[Associations] Presenting April, episode 2: April today

April episode 2: the association today

Walid Nouh: Welcome to this new episode of Projets Libres. Some of you may have found that the sound resembles the sound of the show Libre à vous!, well that’s normal, because today, for the second episode on April, we are in the studio of Radio Cause Commune. It is August 25, 2025. Fred Couchet is directing.
For this new episode, so second episode on the history of April, we are going to talk more specifically about April today, I have three guests with me: Magali Garnero, alias Bookynette, who is president of April.

Magali Garnero: Hi Walid.

Walid Nouh: I have Étienne Gonnu, who is in charge of public affairs.

Étienne Gonnu: Hello.

Walid Nouh: And Laurent Costy, who is vice-president of April.

Laurent Costy: Hello Walid.

Introduction

Walid Nouh: Thank you for being here, in your studio, today it’s more like me who is invited to your recording studio, it’s great we’ll be able to talk. We did the first episode with Fred Couchet and Jeanne Tadeusz, episode 3 of season 16, which was released on June 30th, which I invite you to listen to again if you want to know more, if you haven’t listened to it before, maybe it will give you a new light on the discussion we’re going to have today.
Today we’re going to talk about April at the moment, the big missions, the challenges, how April fits into the whole Free Software ecosystem in France.

Presentation of the guests

To begin, I will ask everyone to introduce themselves and tell us how they discovered free software. Magali, I’ll let you speak, you’ll have the honor.

Magali Garnero: Introduce myself, Bookynette. I discovered free software because I met a geek who introduced me to LibreOffice and I found it extraordinary to have such an efficient software, with which I could be an actor by asking for changes or reporting bugs. Then he introduced me to Inkscape, then Firefox. In fact, I totally felt at home in this world of free software. At the same time, I’m a small Parisian bookseller and I’ve been president of April for almost three years, which will be three years in November. It goes by very quickly!

Étienne Gonnu: Three great years, when you have fun, time flies.

Magali Garnero: Thank you.

Walid Nouh: Étienne.

Étienne Gonnu: My name is Étienne Gonnu. I am one of the employees of April, as you said in charge of public affairs, in less technical terms we will say that I am in charge of political advocacy for the association.
My encounter with Free Software is quite concomitant with my encounter with April. To make a long story short, I first studied law and later specialized in digital law. What interested me in law studies was fundamental freedoms. When I resumed my studies in digital law, this appetite was still there. I started to be a little interested in free software, even if it was not necessarily from this first angle that I approached my reflections during my studies. At the end of my studies I had to look for work, you have to pay your bills. So, when I arrived at April, I was able to refine, let’s say, my understanding of free software. It echoed my broader political reflections, etc., on fundamental freedoms and I was immediately convinced of the necessity of this fight.

Walid Nouh: In what year did you arrive at April?

Étienne Gonnu: In January 2016, almost ten years.

Magali Garnero: We must note the date, we must not forget.

Walid Nouh: Did you come because you saw a job offer? How did it go?

Étienne Gonnu: Basically that’s it, I was looking for. I was in a difficult situation, I couldn’t see myself working in a company, in these logics. When you’re looking for a job that echoes your convictions, you’ll say that the field is rather limited. I saw this job offer, I knew very little about April, I knew the name because, when you start to know a little bit about free software, you quickly see the name of April appear and I have never prepared so much for a job interview. I was very happy to start working at April, it’s been almost ten years, I don’t regret this choice and I’m still very happy to work there.

Walid Nouh: Laurent, on your side?

Laurent Costy: Laurent Costy. I am vice-president of April. I’m not sure how long it’s been since then, sorry.

Étienne Gonnu: In any case, more than ten years because you were already there when I arrived.

Laurent Costy: I was not yet vice-president. I have been on the board of directors for about ten years.
How did I come across Free Software? I worked in an association called Planète Sciences, which promotes scientific and technical culture among young people. So I had a bit of this sensitivity around technical issues, digital issues. One day I really said that something had to be done: while we were using proprietary accounting software, we hadn’t paid for the support because our association didn’t necessarily have the means or didn’t want to, we were asked to pay to be able to answer one of the questions we had about the use of the software. Then I told myself that the model was really complicated, if every time we asked a question we had to pay, it was still a bit weird. As at the same time I was starting to hear about Free Software, I really dug into this path which seemed to me to be very facilitating for the circulation of information, which I am attached to, obviously.

Walid Nouh: OK. Do you have a technical background? What do you have in the past?

Laurent Costy: I don’t have a computer science background at all, I deny being a computer scientist. Obviously, with time you end up acquiring skills and being able to manage a small GNU/Linux on your computer. In general, I deny being a technician precisely to be on the border between people who don’t know and people who do, to be able to make the link between the two. That’s really where I am best situated, to build bridges in fact.

Étienne Gonnu: Of the three of us, none of us is a computer scientist and I think that represents April, from that point of view, and the meaning of our fight.

Walid Nouh: Precisely, it’s interesting that you don’t come from the world of IT.
OK. Thank you for the introductions. It’s very funny, I feel like I’m listening to an episode of Libre à vous!.

Étienne Gonnu: For me it’s fun, I’m more used to being in hosting, it’s quite relaxing to just be invited. Awesome!

April today

Walid Nouh: If we talk about April today, the first question I would like to ask you is: who makes up April? How many employees? How many members do you have? How many people are volunteers and help you?

Magali Garnero: I will start and at the same time I will try to have the exact number of members.
For the employees, it’s simple, we have four employees, one of whom is not full-time, I don’t know how many hours she works per week, but she does an extraordinary job, so Elsa who takes care of everything that is members and a little bit of everything that is administrative.
We have Frédéric Couchet, who is the founder, whom you heard in the first episode you did, which was released on June 30.
We have Étienne who is by our side.
We also have Isabella Vanni, an extraordinary person, whom I adore, and it’s not because I spent the weekend with her that I say that, who takes care of a lot of things.
So four employees, four beautiful people, as I like to say, who have been working for April for quite some time; I think even Elsa has been here for more than five years. We love our employees, we pamper them and we do everything to make sure that it goes well.
At the level of members I try to see, I am on April’s public newsletter which should logically be up to date.

Étienne Gonnu: It is around 2700 up-to-date members, from memory, legal entities and natural persons included.

Magali Garnero: There are no natural persons. I see more than 200 companies and associations. I was convinced that on the newsletter we would have the exact figures.

Étienne Gonnu: It’s in the home page of April, at the very top.

Magali Garnero: Sorry, the president does not know these figures by heart. Indeed, I see 2728 members: 2454 individuals and 274 companies, associations and communities, even if I find that there are fewer and fewer communities, but that’s another subject, I’ll talk about it later.
You asked another question.

Walid Nouh: What is the role of volunteers and how many are these people?

Magali Garnero: It’s complicated because we’ve never counted our number of volunteers. Most of them are either very physically active, like the volunteers of Chapril who will run online services offered to the general public and members, I don’t know how many there are, but there are a lot of them, there must be more than 15 of them. There are all the volunteers who come to run the stands and there, the same, I wouldn’t be able to say how many there are, but let’s imagine two or three volunteers per city where there are April stands, that’s already not bad. There are also all the volunteers who will participate in the mailing-lists such as Atelier, like Awareness, and I don’t think we’ve ever counted them.
Laurent raises his hand.

Laurent Costy: On volunteering, we can perhaps say that for a very long time April has been counting people’s volunteer time and it is voluntary, that is to say that we encourage volunteers to declare the hours they work for April and we transcribe it in the activity report each year. So you can see the number of hours that have been spent. I don’t have it in mind, I was looking it up on the last activity report. We can have this visibility and we can understand what it represents in terms of time. We don’t necessarily have to translate this into financial terms, even if we have set ourselves criteria, I think there are three levels of skills, let’s say, to value since accountants like to transform it into money. It allows us to have visibility from year to year, to see the evolution and to measure, roughly speaking, the time of volunteering in the association that it represents, which is extremely important for April.

Walid Nouh: Moreover, in terms of development, do you have more volunteering, less volunteering? Is it stable? Is it up and down?

Laurent Costy: I came back from vacation yesterday, I didn’t prepare the answer to this question, I’m really sorry!

Étienne Gonnu: I wanted to complete because you mentioned Atelier. Atelier is a discussion list where institutional topics are discussed, it is the only list that is reserved for members. You can contribute to April without being a member, you can be a volunteer without being a member, there are plenty of examples. So much for this clarification. We have work lists, Awareness, I think it speaks for itself; we have a Translations list, we have different themes with more or less discussion. On the Education list, there is less action, but there is a lot of stimulation between members who are linked to the education professions, who are interested in this subject without necessarily being in the profession, who can relay information, discuss the issues.
We have two actions, in particular, which are more or less recent. I’m going to mention Libre à vous! and also the Chapril, which is a continuation of the work of Framasoft’s CHATONS collective. Their particularity is that they are almost full-fledged projects. They are very linked to April and they allow us to mobilize volunteers on concrete things. There are more or less twenty people at Chapril. I think that for Libre à vous!, on different “jobs” in quotation marks – control room, podcast processing, studio participation, chronicles – we mobilize at least twenty volunteers.

Magali Garnero: There are occasional volunteers, there are regular volunteers. I think we would have no difficulty in going up to 100, knowing that it is not the same level of involvement for each volunteer.

Walid Nouh: OK. For the CHATONS collective, I invite you to listen to the episodes on the history of Framasoft (1st episode, 2nd episode), we came back several times to the history of KITTENS, what it is. Go ahead Laurent.

Laurent Costy: I found the figures for 2023 : in 2023, there were 2,600 hours of volunteering for April, which gives an indication.

Étienne Gonnu: I don’t want to force you to move forward, but you were also talking about the salary issue. I am one of the association’s employees. Booky is the president, she’s a bit of the boss, she’s one of our bosses. I wanted to say that Fred, historically the founder, his function is general delegate and, in relation to the employees, he is the boss. Anyway, when Booky says that we are a great team, etc., she does it with a certain distance, I can say it as an employee, I haven’t noticed it before, but I want to say it. It’s an association in which I have been working for almost ten years, to which I am attached. In general, I am attached to the importance of working conditions. We know that in many associations – I’m not trying to name or blame any particular association – we have important objectives, we have reduced resources, the ability to pay salaries, etc., and I find that April still has the strength to be very vigilant about working conditions, and that’s very appreciable. We trust each other, we are listened to, we discuss among ourselves, everyone has their position, but we also help each other a lot on subjects, we can discuss, there is vigilance, within the employees, of each other’s well-being. We feel that we have support and that, if necessary, we can rely on the board of directors. As a result, I open drawers that come to me, but I think it’s also an interesting aspect of the operation.
There is the president, the vice-president, I have a blank on the number of elected members of the board of directors, we can dig deeper, if you want, on the elected ones.

Magali Garnero: I think there are ten of us.

Étienne Gonnu: There is the board of directors and there is what is called the extended board of directors which includes the employees and, except on very specific subjects that only fall within the scope of the elected board, the employees participate. There are two weekends of work per year of the extended Board of Directors, we participate in discussions, we participate in exchanges, we are included in the evolution and in the perspectives of April. This contributes to the fact, as an employee, of feeling fully a member of April even if we have a special status, we are not volunteers.

April’s main missions

Walid Nouh: It’s working. Very well.
We talked about Libre à vous!. There will be another episode in which we will talk more specifically about certain actions including Libre à vous! and in particular also the Transcriptions part. We are not necessarily going to go any further on this.
Can you give us back, even if we discussed them in episode 1, the major missions of April at the moment?

Magali Garnero: I’ll summarize it very quickly: promoting and defending free software is more or less what we’ve been doing since 1996 and we’re continuing. Maybe now the tools and means have changed, but our main missions are still these: to make free software known to people who don’t know it yet and above all to prevent elected officials and institutions from passing laws that will go against our beloved software, software or online services, our entire community of free software professionals.
Go ahead, go into details!

Étienne Gonnu: This is not to go into details.
Promoting and defending are two fields of action: raising awareness among the general public and perhaps advocacy action with public decision-makers, which is what my position is part of, i.e. trying to influence in such a way that the political, economic and social context is as favourable as possible to free software; So it’s going to be to get in touch with elected public decision-makers or just the administration.
We also promote in terms of public action, it’s not just to prevent them, even if it happens. If there are decisions or bills that seem to go against what we are defending, then we intervene with our arguments, with different tools that may be at our disposal. Sometimes we also see opportunities, it can also be positive actions even if it’s sometimes difficult. As in many activist associations, we are sometimes more on the defensive, but we also try to be proactive when we can.

Walid Nouh: Can you give an example of promotion in the institutional context?

Étienne Gonnu: No doubt from the beginning, we have defended a priority for free software, a priority at the level of individuals, it’s the general public aspect, but also a priority in administrations, a priority for free software and open formats, it’s completely part of the equation. There are not so often opportunities to defend him. The last major example is the law for a Digital Republic, in 2016. We were able to propose and have a proposal put into law to give priority to free software in administrations. It didn’t come to fruition. An encouragement of free software has been enshrined in the law, but it does not have what is called a normative scope, it is not binding. In any case, what’s interesting and it’s also what you have to keep in mind when you’re in this kind of activism, when you defend this kind of thing, it’s not necessarily zero or one. We are moving forward little by little. I say this because, within the framework of this law, there are more than an hour of debates on the place of free software in the administrations and we see, over the years, that it is progressing, so never fast enough for our taste. That’s the kind of positive action we’re trying to have.
Typically for a few years, three or four years, the Court of Auditors has been conducting a public consultation so that we can propose areas of control, control missions. We proposed that an audit be carried out on software spending in the perspective of this priority to free software, to shed some light on the situation.
So we use different levers at our disposal, at different scales, to try to carry this idea. Let’s say it’s more of a proactive approach, trying to have a positive influence.

Walid Nouh: Magali, you wanted to intervene.

Magali Garnero: Yes. I have sometimes participated in events, including one in particular called ” Digital is political!” which took place in 2025. I had the opportunity to meet several elected officials from Malakoff, so to exchange, to talk about free software with them. Let’s say that it’s not an official action of April, but it’s a way to promote it to local authorities and elected politicians in a gentle and positive way.

Walid Nouh: Laurent, do you have anything to add?

Laurent Costy: I found the figure you were asking for, already the 2023/2024 comparison. We lost 100 hours of volunteering. I forgot to mention earlier that it is equivalent to 1.6 full-time equivalents, it’s as if we had one and a half more people at April, so, out of four, we can imagine what it represents in terms of working time, it’s vital for April and we thank all the volunteers who are committed to April, I take advantage of it.

Magali Garnero: Knowing that most of them don’t update their volunteering, you have to imagine that it’s more.

Laurent Costy: The variation will also be linked to the fact that we have more or less revived people by reminding them to register their volunteering.

April’s place in the French free software ecosystem

Walid Nouh: It’s a subject that we also address in episode 1, this help on certain subjects. We talked in particular about certain subjects on which it had taken skills to help Jeanne [Tadeusz], for example, on which some volunteers had spent a lot of time going through certain documents, helped to make answers, etc. Very well.
Another question comes to mind. We have a French free software ecosystem made up of various players, people, individuals, associations such as April, companies, etc. I think that April is the association that was created first. How do you see April’s place in this whole ecosystem? Who do you interact with? Who wants to start? Laurent.

Laurent Costy: I would say that the association with which we have the most exchanges, perhaps also through the position of our president, is Framasoft. In the end, we are quite complementary in the landscape. Framasoft wasn’t born long after April, I think it’s 2002, maybe I’m saying something stupid, Booky will confirm, it’s of that order, and April 1996. There is a rather interesting distribution of roles which, in the end, means that, in the end, we exchange ideas quite regularly. First of all, we meet at events, sometimes we set up stands together. It’s clear that with Framasoft we are rather complementary and close enough to be as complementary as possible, to meet the greatest number of needs.
I can pass the floor to others. There are other associations, people who were around April who have created other structures. I don’t know much about the history of La Quadrature du Net [16], but it seems to me that Jérémie Zimmermann, who was an activist within April, was one of the initiators of La Quadrature.
There are structures with which we have historical links, we exchange regularly and then it’s according to the time, that is to say that sometimes we lose contact a little, depending perhaps on the employees, on the state of the structure, and it comes back, we renew links. It can be on a one-off operation for which we will find an alliance. There are all these elements.

Magali Garnero: In the other contacts, I would like to talk about all the GULLs, the groups of free software users, who do a lot of things, each from a local point of view, and with whom we try to keep in touch, to meet people, if possible to relay actions. They themselves often relay April’s actions.
I correct. April is not the oldest French association, it’s the Infini association, which I met, which was born a year before us, with whom I was this weekend for the Pas Sage en Steïr event. The April is not the oldest, she arrived not far after! We have not been robbed of that place!
In the associations with which we interact a lot, I wanted to mention LinuxFr.org, a kind of online media that tells everything that is news, that lets people speak, on which we publish a lot of our news, that’s where I published my “Tour des GULL”. It’s not necessarily a big association, but it has power, relationships, I don’t know how to explain, it’s essential for me.

Walid Nouh: Very well. On this subject, I encourage you to listen to the episode we did on LinuxFr, in which there is more information to get to know LinuxFr better.

Étienne Gonnu: Maybe to answer your question, our actions on the more institutional aspect, I’m going to join Laurent on the complementary aspect already with Framasoft. Framasoft is a popular education association, I am not going to introduce it, I think that the auditor of Projets libres! knows it well. It has demonstrated, in particular with Dégoogles Internet, the concrete, material demonstration that Free Software works. And clearly, when you do political advocacy and you go to meet people who can more or less know free software, to be able to rely on this concrete demonstration that it is possible, that it exists, it gives body, it shows that what you defend is part of reality, that it’s not just a slightly ethereal thing.

Magali Garnero: It exists, it’s possible and it doesn’t necessarily cost billions.

Étienne Gonnu: No. Afterwards, on the operating side, it’s a question of investment, it can cost, but we keep what costs. This is not money that is being sent to Ireland so that American companies can optimize their tax levels. Brief!
It is therefore a form of complementarity.
After that, there are other associations. Laurent mentioned, for example, La Quadrature du Net, which also has an approach, let’s say, of political action, of advocacy, with its core competencies. Our core competencies are more fundamentally free software around this idea of priority.
We have small means like most associations. In reality, even Framasoft, compared to what they do, has small means. At April, we are only four employees, a full-time dedicated to institutional action issues. We do what we can with our means. We have to decide, we sometimes have to decide on subjects, we can’t intervene everywhere and that’s also where there is a form of complementarity. At the beginning, La Quadrature du Net was very much about copyright, now they have real expertise, especially on surveillance issues. We don’t need to take up these issues, there is no competition between us to see who will be best heard.
Health Data Hub is a topic that has been talked about a lot. At the time, we didn’t need to take the lead because an association called InterHop was, I believe, founded in reaction to that. It seems to me that they were two computer scientists and doctors by profession who acted with their expertise. In this case, we support each other, we relay, we participate in the mobilization. We don’t necessarily have the vocation to be a leader on all subjects, and that wouldn’t make sense.
At the company level, the CNLL [Union of Free Software and Open Digital Companies] is a network of companies that, for a few years, two or three years, has also begun to have institutional action inclinations, particularly on cybersecurity issues, I am not going to speak for them.
It’s because we’re a network, a network of associations, that we can also do more things and that allows us to better concentrate our strengths.
Finally, and I’ll end on this, I can mention Halte à l’Obsolescence Programmation which, let’s say, is not an association of our first circles, with whom we were already able to work on the anti-waste law for a circular economy at the time, the AGEC law. We supported some of their proposals, we carried our own. We were able to have interactions because there was an intersection of our subjects on software obsolescence in particular.

Contacts with other European countries

Walid Nouh: Supplementary question. Do you have contact with other people or other user groups in French-speaking countries? Do you ever get contacted about issues that are not French but French-speaking? In that case, what do you do with these requests? Magali, you want to answer.

Magali Garnero: I was contacted by Mozilla Europe when there was this whole bill on the responsibility of browsers, at that time it was half French half European, I didn’t really know how I was going to react. I put the Mozilla person in touch with other people who were more expert than me on the subject or who had a larger network than mine.
I know that we are also in contact with a GULL, a Canadian association called FACIL, which asked us, at some point, for a letter of recommendation, I am not sure if it is a letter of recommendation, which we sent them without discussion, there is no problem, if it can help them, We do everything to help others.
After all, there aren’t a lot of associations like April in Europe, but if we can help, often we help, if we can relay, we relay. I admit that at the Brussels level, it is more Étienne who will be able to answer this question.

Étienne Gonnu: I was talking about our strengths, our energy, our ability to act. Historically, we have been able to intervene in European law cases, at the level of the European Union. But, a few years ago, we decided that it was better to concentrate on the French level, in particular because, as we are not based in Brussels, and when we are not in Brussels, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to act effectively at the European level. In this case, indeed, we are rather supporting large associations, associations that have more of the capacity, to have a European action.
From an institutional point of view, it’s true that we haven’t had so many interactions because we’re focused on the French level and then each legal order, each state, each institutional system needs time to understand a little bit how it works. We can’t be everywhere, we can’t have this skill everywhere.

Magali Garnero: I believe that there is also the APELL [European Professional Association of Free Software] association, at the European level, which launched an action that we relayed, perhaps even explained. We have done popularization.

Étienne Gonnu: To be confirmed, but it seems to me that APELL is a group of national business associations. In particular, they got together, and I find it interesting, to finance a position equivalent to mine, in political advocacy, but based in Brussels, precisely, to be a little closer to where the European Union’s decisions are taken.

April’s financing

Walid Nouh: I think we’ll talk about this kind of subject again in Projets libres!, whether it’s the CNLL or APELL, these are very interesting subjects, which, personally, I don’t know at all, so it will be a good opportunity to learn more.
We talked a lot about April’s place in the ecosystem.
I would like to turn now to another very important subject, the subject of financing, how you finance yourself. We touched on that a little bit at the beginning, in episode 1, but I’d like to know how it’s going now. Who wants to take the question? Magali.

Magali Garnero: I can, since I had prepared the answer to the question.
All the money from April’s funding is membership and donations, which means that we have no subsidies, no state aid, we depend entirely on our members. It’s also a choice because it gives us total freedom, we don’t have to answer to anyone.
We were extremely naïve. In 2006 and 2013, we applied to be recognized as being of general interest, to be able to distribute this famous tax receipt to our members. We were refused it twice because we didn’t fit into the boxes. I reread the PDF of the answers this morning, it annoyed me. We don’t fit into the boxes, we maybe do a little too much advocacy and maybe not enough education We’re a little naïve, I know, we thought maybe we’d start again in 2025 or 2026.

Étienne Gonnu: It’s not necessarily naivety. In any case, we have to try, the political context has evolved, the context of April’s actions has evolved, it makes sense too. But indeed, for the moment we do not benefit from this facility.

Magali Garnero: So no tax receipt.
In recent years, we have had a small problem with our funding because we tend to lose local authorities, like Paris, soon Toulouse and so on. The local authorities pay a lot of money at once, so to replace them with small members who are at least ten euros, you need a lot of members, but we can’t blame them because they themselves have budgetary restrictions that come from the State, from the government which, as you have seen, I am not going to speak ill, tends to take money where there is none rather than going to get it where there is. We have seen a lot of decrease at the level of the communities, but at the level of members it has been more or less maintained for three or four years.

Walid Nouh: All right. Financing is always a crucial subject and every year you have to take up your pilgrim’s staff again.

Magali Garnero: Not totally because we were lucky, at April, to have a kind of nest egg, we had reserves, except that reserves don’t necessarily last forever. Last year, we realized that our reserves were starting to dwindle. So we launched the Unleashed Lama campaign, really a campaign of support to get money back. We asked for 20,000 euros last year, we will surely ask for more this year when we do it again, and we were lucky because people supported us.

Walid Nouh: What do you take away from this campaign? Was it complicated? Did it show real support for April?

Magali Garnero: I only remember happiness!

Laurent Costy: We had set ourselves the goal of raising 20,000 euros and, in the end, we obtained 27,000 euros. It was done in the last part of the campaign, it’s always a bit stressful, but in the end the balance is rather positive compared to the objective we had set ourselves.
So we have many members who support us and we have tried to widen the circle a little with a campaign that has spread out and a president at the helm who has spent a lot of time on communication, on the production of content to try to collect money.

Walid Nouh: But, for example, what do you put forward? Do you highlight any achievements? Do you highlight what you would like to do with this money? What do you put forward to make people want to continue to give to you?

Étienne Gonnu: It’s important to have this distinction that you mention. There is the question of independence but also the question of sustainability, of projection into the future. That’s the advantage of having a contribution-based system, it makes it possible, in particular, when there are people who are salaried, to have stability and not to be required, every year, to run campaigns.
It’s true that the contexts, since the foundation of April, have evolved a lot, there are many more associations, especially on our subjects. This is very good, but it creates, in fact, a form of competition for support because the wallets of people and our supporters are not infinite either, they are themselves subject to an economically complicated period, so it plays a role.
It also raises questions and I think it’s good to re-examine the way we finance ourselves and how we convince people to support us. We are trying to convince and I think that the interest of the campaign was also to show everything we have been able to do, whether it is political action, to re-inscribe April in its history and to show that we are also in continuity, that we continue to take action, we follow issues that we have been following since the beginning on which we continue to act, on which we have built expertise. It’s also about showing that, that we continue to do things.
It’s complicated when local authorities, sometimes more legal entities, ask: “What about us? OK, we contribute, but what do we get out of it? “You get away with it that you support us, in fact it’s a support for values. Our action is intended to ensure that the economic and political environment is favourable to free software. So all those who want to make free software have an interest in making it easier to do so, because the laws allow it, because the free software economy is supported, there is investment, etc. The interest to be derived from it is there. We are not in calls for projects where if you give us so much, you will gain so much.

Laurent Costy: It’s probably a little more complicated for us than for Framasoft. There are concrete services offered: we can actually explain what this money will be used for consolidation, making subsequent versions, etc. We are indeed in the slightly more political aspect. Now, we can still invoke the Chapril, a kitten where we have concrete services too. We feel that it is more complicated to argue with our members.

How and where April promotes itself

Walid Nouh: A question that I hadn’t noted. How do you promote this? On which social networks? Apart from social networks, what actions have you taken to highlight your actions?

Étienne Gonnu: In two words already and I’ll let Booky answer: Free to you!, the campaign of the Unleashed Llama, and then t-shirts, stickers.

Magali Garnero: The Expolibre, the conferences. I think that would be a really big topic for next time.
Otherwise, to respond on the networks, we try to contact certain journalists. I was talking about LinuxFr earlier. Every week, they let me do a review of The Unchained Lama; the same on the April website. Everything that can be flooded, we have flooded. By the way, I propose to all the members of April to block me from October to December because I go to do Llama Unleashed every day, even several times a day. If you don’t want to be flooded, I authorize you to block me. From January, you will be able to start following me again.

Laurent Costy: Knowing that we obviously try to stay true to our values, so to use alternative networks, therefore less frequented networks. We probably have less echoes than if we had chosen to use mainstream platforms. We assume it, of course, otherwise our message would not be very coherent. This is perhaps a difficulty that we can have compared to associations that would not ask themselves questions on this subject.

Magali Garnero: It’s also a discussion we’ve had several times within the board: do we go back, or not, to platforms that are not free? In the end, the “or not” suits us much better. Too bad if there is less money, at least we remain consistent with ourselves and with our ideas.

Étienne Gonnu: Without going into detail, typically we were on Twitter and we made the choice to leave Twitter at some point. This was the subject of a discussion within the framework of an extended board of directors that I was talking about, employees and elected members.

Walid Nouh: I think that in many associations it’s a discussion: should we stay on these GAFAM networks where there are people or leave and have a smaller audience? Everyone has their own answer on this.

Magali Garnero: Sometimes associations have no choice. If they are not on these networks where there are people, there is no money, and if there is no money, there is no association. The question can be asked, there can be different answers, there is no wrong answer, the economic part determines the choice. At April, we made this choice with the consequences that it brings, I don’t think we regret it, even if it’s true that since then, the end of the year has been complicated. Last year we wanted 20, we were given 27. I really think we don’t have the right to complain.

April’s representative actions

Walid Nouh: Can we talk about some of the actions that you have carried out recently or that are underway, which are rather representative of April’s work? Étienne, for example, could you start to give us some actions you’ve been working on?

Étienne Gonnu: I thought of two when I was thinking about the show.

Openbar Contracts and Microsoft Dependency

I was talking about priority to free software. I was thinking of what are called open bars , which can be expressed in different ways, basically the dependence of many administrations, especially ministries, on Microsoft tools. This is not recent in the sense that it is an old problem.
To come back to the distinction, the defense aspect is to fight against situations of dependence on Microsoft in particular, which is quite emblematic but not only, but Microsoft a lot. The positive aspect is to defend a priority. It is clear that all this is very much linked. This is an issue that we are following, on which we continue to be committed.
More recently, this has been manifested at the level of the Ministry of Labour. It’s also an opportunity to show some of the tools we use. Parliamentarians vote on laws, but they also control the government, they are the two feet of their action. One way they control the government is to use what are called questions to the government. We see the oral questions in the hemicycle, they are the most visible, in fact, the most important are the written questions. Sometimes we contact parliamentarians to suggest questions.
There, thanks to a question asked by a deputy, who had asked it directly, we learned, in 2023, that the Ministry of Labor had lifted the possibility of a derogation to be able to use Microsoft’s remote cloud services, which, normally, it cannot do is the “Cloud at the center” circular for people who want to dig into the trick. So we saw that, we said to ourselves “we’re going to try to understand what the text is”. Another lever, another tool that we use a lot, is what we call CADA requests, the right of access to administrative documents, the CADA is the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents, and anyone can make requests. If you are interested in the subject, I recommend the Ma Dada association, which offers a tool to make requests in a simplified way.
So we asked the administration what this derogation is, what are the studies that have allowed you to, etc. It allows us to always dig deeper, the idea being to shed light on the situation of dependency, so there we have several requests.
April’s role in all this, one of the aspects of our advocacy work, is to be a bit of a scratch, that is to say, to prevent administrations from doing anything without being bothered behind. We try to be a little bit scratchy at our level.
Booky, you wanted to complete.

Dependence on GAFAMs and in particular Microsoft

Magali Garnero: I come back to the derogation. Whatever they are, the derogations are limited in time, we ask for a derogation because we have not yet found the ideal solution. Except that here, for the Ministry of Labor you were talking about, it’s a derogation that had been happening for one, two, three years, almost it was going to be long-term, like a temporary derogation that is not at all. It’s good that we were aware of this because of this question. As Étienne says, we were scratchy, we asked questions, we asked them: “Is this really the case? What is really preventing you from passing? and so on. Each CADA request gave answers, or not, or answers that we couldn’t see because they were totally redacted. I remember a document where 75% of the page was totally illegible.
It allows us to have information. Sometimes they talk about cases that we don’t know, but the fact that they talk about them allows us to ask the CADA for them. It’s really a long-term job, often with an unsatisfactory result, but it allows us to continue to defend, to ask questions and to force them to question themselves, so not necessarily, but I hope that one day the Ministry of Labour will move on to something other than Microsoft’s cloud . When he gets tired of having us on his back, maybe he’ll make an effort, especially since it’s not like it’s impossible!

Étienne Gonnu: Regarding this dependence, it’s something we’ve been trying to push for three or four years. We think that the written question can be a good way to go because it forces the government to take a position, but there are also other levers that we are thinking about: forcing an audit of overall software spending, because as long as the State does not have an inventory, as long as the administrations do not have visibility on where the money is being put and what the software needs are, or will not be able to move towards a better use of free software, what we defend is also the meaning of action.
It’s not necessarily what we would have chosen, but we’re talking about digital sovereignty, it’s a bit of a “fashionable” way of talking about the subjects that interest us. We bring our definition a little bit through free software, we explain why there is no digital sovereignty without free software because it provides guarantees of control, etc. So all this is very much linked:
We defend a priority for free software, we call for more transparency, we point the finger at situations of dependence, and we really try to put our finger on the workstations. They say that GNU/Linux has won over servers, but what interests us is office automation, it’s workstations. We know that this is really very key and that’s why we’re trying to have a continuous and determined action on these issues of dependence on Microsoft.
To finish on a last example, the forced migration from Windows 10 to Windows 11 is coming, it’s getting people talking. A commission of inquiry, which was also very interesting, on public procurement, pointed out that the national police will have to spend millions because it will be forced to change its version. They were making the comparison with the national gendarmerie, the example that we use all the time, but, at the same time, which is quite telling, which, for many years now, has chosen to switch to a free operating system. It has developed its own version of Ubuntu and does not find itself in this knife to the throat situation, that’s the expression that comes to me and I think it is not necessarily wrong. The subject remains fully topical and I think that the transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11 testifies to this.

The abandonment of Windows 10 support

Magali Garnero: In the coming months, you will hear very loudly about this transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Of course, we can’t stay silent, obviously we’re not going to be the only ones to complain. Stay tuned.

Laurent Costy: Earlier, we were talking about links with other structures and opportunities for alliances. With Halte à l’obsolescence programme, we have had contacts, exchanges, and we are preparing coherent communications. It’s not necessarily a daily in-depth work, in any case we get up to speed on the initiatives we each want to launch so that we can share them, relay them more easily. It’s really part of our job.

Étienne Gonnu: Which makes me think, to take a step aside, that on dependence on Microsoft we have this action because it is one of our core business vis-à-vis administrations so that they have priority for free software, so that they get out of this dependence, but the expenditure at Microsoft also concerns associations. I know that Laurent has worked a lot on that.

Laurent Costy: That’s exactly the transition I wanted to make.
A big action is being taken with regard to the deputies, the government, the state, but we are also trying to look at what is slowing down the adoption of free software in the associative world, for example. For many years, we have been following a structure called Solidatech, a program called Solidatech, which is very prominent and very popular with associations because this program makes it possible to have proprietary software licenses at very very small costs, which have nothing to do with market costs. When you analyze it, when you understand how it works, something international, called TechSoup , is looking locally, in the countries, for structures that are well established to be able to relay this mechanism a little. It’s a really well-thought-out lobbying, well advanced, which, as a result, prevents the adoption of free software. We also try to scratch these structures, we question them. They often have a discourse saying “we emancipate associations, we make their lives easier, etc.” They are also questioned about the fact that they continue to lock them into a mechanism. We recently had an exchange of letters, they finally answered us. The Board of Directors has not yet decided what to do with this letter, what follow-up we are going to give. We try to push the questioning, to push them to their limits so that they answer us: “Look at the consequence of your associative object. You lock associations into a world from which associations will have a lot of trouble getting out the day they want to do so. »

Walid Nouh: Regarding the transition of Windows 10, aren’t the actions of the Trump administration a kind of blessing for people to realize? I’m not going to say that people will switch to free software overnight, but it brings the dependence back to the forefront more than ever.

Laurent Costy: This is not the first time that Windows has done this. There was Windows XP in 2014, there was Windows 8, Windows 10. Every time, they do the trick to us.
Maybe the factor that changes is the environmental issue, maybe that’s what will make the difference. That is to say, there is an evaluation that estimates that there will be 240 million computers that will not be able to switch to Windows 11 in the long term.

Étienne Gonnu: It’s Green IT, I will take the liberty of quoting them.

Laurent Costy: I’ve done the math, I’m revealing a little bit of the next column of Libre à vous! [31]. If we take the thickness of a laptop, on average two centimeters, that’s 480 million centimeters. If we do the right calculations, in the right units, it’s 1000 times the height of Mont Blanc. There is a pile of computers 1000 times the height of Mont Blanc in which Microsoft will make a flick. Obviously, not overnight, but it means that it is declassifying, in an accelerated way, computers that could still be used, while we now know that to produce a computer you have to extract 800 kilos of matter from nature. It may shake things up, it may be a lever that we will have, and indeed form an alliance with associations that will fight against it.

Étienne Gonnu: On the Trump aspect, there is clearly an opportunity. I mentioned the commission of inquiry on public procurement, a big subject, Microsoft was quite emblematic, they talked a lot about the Health Data Hub and the situation of the National Education which, like most ministries, is in a state of great dependence. There is what is called the extraterritoriality of law. For people who are familiar with the GDPR, the European Data Protection Regulation, the problem with American law is that the American state can potentially access all the data stored by American companies wherever the data is stored. For an administration, this is therefore a big problem, especially for administrations that store data that is sensitive by nature, I would like to say, since it is the data of citizens. So the use of Microsoft, despite this situation of extraterritoriality, in the context of an administration in the process of fascisation, in my words, raises questions. We felt that this highlighted, for the administration, the big problem of dependency.
So there is indeed a problem of dependence, but, in addition, a dependence in a very particular political context. They have held a lot of hearings, and we will soon publish a news item to share our analysis of this report which was published in July. In particular, they interviewed Guillaume Poupard, the former director general of the National Agency for the Security of Information Systems, ANSSI. He recalled that if the American administration decides to cut technological bridges, basically that Microsoft’s updates no longer come to Europe, in a few weeks, not much more, the administrations are a bit in the lurch and no longer have secure systems to work on. I think it highlighted the very concrete issues of dependence on solutions.

Magali Garnero: Ecologically and for independence, it would be good to switch to free software, we all agree.

Laurent Costy: Fork.

Certification of cash register software

Walid Nouh: Another subject that we broached, precisely in these actions, when we prepared the interview and I thought it’s worth saying a few words about it, even if we’re certainly going to do a full episode on it, is the work, which has absolutely nothing to do with it, but on which you participate: The certification of cash register software, a big subject that has been there for a long time, a subject that I would like to deal with in a separate episode, in the same way that I dealt with the episode on the reform of electronic invoicing.
Étienne, can you say a few words about it since, a priori, it’s one of the subjects you’re working on. Can you explain quite simply what we’re talking about and especially what is the role of April in all this?

Étienne Gonnu: I’ll try to do my best.
I also wanted to talk about this subject and I was happy that you were interested in the subject, because I think it’s quite emblematic in another way, in another type of action. A bill arrives, a proposal, in a bill, threatens free software, then we take action: with arguments to oppose it, we contact parliamentarians, we propose amendments to go against it, etc.
Cash register software is a subject that we worked on in 2016, I will first have to quickly give this context, and which came up recently.
Basically, in 2016/2017, a finance bill created an obligation for all people who have cash register software to be able to produce a document that proves, somewhere, the compliance of their software with the requirements of the law. If accountants listen to us, they will know how to correct me, but basically it talks about inalterability, archiving, several criteria like that. To prove a document, this document could be either a certification, that is to say a document that is obtained by a certifying authority, we can think of Afnor, so the company that offers the software has certified, etc., or the company that offers a software can attest itself, it engages its responsibility, it says “I certify to you, customer who wants to use my software, that the software you are going to use is compliant” and if there is a check and the software is not compliant, it is the company that will have to answer for the fact that it has given a false document, somewhere.
At the time, we intervened because, as it was formulated, we considered that there was a risk that it would de facto prohibit the freedom to modify, which is still a somewhat important freedom, the four freedoms are essential for us to have free software, so that it simply prohibits the freedom to modify. There was this fear that if the customer or user of the cash register software modifies it, it would invalidate the document, so that it would make a form of infinite liability for the company that issued the document since it would be responsible for the changes made. So, in a way, it was necessary to prevent the freedom to modify.
We intervened in particular with members of Dolibarr and Pastèque, which are two cash register software, who are also members of April, we exchanged with the administration that was supposed to produce what is called the tax doctrine, an exchange that was very constructive on how they were going to interpret it. Productive exchanges since we managed to write in black and white, basically to clarify very objectively the conditions for the freedom of modification to be guaranteed, I will not go into details.
This was the situation that obviously suited everyone, we discussed later with the administration who were very satisfied with this situation except that an amendment was made. It is always interesting to ask where the amendments come from, we have not yet identified, it is an interesting subject when we are interested in the way laws are born and where the amendments come from. Brief! Several deputies, it was quite transpartisan, brought an amendment to prohibit the certificate. That is to say, the only way for someone who makes cash register software to be able to provide a document that says that the software is compliant is to go through an authority like Afnor, etc., except that it takes a long time, that it has very significant costs and that, in a way, it doesn’t work with what we call agility, A very active and fluid way of producing software and which corresponds all the more to free software where we have external contributions. So ban the attestation that all Free Software companies, but not only, use because the certification is cumbersome.
April intervened to propose arguments. I called a lot of parliamentarians, I had discussions with some of them to try to ensure that the proposed amendment was rejected. Unfortunately, it was adopted and, in the context of the finance bill for 2025, with the government’s censorship, this also creates political conditions where it is a little more complicated to act.
So the text has passed. We also continue to act. Afterwards we contacted the tax authorities, we exchanged. It was to specify, in its texts, how it was going to apply this new obligation. I think they already intended to limit the impact, so we got a deadline for implementation , in any case she would have granted it. On the other hand, and this is also interesting, it is validating the possibility of a form of community certification: companies, users, associations can get together, have the software certified that benefits all the people who will implement it, distribute it.
To finish on this issue ––sorry, I’m being a bit long–, we have learned, because we have continued to have exchanges, that members have contacted their deputies themselves, that obviously, on the government side, they agree on the fact that this is not necessarily a welcome vote, so we are hopeful and we will mobilize so that, On the next finance bill, we can return to the previous situation, in any case we will act in this direction.
Sorry for this tunnel.

Walid Nouh: It’s interesting, because on this kind of subject, April has an important role in advocacy, collaboration.

Étienne Gonnu: If I can explain, in very few words. I had already worked on this text, so it was almost natural for me to dive back into it since we actually saw the alert coming.
April’s role is more of a coordinator of people who have the expertise. I don’t have the business expertise, let’s say, that’s why we exchange with companies and members of associations, including Dolibarr, which is one of the main free cash register software. We have a list dedicated to this subject where discussions are held. I arrive with my habit of contacting parliamentarians or administrations and I bring with me those who have the expertise. When we write an analysis, my role is rather to synthesize the ideas that have been built by people who have this knowledge of the profession, of the technical reality and its implications.

Raising awareness of free software among associations

Walid Nouh: OK. Very interesting. Laurent, are there any actions, things that you would like to mention?

Laurent Costy: It’s true that from the beginning, my application to April has focused a lot on the question of the link between free software and the associative world, in particular popular education, because I was convinced that there was a convergence of strong values that should facilitate their adoption. The reality is much more complex, on the one hand because associations do not have time to devote to what they consider to be a tool, something that must work.
We had a working group that was very active in the mid-2010s, let’s say, called Libre Association. The list still exists, there are still some questions that arise “what do you use as free software to do this in your association, etc.”. There has been a continuity and that’s why I’m talking about complementarity with Framasoft, that is to say that the Dégoogles Internet initiatives, the CHATONS collective, now Émancip’Asso make, I would say, that the object has moved a little and it has been updated with people who are volunteers.
I would say that Libre Association did most of its work in the mid-2010s and Framasoft, with its projects, continues, in a way, a work that seems to me to be extremely important with regard to associations because they are at the mercy of structures, as I mentioned earlier, which mean that at a given moment they remain locked up, They do not ask themselves questions about their issues. Whereas, when we succeed in convincing association leaders to take the time to explain the issues, when we manage to bring a few employees, a few volunteers, around the table, people are volunteers, they want to transition, they want to change their software, but in the end that’s the hardest part. It’s to succeed in convincing people that we need to take a day together to raise the issues with regard to the data of the association’s members, with regard to the association’s data. So let’s take that time and after that, in general, the transition is much smoother.
I found myself in two situations where I was accompanying associations, one where we had done this work and one where we hadn’t, we can clearly see the difference. People are really in opposition when we haven’t had time to prepare this, they are really in “it doesn’t work, it doesn’t do the same thing, excel and word were much better.” Whereas once we have raised the issues, the question does not even arise, we make the effort, we know that there are solutions and we know why we have to look for solutions.
It’s quite vital to be able to try to change the situation in the associative world because on the other side we still have monsters with infinite power and money.

Walid Nouh: Magali.

Parental Control Bill

Magali Garnero: We will ask these people to make a donation to April.
I would like to come back to an issue that is a little older than cash register software but less so than Microsoft’s “open bar”, which is the bill on parental control which required all computer manufacturers to put a small parental control software in place. We are not against parental control, but this little software meant that we could no longer buy hardware without an operating system. However, for most of the people I know, who are free software users, this ban was still quite catastrophic since most free software users like to buy their equipment, install the small distribution they want and that suits them, tinker as much as possible, and then it would no longer have been possible. We have stepped up to the plate. I remember, Étienne, that you worked with the rapporteur of the bill.

Étienne Gonnu: I think it’s emblematic. We are also a kind of watchdog, in a way, through the monitoring that we do.
In itself, the text did not prohibit, it was not written that it is forbidden to sell, except that it was a possible interpretation since you have to install software, there must be an operating system to run it. Problem: in the law, we know that doubt tends to go in the direction of limitations, is rather against freedoms. And companies, for the avoidance of doubt, might have simply stopped offering equipment without an operating system.
Then I called. After a while, I was in contact with the rapporteur because an administrator of the National Assembly called me back and told me “I have feedback in all directions, people are worried about this” when that was not the goal at all. That’s where, afterwards, there was the link with the rapporteur and it went in the other direction.

Magali Garnero: It’s true that Étienne and Frédéric are vigilant about everything that is a bill, but there are also actions, things that are reported to us by people who often want to remain anonymous. Without the work of these people and our employees, things would pass under our noses, we wouldn’t necessarily see them. Fortunately, we have this vigilance and that we are helped by many people.

Étienne Gonnu: I’m going to say it again, because it’s very important. Fred and I have salaried time to devote to it, me in particular, my full-time time is about it, but we are humans, with our available time, we also have other things to do, we sometimes miss things. So I invite the people who listen to us and who see things go by, not to hesitate to tell us “hey, I saw that”, even if it seems obvious to everyone, sometimes not, in fact, because everyone has their own tricks. We will act if we can act. The more contributions we have in terms of monitoring and vigilance, the better equipped we will be to act.

Walid Nouh: I have a supplementary question on that. Isn’t this work of monitoring, of advocacy, of the fact that you don’t win every time, that you have to come back, etc., a work that is exhausting by force?

Étienne Gonnu: On parental control, in the end, we won, we won because we defended ourselves and the defense passed.
No. I’m in perspective. Whether it’s for free software or for something else, we’re in the long term, I like this sentence from Framasoft, “the road is long but the way is clear.” We shouldn’t focus on each fight taken individually. We progress, in each fight we learn, we strengthen ourselves and who is it with. It is the question of means and ends. The end we set ourselves is almost secondary to the means. I defend that in a great team, in an association that I like, I learn things, so no, it’s not exhausting because of that.

Magali Garnero: When I see the result for the cash register software, we were still quite disappointed, we didn’t necessarily understand why this subject came up. We could be discouraged by saying “too bad”. But I have already heard several people around me say “we are going to go back next year, for the next finance bill, to propose this certificate again”. A priori, the government would follow us because it was as surprised as we were. We were disappointed, but there is always hope, there are always actions to be done, to continue, and if it happens next year we will be able to drink champagne and say “the certificate has been handed over.” You always have to look at the positive side, there are no small or big battles, there are often plenty of small victories and small failures, but a victory is still extraordinary.

Walid Nouh: So a lot of vigilance.

Étienne Gonnu: A big win would give us a lot of energy, we wouldn’t spit on it, but it’s not frustrating or discouraging, it’s annoying sometimes. In any case, overall the political context is not very cheerful, we are not going to lie to each other, but it is with whom we do things and how we do things.

Laurent Costy: It wasn’t April that worked, but the last Entr’Ouvert lawsuit against Orange was finally a victory, so it showed that Free Software could also win and I think that’s important for the Free Software community.

Walid Nouh: I’ll link, in the transcript, to a conference that was given at the Capitole du Libre, which looks back on all the twists and turns, the years of proceedings and everything, it’s quite incredible, to see the final result.

Magali Garnero: Another positive action is meetings with elected officials, senators and parliamentarians who contact us for information or whom we ourselves have contacted and who have replied to us. I don’t think that 100% of parliamentarians respond when we contact them, I’m sure not, in any case those who have responded to us, it gives us a network, it increases a network, it stabilizes this network and it is this network that allows us to follow up with them for the next action. The more people we know, the larger the network, the more likely we are to be effective in our work.

April’s internal challenges

Walid Nouh: The last big part I’d like to talk about is the fairly usual part in my episodes, which I call challenges. I would like to understand, in your case, what are the major issues, what are the challenges that you have both internally, within the association, and also, secondly, externally within the association. If we start first within the association, what are you up against? What are really the main issues you encounter, work on or need to work on regularly? Who wants to start? Magali.

Magali Garnero: Within the association, I would like to see a greater balance between men and women. We are at 8% of female members, so necessarily 92% of members who say they are men. I would like the difference to be smaller, but I try not to complain because at the time we were at 6% women, we have gone up to 8% since I am president, I tell myself that we are going in the right direction.
I would also like there to be more accessibility, for all free software to be really accessible, for the meetings we organize to be all in places where everyone can come.
So more women, more accessibility, I know there was a third but right now, it doesn’t come back to me, I’m going to let my colleagues speak.

Laurent Costy: There is also the generational question. April is aging with its members of the board of directors, it’s also a challenge for April, that’s clear. For the moment, we haven’t necessarily found a way to work yet, but that’s part of the board’s challenges.
The board of directors also has a lot of questions. Free software has been around for 40 years and, over the past 40 years, a lot has evolved and we need to be able to put free software back into these contexts that have evolved. The idea is not to change the definition of free software, we could be tempted to do so, it would be a little too easy, it’s a bit like changing the statutes of an association when it suits you, that’s not how to proceed. On the other hand, we have to be aware of the issues, of the things that are happening around us. We have already had discussions within the Board of Directors on reciprocal licenses, for example, which cannot be considered as free licenses, but which, from a certain point of view, are experiments, innovations, communities in Scop [Cooperative and Participatory Society], in SCIC [Cooperative Society of Collective Interest], which experiment with this kind of thing. April must support these initiatives while telling them “these are not free software, but your initiative is interesting because you continue to dig into this question, so you are complementarily situating yourself next to it, how…” We have already seen, in free software communities, some people who, somewhere, condemn by saying “this is not Free Software”; From then on, it completely condemns work, reflection.
I think we have to be more careful about that, we have to know how to listen, watch, and then try to see how we can complement that. It’s more a question of posture. Once again, it is not a question of necessarily changing the four freedoms of software, in any case of complementarity, of integrating free software into its time and not staying on the free software of 1985 where there was no free Google that arrived in the 2010s. A lot of things have changed, so we have to integrate it into our time. This is a reflection that the board of directors must carry out, that the board of directors conducts. Between us we have a code called the “Ririboute”, because there has already been a “ririboute”, we are rather in phase 2 of the ririboute.

Walid Nouh: This is one of the problems that I encountered quite quickly when I launched the podcast, since it leads me to follow people, some of whom are rather saying “all this is not free software, there’s no point in talking about it” and me, on the side, who is also interested in these subjects by asking myself “why do these people make these choices” knowing full well that it’s not free software, These are not licenses that are considered free, yet they make this choice. We can’t just say “these people are making a choice, it’s not software, there’s no point in talking about it!”
On the other hand, I would like to come back to the generational part. Are you able to attract young people? And if so, why do these young people come?

Magali Garnero: Defined as “youth.” For me, young people, it’s all people younger than me, so there are a lot of them. What do you call young?

Walid Nouh: For example, students or people who have graduated from computer science schools because there is a real subject of free software training within computer science schools. I remember when I got out of school, I fell into free software pretty quickly, but at the time, there were no apps, the environment was much easier, there was no SaaS [Software as a Service], there was no temptation to say “I’m going to make an app, I’m going to put it on a store, I’m going to make money,” it was much easier than the current environment. If I take the example of students, which is a real issue since they are the future.

Laurent Costy: I have two points to provide some answers to your question.
First of all, the question of generations in associations is an issue that can be found throughout all associations in the end. Often the boards of directors age with the members who initiated the project and it is very complicated to mix generationally a governing body of an associative structure, or it is the new team that manages to kick out the old one, but the mix is still complicated. Associative sociologists would be able to show that it is difficult to really find a mix.
With regard to the question of students, I can take the testimony concerning the I2L master’s degree in Calais, which invites students to pursue free software engineering. I think it’s a master’s degree that is now more than fifteen years old, the teacher, [Éric Ramat], has been following this master’s degree since the beginning. He sees a change in students’ attitudes. Before, it was continuing education, people really came to do the master’s degree. Now it’s systematically mostly work-study programs, so it changes the game a bit. Somewhat ironically, he told me “at the beginning, the teachers who intervened were afraid of the students because they were even more free software than the teachers”, that is to say that the students corrected the teachers on the four freedoms, on a definition that would have been badly adjusted.
Having intervened in the last two years on this master’s degree, the students we see are very far from the question of free software. They don’t come by choice, it’s more for questions of proximity, career issues. There is indeed a discrepancy, at least on this master, I don’t want to generalize.
Even for April, while one might have thought that it was easy to “recruit”, in quotation marks, an administrator in these places, it remains very complicated because they don’t have the free software culture, over two years I repeat.

Étienne Gonnu: I like to say that everything is linked, I am convinced that everything is linked. As a result, there is the problem of bringing in young people, which we are asking ourselves for, for which we do not have a turnkey solution, the question of parity is also part of it, there are many common fields, common issues in relation to that and I think that it also goes with the evolution of political contexts, social evolution. I think we also have to manage to follow this and we will succeed, especially to include the youngest, by not turning our backs on developments and expectations.
Booky was talking about what she has done very concretely to defend better parity within April. You said 8%, I think that if we only look at active members the percentage must be better, certainly not 50, at least better. It only works if we implement concrete things.
For Libre à vous!, for example, we fight, we insist with the guests, we try to have a parity line-up, we avoid as much as possible to have only male sets. We used to do the “April Apéros”, we call it “April Meetings”, for lack of a better name, so as not to highlight the alcohol side that can put women off.
Having this very concrete vigilance inscribes April, shows that April has this vigilance and it also echoes a little what Laurent said about associations. If we take the time to see, they have their social purpose, it’s not necessarily the Free Software, but, in fact, there is a link. In the same way that April defends free software, if we take two seconds, we realize that our object, beyond free software, the four freedoms from a legal point of view, we defend an IT that is at the service of human emancipation, to put it very quickly, and it also involves integrating this vigilance on parity into our operations and into what we implement, How to integrate youth, accessibility, different things. So, I think it brings coherence, which is what I also like about April, this overall coherence in relation to its purpose. We really try to be an emancipation association.

Walid Nouh: To finish on this subject, a remark. I often have conversations with one of my nephews who is 18 years old, who is about to go to computer school, who has sometimes listened or tried to listen to some of my episodes and who tells me: “Uncle, your format is not made for us, first of all it’s audio, you don’t make videos, you should intersperse images.” Brief! So there is a real question “who are my podcasts for?”. Clearly not for 18-year-olds, whereas I would like it to be used as a course material or something else, but, and this is the reality, I think that the format is not made for that. Other people do it very well. In computer science, for example, I’m thinking of Micode, a youtuber who does really good things in terms of format, accessible precisely for people who are younger. More generally, another one who does things that I find quite good in terms of format is HugoDécrypte. They make formats that speak to young people and not just young people, I sometimes listen to them to get information.
So there is a subject: who do we want to talk to? And the way we do it, at least my format doesn’t attract young people, that’s clear. It’s an hour, an hour and a half format, it’s just audio with a transcript, it’s not on YouTube, there’s no short video. It’s clear that it’s not that. There is certainly work to be done on the way we communicate, which is good for our generations, but for young people, is it suitable? I ask myself questions.

Laurent Costy: We hear the recommendation, for the Board, to perhaps contact youtubers to be invited! After all!

Walid Nouh: I’m not saying that. I ask myself certain questions, make certain formats in a different way or take certain episodes and rework them on a different format so that they speak more to people. People tend to go to other platforms, they go to see live events, they go to see other things than the formats we do.

Étienne Gonnu: I think these are questions that we are also asking ourselves, without having yet found the magic solution, but we are also doing what we can in relation to our abilities. That’s kind of the reason why we started Libre à vous!, it was to reach other audiences, it’s not just a question of young people or not young people. It’s also a show on the FM band, it’s not just a podcast, it potentially allows us to reach people who are far from our inner circles and I think it’s very complicated.

Magali Garnero: After that, the young people are not necessarily at April. I think that to come and invest in April, you need this desire to change things, in the sense that doing political advocacy is scary, giving conferences is scary. You have to have a lot of self-confidence to invest time in April, something that young students don’t necessarily have.
When I talk to my apprentice who is 21 years old, she will invest herself in the sense that she will use a lot of free software instead of proprietary software, she will say “oh that’s so cool”, she will talk to her friends about it, she will make propaganda, as she says, while I prefer to say the word advocacy, but it does not feel at all legitimate to go and act at the level of politicians; Go give conferences and give your opinion, the same. She is not legitimate, she prefers that experienced and expert people do it. When she has requests from her friends, she comes to make eyes at me and I try to explain in simple words.
It’s true that April was founded by students. After that, I’m not sure that it was April’s target over the years.

Walid Nouh: Étienne and then we finish.

Étienne Gonnu: Even if we would like students to mobilize more politically, I think that those who do do so do so on other more worrying subjects directly: class struggle, ecological struggle, feminist struggle and with other modes of action. Perhaps we have modes of action, in quotation marks, “ageing”, but I think that they continue to be relevant because they continue to produce effects. These are not modes of action that correspond to desires, it seems to me, I haven’t been a student for a few years now. I think that there may also be the limit, these are not the same subjects, it is not necessarily, in terms of mode of action, what young people want.
Afterwards, if all the students were mobilized on other subjects and not at all on free software, if they are all mobilized on the issues of ecological struggle, etc., I would be delighted.

Laurent Costy: It’s also a journey, that is to say that we build ourselves. Projecting a student, in the middle of construction, into a board of directors that takes care of the budget, that takes care of the management of the premises! You need to consolidate your skills and knowledge a little to understand how to build a budget, etc. So there is also a whole journey, there is a gap in the journey, in the end. It’s just that they’re not ready yet.
I also make the distinction, and here I compare it with the Maisons des jeunes de la culture, we identify two phases: there is the phase of creation of the project and, for young people, the creation of a project is great. There is the next phase: once the project is installed, we move into a management phase and it’s often a little more annoying, let’s be clear, I’m saying a bad word.
All these factors mean that at some point it is not easy to achieve a generational mix.

April’s external challenges

Walid Nouh: We’re coming to the end of the show, we’re going to talk about external challenges before we leave. What are the challenges with regard to the environment outside April?

Étienne Gonnu: I didn’t think about it before. Perhaps a challenge in which April wants to try to be part of it, it is already doing so without it being its target, and that is the ecological question. We tried to produce a position to remind people to link the fact that free software pursues an issue of emancipation, that there is no emancipation in a planet that is dying, in an environment that is no longer habitable.
Defending free software is part of more global challenges.
And then, we’ve already spoken, it’s the challenge of having the means to do our work, especially the financial means. As with many associations, I think that this is a bit at the heart of the challenges.

Walid Nouh: Anyone want to add something?

Laurent Costy: And then, finally, there is the democratic question. We are reaching a period where companies have more power than some countries, this is one of the difficulties and our challenge is there. We are forced to ally ourselves with people who defend democracy in order to be able to put power back where it belongs, because it has slipped to a level that we have never seen!
We’re coming back to Microsoft because it’s true that it’s one of April’s first fights. It’s a company that manages to sell things to people – the Windows license when they buy a computer – without people knowing how much it costs, without even knowing that they’re buying it. What other company in the world has managed to do this and on scales, in terms of numbers, that are just colossal! It allows them to establish money, and therefore a colossal power with the European Commission, etc.
For me, indirectly, the challenge is also there. We must join forces to defend these issues.

Walid Nouh: Magali.

Magali Garnero: For me, the external challenge is to make elected officials and decision-makers understand the priority of free software. Let’s regain our independence, let’s rebuild locality, let’s make our companies work, let’s stop wasting hardware that still works under the pretext that it is no longer compatible with ONE software or distribution of ONE American company.

The last word from the guests

Walid Nouh: It’s time to make the conclusion. I’m going to give the floor to everyone so that you can give a final word, if you want to pass on an idea, a desire, a message before we leave. Magali, honor to you.

Magali Garnero: I would have liked to know what my friends were going to say.

Étienne Gonnu: I can begin. Magali will be able to make a great conclusion as president.

Laurent Costy: We will leave the last word to the president.

Étienne Gonnu: I had in mind to say something that I like to say, especially when I give a conference, which was mentioned at the beginning: it’s not a problem of a computer scientist, almost the contrary. Basically, computer science is ubiquitous, I don’t need to convince anyone of that now, so our interactions with the administration, our interactions with others, in fact our lives depend largely on computer tools. So the question: who masters these tools?
Free software is first and foremost a question of mastery, of being able to interact with machines, of making decisions, but not everyone has this ability. If we take a step back and look at a broader field, there is the question of control and who decides how these tools work, so the issue of transparency. Here, Microsoft decides how a whole section of computing works, except that it happens in an opaque way, we don’t know how they code.
To illustrate my point, because I am not taking the fastest path, I draw a parallel with the functioning of a democracy, the laws: there are a certain number of procedures that ensure that they are voted on in transparency. For there to be a democracy, we must know how laws are passed, that we can access them, except that it requires a certain amount of training, which not everyone has, in order to be able to understand how the procedures work, know how to read a law; The laws are written in French but it’s complicated to read anyway and it’s complicated to write them to propose things. For it to be a democracy, we don’t need everyone to know how to write and read laws and understand that right away. The important thing is that it is transparent and that anyone who wants to read, train to understand and be able to contribute, is able to do so.
I don’t really know how to read code, but the fact that I know, as with the laws, that other people, that anyone can do it, is what gives me the conditions of the confidence necessary to be able to act.
Free software is not so much for computer scientists, I think it’s mainly for people who don’t have these skills, it protects them from a possible stranglehold of experts and we don’t want a regime of experts, we want democracy. Free software is above all for people who don’t have the expertise to defend their freedoms.

Walid Nouh: Laurent.

Laurent Costy: I will come back to what I said earlier because I think it is extremely important to take the time to explain what is at stake. Once again, this will be a key to being able to move forward and perhaps, somewhat concomitantly, it is to involve third parties. I’ve seen a lot of people, within structures, who keep saying “we have to change software, we have to move towards free software, etc.”, but by dint of time they are no longer heard; they are in the structure and they are no longer heard. The day we bring in someone from the outside, who says exactly the same thing, people open their eyes wide and say “in fact, he kept telling us” and it completely changes the situation. That’s really where we have to play with alliances between all the structures of the free software ecosystem to be able to intervene, to exchange, to provide each other with services in order to be able to open up this capacity, because, frankly, I think it’s a game changer.

Walid Nouh: Magali.

Magali Garnero: We always talk about the four freedoms of free software and so on, but I always have the impression, with free software, that I am freeing myself because it allows me to do what I want with my computer. I would tend to say, to all of you who are listening to us, free yourselves and help us to free others.

Walid Nouh: A beautiful conclusion. I don’t have much to add except that I hope you enjoyed it. I would like to thank my three guests plus Fred who is in charge of the management room.

Étienne Gonnu: Thank you for inviting us.

Magali Garnero: Thank you for having us here.

Walid Nouh: With great pleasure. I try, with the podcast, to describe a little bit of our ecosystem and to see a little bit how everyone interacts with each other. It was really perfect today, we approached it well.
To the listeners, if you liked it, the easiest way is to share these episodes. You can also comment on them, you can go to Mastodon, on the website projets-libres.org in the “Follow us” page. You will have all the links to follow us on the different networks and on the different Mastodon accounts of the show, the podcast and the blog.
Feel free to share and comment. Do not hesitate to join April. Don’t hesitate to talk about all these issues.
We’ll see you in a little while for a third episode with other members of April, on other related topics that we talked about a little bit today.
Thank you all and see you soon.

Laurent Costy: Thank you Walid.

Magali Garnero: Thank you.

Episode production

• Recording in the Radio Cause Commune studio on August 25, 2025
• Basis: Walid Nouh
• Editing: Walid Nouh
• Transcription: Marie-Odile Morandi (April Transcriptions group). Also available on Libreàlire

This article 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