a rather special return, which made us extremely happy, I don’t know if we can really talk about a return, but still! Receiving the special jury prize ” Acteurs du Libre ” at the Open Source Experience trade show was a great recognition of the work we have been doing for nine seasons.

Walid Nouh: That’s right. Marie-Odile, do you want to add something to this feedback and comments section?

Marie-Odile Morandi: Not particularly. I think that everything has been said and it is true that it is still a little difficult to get broader feedback, I will talk about this at greater length later.

Transcriptions and the creation of Libre à lire

Walid Nouh: OK. The clock is ticking, I propose you to move on to the second major subject, which is one of the other major actions of April, Libre à lire!. To begin with, I’m going to give way to a Marie-Odile to explain to us what Libre à lire! is and who it is for.

Marie-Odile Morandi: Before talking about Libre à lire!, we should perhaps say a little bit about what transcriptions are. April’s Transcriptions group decided to transform into text the audio recordings, the videos that can be found on the Web, which concern free software, computer freedoms and then, more generally now, a little bit of AI because it also concerns our freedoms.
April’s transcriptions group has been around for a very long time, I think it was created in 2006. I took over, as I said earlier, from 2013 onwards, I got very involved and I transcribe something almost every day.
Previously, the transcripts were published on part of the April website, it was not necessarily very highlighted, very recognizable. Since the beginning of 2019, the website Libre à lire! has been set up, the site on which all the transcriptions that are made by April are published. I looked at it, I think that today, we are at more than 1670 transcriptions.
All the Libre à vous! programs have been transcribed from the beginning, all these transcripts can be found on the Libre à lire! website. It’s a site that was set up, it took several months, the graphic design was prepared by our official graphic designer, Antoine Bardelli, who takes care of everything that is done at April. Following discussions, he made the choice of colors, the choice of layouts. This site was therefore launched in February 2019.

What and for whom are transcriptions used?

Walid Nouh: Okay. Before I ask any more questions, I would like to come back to the function of transcripts. When I first started working on the podcast, initially I wasn’t doing transcriptions, both because I wasn’t extremely aware of the topic and also because it was an extra load I couldn’t afford to do. With time and the optimization of the way I work, I started to make the transcriptions. At that time, people thanked me for the transcripts, even people close to me, who told me that they didn’t listen to the audio, that they read the text. Marie-Odile, I would like you to tell us about the function of transcription, who is it for and why we make these transcriptions?

Marie-Odile Morandi: We make the transcriptions to make available as much as possible all the audio recordings, all the videos that we can find on the subject. We know that, in our society, many people have disabilities and I can assure you that as we get older, we all carry a disability. So we have to make all this accessible to as many people as possible, this is one of the first missions of the Transcriptions group, to disseminate everything that is said as widely as possible. And then there are people whose time is limited and I often get feedback that tells me “I don’t listen to the recordings, I wait for the transcription to be made, I come and read the transcription and then, if I want to go deeper at a certain point, I will listen to the recording. Having a text really allows as many people as possible to take an interest in all these subjects.

Walid Nouh: There’s also something I’d like to add, Marie-Odile: you can’t search in a video while in a text you can do a search, you can put anchors, you can put reminders, external links, lots of stuff, and finally, when I have to search for example in my old episodes, I myself will search in the transcript to find out what people have said.

Marie-Odile Morandi: Absolutely. I reread each of the transcripts one last time before publishing it and I add all the links I find useful so that people have the most exhaustive work possible on everything that may interest them, each one not being interested in the same thing as his neighbor. We can do research. You can do research on the Libre à lire! website, there is a search engine, you can search on the subjects that interest you.

Walid Nouh: For listeners who are not familiar with the work of transcription, could you give an estimate of the time you spend, let’s say for an episode of Libre à vous!. How long does it take you?

Marie-Odile Morandi: I now have habits. Every week, I try to listen to the show because it gives me marbles for the future, to know what people have said. On Tuesday evening, I start the transcription. In fact, I have little to do with the chronicles, with a few exceptions. In general, the chronicles are written by the people, they send me their chronicles. I listen, I modify what has been modified when they have spoken orally and that is quite fast.
On the other hand, for the central subject part of the program Libre à vous! , which generally lasts fifty minutes/one hour, I start on Tuesday evening, let’s say two hours, I start again on Wednesday morning, let’s also put two hours to do the first draft and then I read again and, at that point, I send, let’s say the draft of the transcript, to the people who have spoken and I also send it to the Transcripts list so that the people who belong to the list can read this transcript again. It has become much easier in the last two or three years, because I use a software called Scribe, it’s online, it’s a service that was developed by the Ceméa, the Training Centres for Active Education Methods. I send the recording of the show Libre à vous!, I receive in return a transcription, a draft that of course has to be reread and improved, but, for the first draft, it’s really an invaluable time saver. The people who have done and offer this service are to be thanked, I thank them regularly.
I really try on Wednesday afternoons to send this draft transcript to the people who have spoken, because I think all the people have their time, which is limited. These people still have the show they participated in the day before quite fresh in mind, which allows them, very quickly, to proofread, to make corrections or to send them to me, in this way, we move forward.
When the podcast has been processed, I read the transcript one last time before publishing it. And, here again, the post-podcast team is to thank because, sometimes, things that we didn’t hear well in the recording that is made available on Tuesday evening, become really clear and crystal clear following the processing of the podcast, we hear perfectly everything that is said.
So much for the work on the transcripts of the program Libre à vous!.

Walid Nouh: Thank you. Isabella, do you have anything to add?

Isabella Vanni: Maybe we can talk about how we communicate about transcripts. Already, they benefit from all the communication channels that we use to promote the show, of course, so the news page on the April website, the news page on LinuxFr.org, the post on Mastodon, the email message on internal information. Of course, we talk about it in our newsletters, both public and internal.
Marie-Odile also does, which is very interesting, a monthly review of the published transcriptions, which gives the measure of the enormous work, the enormous production of this resource which, as you said Walid, is easily reusable for a thousand and one purposes, even to quote a person, to make a correct citation, it’s much simpler when you have the text at hand.

Walid Nouh: Julie, do you want to add anything on the subject?

Julie Chaumard: I used the transcripts a lot. I’m researching past shows, so I’m happy to have the written word. Sometimes, indeed, I like not to listen to the audio and read when I want something very specific, that I don’t have time to look for in the audio. It can happen to me too.

Isabella Vanni: It’s super convenient. I think that at least once a day I go on Libre à lire! to find information.

Why make a beautiful transcription and how do you choose what to transcribe?

Walid Nouh: I have two questions, I think for Marie-Odile. The first question: why is it so important to have a transcription that is really perfect, super beautiful, super well done and everything, when, let’s say, for most content creators, including me, now automatic transcription is enough, that it’s perfect, it’s too much time to spend on it for not much in the end. That is my first question. And my second question, which goes with it, is how, Marie-Odile, do you choose and decide to transcribe what was not produced by April? For example, it has happened several times that, on your own initiative, you transcribe episodes of Projets Libres. I’ll let you answer.

Marie-Odile Morandi: I will answer the first question. AI is a big competitor for me right now. Sometimes it’s not too bad as a transcription, but sometimes it makes you laugh, it’s really nonsense, it would be better if it didn’t exist. When I choose shows, recordings, videos, now I look at whether there is an automatic transcription and what it looks like. If the transcription really sucks, then I transcribe. If the transcription doesn’t seem too bad to me, I leave it and move on.
I obviously follow everything that April does. As a priority, I try to transcribe the speakers from April who gave a conference. This summer, Isabella was in Brittany, she gave a conference, it’s obviously always the priority, the members of April.
And then I search. I follow closely all the events that take place. Recently the Capitol of Free Software took place, all the videos of the Capitol of Free Software are now published, I have already started to transcribe some of them. Members of April intervened, people who did not belong to April intervened. Little by little, I’m going to see what interests me. I don’t choose too much what is too technical, when it becomes technical first, personally, it doesn’t necessarily interest me, I prefer what is more, let’s say political on the subjects, I make my choices that way.
It’s difficult to have the number of daily visits to the site Libre à lire!. The system we have in place to count this number of visits does not seem to me to be reliable at all. In general, I have very good feedback. People are happy to have had their speech transcribed, the feedback is generally complimentary, people are really very satisfied. We’ve had very few, I’m going to say bad sleepers, in the 12 years I’ve been doing this job, we’ve had a maximum of three.

The place of Libre à lire in advocacy work

Walid Nouh: I must admit that among the feedback I have on the podcast, some of the feedback is on the transcription, people who say “thank you for making transcriptions” and it’s cool because it’s time that we don’t see, it’s very long time. For my part, it’s not necessarily what I prefer to do, but it seems to me to be really important to do it.
I have a question: what is the place of Libre à lire! in all the advocacy you make? Is Libre à lire! Is this very important for people, politicians, etc., who might be more likely to read text? What is the place of Libre à lire! in all this advocacy work, Marie-Odile?

Marie-Odile Morandi: I think that’s part of it. I’m forgetting as I go along, but April has applied for a subsidy. Our General Delegate spoke a lot with the person who was in charge of this grant application and I think that Libre à lire! is one of the things that can bring a big plus to everything that April does.
On the other hand, now, because of my position which has been acquired over the years, I communicate without necessarily saying it, regularly I have exchanges of messages with people, for example with the parliamentary assistant, the right-hand man of the deputy Philippe Latombe with whom I communicate and who thanks me regularly, because Philippe Latombe does quite interesting things on our subjects, The lady thanks me for the transcripts that are made. Let’s not talk about all the cities that use free software and also make returns. Transcripts allow them to show even more of what they do.

Walid Nouh: Isabella, do you want to add something?

Isabella Vanni: It’s true that it’s a very visible, very concrete action. Beyond its undeniable usefulness, it is also easier to highlight it.

Walid Nouh: There is also an SEO aspect that is not negligible.
OK, we’ve already been talking for an hour and twenty-five.

Isabella Vanni: And we would like to say so many more things!

The last word from the guests

Walid Nouh: I think it won’t be long before we stop. We did a lot of the tour. I’m very happy to have been able to talk about these two subjects, in particular the subject of transcriptions, a subject that is close to my heart, to do it every week. It was very nice to be able to talk with Marie-Odile. We had never spoken to each other in real life, rather by Mastodon and by e-mail, so it’s very nice.
In closing, I would like to leave you with a final word. I would like each of you to have a final word that you would like to pass on to the listeners of the Projet Libres podcast. Marie-Odile, I’ll let you start.

Marie-Odile Morandi: Thank you. I will obviously speak in defence of the transcripts. I wanted to remind you that in order to make transcriptions, it is absolutely not necessary to have any special knowledge. We can start by rereading a transcription that has already been made, by making corrections. I must point out that recently a student from the University of Calais started transcriptions.
I think that by making transcriptions we learn a lot of things on the subject of free software, computer freedoms. And I want to emphasize that this is a way of doing politics, real politics, not one that consists of regularly insulting each other, but really dealing with things in depth. Come and join us if you feel like it.

Walid Nouh: Thank you Marie-Odile. I would add that for me it is also a way to keep watch. A lot of terms, projects, things are mentioned in the interviews. When I do the transcription, when I add the external links, it’s also a way to look at these projects, to know what they are, what they do and all that. On my side, in any case, it’s a way to keep my watch.
Julie, do you want to share your last word with us, please?

Julie Chaumard: For the last word, I would like to talk about volunteering. I wanted to say that I knew the Libre, that I knew the April, two things that brought me a lot, with, as a gateway, volunteering, since I responded to a volunteer ad to do the management. I wanted to say that volunteering is something that we don’t talk about enough and that it brings a lot. I am now 52 years old, I myself started volunteering at the age of 30, because, all of a sudden, I said to myself “I have to help others”. I wanted to thank all the people, so thank the company that had helped me in previous years, in stages of my life. The volunteering I have been doing for 30 years has opened a lot of doors for me. In particular, I did a lot of volunteer work in the field of music and in the artistic field and it is thanks to this that, for the past three years, I have been able to create a web agency and have clients. I was able to have a knowledge of the field, so I have a web agency dedicated to the artistic field, it’s great and all this is thanks to the volunteering I did for many years.
Young people need experience. Sometimes young people are looking for a field in which they would like to evolve, even sometimes the not so young. I really advise them to volunteer. Volunteering is a bit like Free Software, it starts from society, from living together and from the place of each person.
I just wanted to add a little something. At one point, on the show, I said that it was good because I wasn’t an employee, that I could come on Tuesday afternoons. In fact, I thought about it. I have been volunteering for more than 20 years, I didn’t wait until I was no longer an employee, I very often took RTT days or leave to do extra-work activities.
That was my last word.

Walid Nouh: Very well. Isabella, would you also like to give your last word, please.

Isabella Vanni: My last word: I loved Marie-Odile and Julie’s last words which touched me a lot, just kidding! No, I’m not kidding, I really loved it!
A real word for the end: if you don’t have the time and energy to invest yourself occasionally over the long term to volunteer, because you need these two resources to do it and we don’t necessarily have them available, there are very simple ways to contribute to free software and one of these ways is to talk about Free Software to you! and Libre à lire! around you. Share podcasts and/or transcripts. The advantage is that in both cases you can even share only a particular topic, because the podcast of the show is also available in individual podcasts, the transcription is chaptered. So these are very simple actions, which take little time, but which are important for us, to help us promote Free Software. Contributing to free software also involves very simple actions, so don’t hesitate to do it.

Walid Nouh: That’s a good last word.
I thank all three of you for coming to talk about Libre à vous!, Libre à lire! and April in a slightly more global way. At the end of these three shows on April, I think we know a little more about all your different missions.
I invite you all, of course, to share the episodes, to talk about them around you. If you have the opportunity, to become a volunteer, to help April.
To conclude, I would say that for me it was a real pleasure. This is the last recording of the year. It was also the associative project on the podcast of the year: in 2024, it was Framasoft, in 2025 April, in 2026 we’ll see. It was a great pleasure. I’m very happy to have done this series with all of you. See you soon, we look forward to meeting each other.
Listeners, as usual, don’t hesitate to share this episode, comment on it, read the transcript, check out April’s website and actions and see you soon. Thank you very much.

Isabella Vanni: Thank you Walid

Julie Chaumard: Thank you Walid for the podcast.

Marie-Odile Morandi: Thank you

Episode production

• Remote check-in on December 25, 2025
• Editing: Walid Nouh
• Transcript:
  • Marie-Odile Morandi, April transcription group
  • proofreading: Walid Nouh

This interview has been automatically translated from the original language into English.

License

This podcast is released under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license or later