[No-code and Free Software] Silex, creating static and eco-designed sites since 2002

Interview with Alex Hoyau, founder of Silex

Walid: welcome to all, new episode of Projets Libres!. We’re going to talk about No-code again. And today, with my two guests, we’re going to pick up the thread of a discussion we started in episode 2 of season 14, where we were talking about No-code and free software, we were talking about a tool called Silex, about which we said we didn’t know much. Well, that’s good today, because to talk about it, I have Alex Hoyau, who is the founder of Silex. And to continue the discussion, I also have Alexis Kovalenko, whom I will let run again afterwards. So the three of us are part of the French-speaking No-code community. That’s it, and so it’s going to be nice, we’re going to talk about Silex and we’re going to try to find out a lot more about this tool, which is a tool that has been around for a very long time. Well, Alexis and Alex, I can’t make a mistake, I hope you’re doing well and welcome to Projets Libres!.

Alex: Hi Projets Libres!

Alexis: Thank you.

Presentation of the guests

Walid: Cool. To start with, Alexis, would you like to quickly represent yourself for the listeners who didn’t listen to the episode on No-code and free software?

Alexis: Thank you very much Walid, again for the invitation, and I can’t wait to learn more about Silex and the story. My name is Alexis, I’m one of the co-founders of a company called Contournement, we do training in No-code tools, more ops tools than website tools, etc. I also co-founded the No-Code France community. Today I’m a little more specifically interested in AI tools, code generation, so another part of No-code a little more advanced around code, let’s say in a way, but code that is not written by humans, but rather by machines, to help No-coders to push the limits of No-code tools a little bit. And I’m also here a little bit as a columnist and archivist, let’s say, of the No-code movement. So I’m very happy to discover this part, because it’s true that I’ve had a while on my radar and I’d like to know the story behind it.

Walid: I’d like to know the story behind it. We’ve been talking about Silex for a long time. Alex, I don’t remember the first time I contacted you, but it’s been a while. I suggest that you start by introducing yourself, please.

Alex: With pleasure. I, Alex Hoyau, co-founded the eco-design studio Internet 2000. And Silex too, a long time ago, well before Internet 2000. And so what we are currently doing is using Silex to make sites for clients. So we take people in professional retraining and we train them, or web designers rather than web designers, and we train them in a No-code tool which is Silex, and then in another No-code tool, a CMS, for example WordPress or Strapi. And then we make sites with it for customers, and eco-designed sites. So, that’s the right thing.

Walid: Overall, what profile do you have, what background do you have and how did you discover free software?

Alex: So, I’m a computer engineer. I’ve been a developer since even before I was a computer engineer, of course. But I discovered free software by chance. In fact, I’ve always liked, obviously, SourceForge, open source projects, etc. But I really discovered free software with Silex, in fact. This is the story of Silex. In 2002-2003, I was making video. I was all about detecting in video images, what was digital vision. I was looking for a job. I was also making filters that I was trying to highlight, video filters in video editing software that I was trying to contact agencies to see if there was a way to find work like that. And then, to put my videos online and show them to agencies, I had created a little flash program, because at the time, it was (Adobe) Flash for video on the Internet. This little flash program, it allowed me to put my videos online, in fact. And once, I gave a demo to a guy in an agency called Paul Goasdoué. And Paul, he told me, “yes, in your video, you can’t see anything, it’s small and everything”. So, I right-click, I log in to my flash thing, and then I enlarge the video in… A drag n drop, you see… I had made a little thing for myself, you know. And then, he stops me, he says to me “but what is this thing?”. And in fact, what he was really selling were sites where he wanted to put video and it was very complicated. He also made DVDs, stuff like that, CD-ROMs. No, what was it called? yes, DVD-ROMs or CD-ROMs.

Alexis: CD-ROM, first, yes.

Alex: CD-ROMs with an interface and everything. So, it was for big-budget movies and stuff and everything. And so, when he saw that, he said, “OK, well, there, me, your video filter, I don’t care. But on the other hand, let’s try to do something to make sites.” So, they were flash sites at the time. It wasn’t open source, nothing at all, because in fact, I had other things to do than wonder what it was. We were trying to sell sites made with this thing that was online and everything. Then finally, one thing leading to another, I find myself talking to a guy from Apple who sees the thing and tells me, “but now, you have to come to Cupertino, you’re going to present the thing to us, because for us, it makes sense, video, thingy”. We try, there was QuickTime trying to compete with Flash. I don’t really understand the why and the how. I get out of there, I say to my friend, so Pierre, I tell him, listen, Cupertino, it’s good, it must be in Italy. I didn’t know these people at all. I tell myself, I’m going to… I’m going to see my grandmother in the south on the way, that’s fine, I’ll take the train and everything. He told me, “No, but you’re crazy, right now, you’re going to the United States. Now, next week, you’ve gone to the United States, you’ve gone to the US, in fact.” Oh yes, okay. And so, I found myself with Cupertino doing… So, Apple’s headquarters, to make demos to the developer QuickTime. And then, finally, it goes up the person responsible for I don’t know what.

I find myself with the top maybe 3 or 4 of Apple doing demos of my thing.

And then, in the end, I find myself with the top maybe 3 or 4 of Apple doing demos of my thing, without knowing why they were interested in this thing. After a while, it becomes more financial, legal and everything, and they ask me: “well, did you patent your thing?”. “Well no, patent, me, it costs money, no, I don’t have any money, we make sites”, “in fact you only have copyright?”. I said, “well no, copyright, I don’t know, what copyright is actually, I don’t know”. And then, he said to me, “well, so what’s your business model?”. And I told him: “We sell sites with this thing. I don’t know. You ask me things.” He said to me: “But how do you want us to invest money in a thing? You don’t have a copyright. It’s already online. You don’t have a certificate. You have nothing. See?” I said to him: “But you want to put money into this thing that we have built? Oh yes, okay.”

So, I went back to France. I said, “Look, I didn’t understand anything they told me. All I know is that we have to find a license or something a little more square because we were all participating in this tool, in fact.” We were all freelancers. And either there were some who made sites with it, there were some who did docs, there were developers. I remember Ariel, who was developing stuff with me. There was Pascal, who did design. Well, there were a good dozen or fifteen of us. And then, we put the thing in… We got together as we used to make a lot of money with these Flash sites, in fact, and with this tool that we had all developed together. We put some of the money into having premises and then making it open source. We put out a classified ad, and then there are German developers who came. There was really something going on. And we were voted project of the month on SourceForge. So, SourceForge is a bit dead now, but back then, it was really the thing. As a result, we had millions of downloads. Anyway, it’s off to open source, really. And there, there were obviously stories of, do we raise funds? Do we do all that? I wasn’t warm, we all had our activities. So in the end, what we did was we set up an association and it became free software, in fact. And then, I started to discover, to ask myself the question, but you see, what is our thing actually?

The Silex License

Walid: Wait, we have to leave a little earlier. You come back from the United States and then you say, “OK, we have to do something with it, we have to choose a license”. Yes. And then, at that moment, your thoughts are right away, how do you come across a bit of free licenses? Which license do you choose? What do you do at that time?

Alexis: Walid’s favorite subject. You wanted to pass too quickly on Walid’s favorite subject.

Walid: I don’t get it on licenses, friends.

Alex: Frankly, there were no specialists in it. At the time, my software… my examples of good software, you had VLC, you already had a guy I liked who did Piwik, who became Matomo.

Walid: Yes, absolutely. Mathieu Aubry not too long ago on the podcast (Editor’s note: this episode on Matomo).

Alex: Well yes, I know, yes. And by the way, at the time, we were elected project of the month and so we proposed Piwik, which also became project of the month after us. Well, well, so, we did a bit like everyone else. But my goal was above all that this confusion of … But you see, we can steal it from you. We don’t want to put money into it. But anyway, I don’t want them to put money into it. Well, well. Afterwards, I wouldn’t have said no to Apple’s money at the time. Really, it wasn’t my thing. I didn’t know anything about startups and all that. Afterwards, I worked a lot with startups, but at the time, I didn’t understand.

Alexis: If you chose an open source license, you didn’t tell us which license, but anyway, Apple wasn’t going to give you any money, no, I guess. Well, it’s not a mic, but I imagine that in relation to the questions they were asking, the fact of protecting, etc., their idea wasn’t necessarily that you were going towards open source, right?

Alex: Oh yes, no, for them, it wasn’t even an option, yes. But they were actually embarrassed by the fact that other people were using it, because I had put it online like that, and then that’s it. And that really made them bug. And so, as a result, I too said to myself, but then, it turns out, we have to frame this, what are we? And then, I had inquired, then there was a pull that was being done on the thing, you know. And so, we chose the GPL, obviously, because it’s the coolest. And today, I passed everything a while ago, because we did everything. starting all over again three times, it’s the V3 of Silex, each time we start from scratch. When Flash died, for example. Which is actually a very good thing for me, because I really like JavaScript, which it has become, but at the time, it was still a big thing, so we started everything from scratch, and then I switched it to AGPL. Since it’s online, it’s in SaaS mode, it makes sense.

Walid: We talked a little about the presentation of what the tool does. The goal of the tool is to make sites, in fact, at the base, historically.

Alex: Exactly.

What is Silex used for and who uses it?

Walid: Is that still the case? Can we explain to listeners a little bit the extent of what Silex is doing now? And what type of people will use, what type of company or associations, collectives will Silex use?

Alex: Yes, with pleasure. In fact, there were several phases. There was this phase where we created sites, so we trained people. It was out of the question to go and take engineers. First of all, it wasn’t really our thing, even though I’m an engineer, but what interested us was to be with our friends who are designers or not. At the time, we were working with a person who was a seamstress, she was a sewing, but she was a geek like us, so in the end, she had to start making websites. It was born from there and we were all freelancers, a little freestyle, all a little crazy. That’s it, and we set up an association at the same time to take care of, to have the copyright, everything we didn’t have before. So we squared everything together. And then, after a while, our business worked well. We made big sites for, for example, Vodafone, for, I don’t remember, there was France Télévisions, big things. And we made a lot of money and everything. But after a while, everyone moved on to something else. I got hired by a big company. Everyone did their thing. And Silex stayed there. We continued. So, some were less invested, all that. But it has really become the association’s thing. And the association became, so Silex Labs, became an association that helped people from sensitive neighborhoods understand what web design is, what digital jobs are. And then, finally, maybe to find a job other than forklift driver or handler. And then, it became another dimension. So Silex is also really good for that, for learning, for training in web design. And to understand what a website is? Why is it complicated to make a website? And what does that entail as a job?

So that was the big change, but one that remains in Silex’s DNA. And then after a while, after about ten years that it worked like this, we helped a lot of people to have nicer jobs with a perspective. And then in digital, it’s still cool not to blow your back doing stuff. Well, even if we still end up blowing our backs… and so there you have it and after a while I set up a company called Internet 2000 and then we asked ourselves we wanted to make eco-designed sites because it was a bit obvious for us. And then we tested everything, we finally said to ourselves, why not go for the owner, we don’t have the means, we’re a small agency, we’re starting out, it’s our own funds, we don’t want to, that’s it, we’re really independent, it’s maybe more reasonable to do like everyone else, to go either to WordPress , to SaaS, to, I don’t know, to Webflow , And we tested. And in fact, already, at the eco-design level, the sites are heavy, they are completely blocked.

What is eco-design of websites?

Walid: Can you remind us what eco-design is, please, for people who don’t know?

Alex: Absolutely. In fact, the Internet and the fact that we have a lot of apps and websites that we use all the time for more and more things, it has an increasingly great ecological impact. It is not yet huge, but it is seriously growing. And we can very well do something about it. There are plenty of solutions. For example, a solution can be not to put an HD video on the home page of your site in autoplay (editor’s note: automatic play) and that no one wants to see. People will just scroll, they won’t even see it even though it consumes a lot of bandwidth. There is the part of what you charge that consumes energy. There’s the part of what you display. A site with a lot of divs inside each other, with a hyper complicated DOM unnecessarily, will consume more than a very simple and clean site. That’s it, and there’s what’s happening on the server, for the moment we still have a lot of trouble measuring, but for example WordPress is a disaster in terms of server consumption. Webflow is a disaster in terms of consumption on the customer, how much he charges. He charges jQuery, he goes frankly. He loads a lot of stuff. And then, he displays… There you go, the code is disgusting on the client side. So, that’s what eco-design is all about. It’s doing something clean, simple, the most, in fact, like everything eco, as sober as possible.

Alexis: Maybe we can come back to that. Maybe it would be interesting if you could give advice to the people who make sites and everything, because you mentioned some of the problems. There is also the functional part. I like it, there’s a word that, I don’t know if you know, there’s a former trainer at Simplon, called Laurent Devernay, who is also on eco-design issues, and he talked to me about functional sobriety. And I found it very interesting, that is to say, there is the technical part of the things you mentioned, then there is also even just asking the question that, in your application, do you need this or that feature? Because in fact, if you remove them, not necessarily, you take away resource consumption in one way or another, whether it’s processing, server, client, whatever, but… ask yourself the right questions. I like sobriety in general, but also in projects.

Alex: In everything we do, it should be obvious to everyone. It’s still more and more so, but with developers, it’s not really like that. After that, it may be another sobriety. Maybe it’s the sobriety of not having to worry about an algorithm when you just need to add a second CPU to your server. In fact, he’s my partner. who is Moly Richez who is also my cousin we set up this company, it has been formed, it is fully committed to everything that is, in all eco-design technically but also in sobriety. They also often talk about obsolescence, so they have a lot of terms like that that are very interesting but I really specialize in optimization and having a very clean site on the client side, which doesn’t load much. And on the server side, nothing at all. That is to say, there is no PHP. I don’t want PHP, I don’t want a database, I don’t want anything on the server side. These are static sites. So obviously, at the beginning, Webflow, it wasn’t possible. Neither does WordPress. So, we said to ourselves that we are going to develop everything, we are going to start coding, we are going to be much more technical, etc. But it wasn’t satisfactory. It was too expensive, actually, and it wasn’t sustainable. And so, obviously, after a while, we said, well, there’s Silex. So, we took up the version that was in progress in the association and that worked. There you go, I developed a small plugin or two to make sure that we could have actually plugged a CMS into it. Because we, our customers, still need an interface. They’re not going to start writing that in text files. So, there you have it, we have connected a CMS to Silex. And then finally, it started to work well. And then in fact, Silex was no longer suitable because it was still a version that was more than 10 years old. So now, the browsers were all compatible with CSS, etc. So in the end, we went back to a V3 and we financed everything ourselves.

That is to say, my time, basically, is a third or half of my time spent on Silex and the rest on customers or on the stuff in the company. But even so, we realized that it has become a prototype, this company, to prove that in the end, free software is profitable in real life. It’s not just something that’s cool or that’s great for users, because free software, first and foremost, is great for users. But in fact, it’s also good for us who do business with it. Since the software is very adapted to what we do, we know it really well, it’s really modular. With Silex, you can publish to FTP, you can go to Git, you can do really anything you want. And in the end, it gives us sites that make us feel like a good idea. We are satisfied. We can train people, so there’s also a bit of a social side, but a little bit that brings people in, we work with Jonah who is a former teacher, he reformed he did a 6-month training and then after he trained with Silex and now he even does code, he is getting into Javascript so it’s a bit of a springboard this thing too and that’s really cool, the company we do there, We really want it to be positive, to be a real positive thing in all areas.

Walid: Before coming back a little later on the structure you have put in place. So right now, what is the goal of Silex? Is it always to make static sites?

Alex : yes.

Walid : What have you been doing with Silex at the moment since you wrote it for the third time?

Alex: So, we still do the same thing, but faster and in a more modern way. The graphical interface, in fact, quite simply. But we do exactly the same thing. That is to say, we make static sites with dynamic data and that, in the browser, visually. And there’s also the side, we train people in web design because everything you learn in Silex, if you start coding afterwards, it’s the same concepts, it’s the same names, you know, it’s very close to the standards in fact. Why reinvent standards? We don’t need to lock people down, to block them in our thing, so if they want to get into coding afterwards, that’s fine.

Silex and web standards

Alexis: I went to see Silex earlier. I admit, in fact, I remembered, I was quite surprised because I had looked a long time ago and as you said, I didn’t hallucinate. Because in fact, when I was already working at Simplon, we were running a small web agency, we had seen Silex. So we were already in the years 2015, something like that. But it’s true that it was very different. And what I found interesting in what I saw is that indeed… Okay, sorry for the comparison, but hey, it looks a bit like Webflow. And what I like, and what is also one of the limitations, is that it’s… It really respects, as you say, the standards of the web, etc. That is, if I drag and drop an element, it’s not going to stay where I put it. Because that’s not how the web works. That is to say, if I put a div, the text, it will come to the top, on the left. It’s normal, it’s the normal behavior of the box-model. And so, it’s interesting that you specify that indeed, that also comes with training, in a way. At least, in what you do. Because that’s what I tell all the time to people who hear all the time in the No-code community, Webflow, etc. In fact, Webflow, if you don’t know HTML/CSS, you can’t really use it. And that’s not a problem. I think it’s good that people learn these things. But otherwise, you have to use Wix and company, these kinds of other No-code tools that have a lot of drawbacks. This is to also place a little on the level of accessibility, etc. But I think that we have to respect the way the web works.

Alex: yes, I totally agree. So, it has a lot of disadvantages too, but it’s true. In fact, the comparison with Webflow, I love it, because for me, Webflow, it’s a tool that’s great. But there are still layers of abstraction, kind of components, you don’t really know what they are. There, in Silex, you want to make a navbar, go ahead, you put down divs, you put your links, your stuff. You do everything really as if you were doing it in code, but visually.

Walid: There, you mentioned the fact that you have created an association. At the time, when you created the association, did it seem to you to be the best form or did you hesitate with other forms?

The Silex labs association

Alex: Since we all had our business models, even if we may not have put the names really like that, but we were all independent. I remember, there was one of the people who sold copywriting. She wrote stuff and she helped us with the documentation. It seemed obvious that you couldn’t set up a company, that a person didn’t want to do it too much. Already, we would have struggled to define what it was and it wasn’t logical. The association was really the right thing to be able to… In fact, the goal, what is written in the statutes, is that it promotes free software and it holds the rights to Silex and free software.

Walid: Is the Silex brand owned by the association?

Alex: That’s it, copyright, I think, because we don’t really have a brand. After that, we didn’t go too far either, but we set up this association. And that’s it, and it actually became, after a while, we were promoting other free software, like Haxe for example, the programming language. We were actually hosting, we were actually promoting Haxe. And then other stuff, there was other free software in other eras.

But in fact, quickly, after a while, it really became inclusion.

But in fact, quickly, after a while, it really became inclusion. We’ve been to Trappes, we’ve been to Argenteuil a lot, we’ve been everywhere in the suburbs. And in fact, we had budgets, we had three employees at one point on Silex Labs. And we did several workshops, like I think one workshop a week that we went to. So, it was a lot of work. The volunteers were very much in demand, but there were a lot of volunteers and we went to the suburbs. So, suddenly, it was developers who went to the suburbs to show a little bit what web design is and all that. And it’s true that it was funny because the engineers, they weren’t always comfortable.

Alexis: But it’s also good for diversity, precisely, to bring developers and people who are less used to the suburbs. It can be part of the project, in a way, in the other direction.

Alex: It was awesome, yes. In fact, we were at Simplon a lot at one time too. We were in Montreuil. We had our premises in Montreuil, so the association. We were in front of Simplon’s.

Alexis: I was obviously thinking about the activity, but we didn’t cross paths at the time. But maybe it was at the beginning.

Alex: No, but afterwards, we animated things, but at one point, at Simplon’s. Indeed, we didn’t cross paths. But it’s the same… Yes, I think that you and I have the same mission, maybe a little, in life, to open doors, in fact, a little bit, quite simply.

You can make money with free software

Walid: You said, “the model we have, it allows us to show that we can make money with free software”. It’s very interesting, because not too long ago, I watched a conference by the founder of Nextcloud at Fosdem (in 2018), where he explained the whole history of Nextcloud with the ownCloud fork and everything, and how, in fact, he manages to do business with a model that is not an open-core model (Editor’s note: see the episode on the economic models of free software), with a model where the code is free, 100% of the code is free, you know. And I found it very interesting, so I’d like you to elaborate a little on that, because, precisely, in fact, currently, for a lot of people… The way forward is open-core. For people who don’t see the open-core, it’s: the heart of the application, the heart of the software, it’s free, under a free license. And then, next to it, there is a version that is proprietary, with parts of the code that are proprietary and that in general, you can have through a subscription. So, in the end, we end up using proprietary software and the companies that do this are always torn, between on the one hand, there have to be things in the heart of the application so that people can… use what but on the other hand the important features should not be put in the open source part and people have to take licenses. And so could you just detail a little bit on what you were saying earlier about saying you can make money with free software and make a living from it.

Alex: yes and it’s even, I’ve always been convinced of it, but I think it’s even the best way, which is to say that it’s the most logical in reality. Look, our business model is to sell websites that are eco-designed, there is a whole thing that is a little social, a little eco and all that. But we sell websites, that’s our business. Besides that, we could use paid tools that would not necessarily be completely adapted to what we do. We would put money in it and the money, it would go into 80% marketing and 20% into it, there is a little HR (Editor’s note: human resources) and then there are a few developers. And above all, we would not control the money we put into a subscription. You can’t say, I want this money to go into fixing this or that bug that makes my life impossible. I want it to go into such and such a feature. And I don’t want you to go and develop a new market on something that doesn’t interest me and in which you’re going to put all my money. Obviously, free software means several companies or freelancers or even individuals who have a common need and who will invest their money to do exactly what they need. So, it’s the users who develop. It seems obvious.

Alexis: Just to clarify the model, can we say that you sell services, so you make a website, an agency, you sell services using Silex. But Silex never makes you money directly since it’s free, it’s usable, anyone can download it, etc. from what I saw. So, you never sell the software, you don’t have a subscription, things like that. So, it’s really, you’re developing… In a way, the service part sponsors the development of the software, but as you use the software, it’s coherent, it makes a loop.

Alex: The only other solution I can see would have been for us to develop the software, leave it proprietary and only for us. First of all, it’s not very reassuring for our customers because we’re still a small company. But above all, what I hope is that there is a person who contributes a lot. And then there are others who contribute a little bit, not much. We don’t have enough contributions at the moment. But what I hope in the future is that there will be other companies like ours that may make eco-designed sites even, or sites otherwise, or even something else, but that will use, or independents who use. There are already independents who use Silex. So, if everyone starts to use this really professionally, we’re all going to have needs that become clearer, things more, maybe also needs that have fewer bugs, more square things, processes. That’s it, my hope is that there will be other people who take it up. I don’t care about having control over it, of course. What matters to me is that we are not the only ones to maintain this code, because for the moment, even so, it is still profitable, but it is much less profitable than if we were 10 companies and each one put in one developer day per month, for example. This is what happens, for example, with Blender in 3D. It’s great what’s going on for Blender.

Alexis: Are you ready? That’s a question. I’m really asking the question out of curiosity, but would you be ready if tomorrow, there were 10 or 15 people who wanted to contribute? When I say ready, it’s in the sense that there are questions of documentation, there are questions of animation, animating a free project, it’s also a whole subject. Is that… There you go.

Alex: Not really, but we’re much closer than 6 months ago. And I think we’ll be even more ready soon. Because every time there’s a new developer who comes in, obviously, every time, he falls into the hole. Now, you know we didn’t have… The thing where we put a little pile of leaves on top to make it up, in fact, it falls in. And so, each time, we fill in the holes, we modify. And there’s something that’s interesting too that I didn’t say, it’s that Silex makes static sites, but in reality, as in free software, we always try to make a little bit. The rest, we deal with other things. So there, in fact, what Silex does, in reality, you connect a CMS to it if you want. And he produces sites that are Eleventy sites. it’s Eleventy in real life that makes sure to build the site to build it so that it’s static at the end it’s a site generator.

Alexis : yes I don’t know Eleventy

Alex : yes it’s a great project. It’s a free project by a guy, Zach (Leatherman), who’s really cool, with whom we had a few discussions on social media to say, “Actually, we don’t want our projects to be dependent on investors or dependent on a company.” No, because it breaks everything, in fact. If I contribute to this project, I don’t want a company to make money on it, to exchange it. So, if he makes money with it, no problem, but if he makes money on my back, no, I don’t agree, that’s it. And so this project is free too, Eleventy, so the upstream projects (Editor’s note: see this episode for the definition) of Silex, it’s mainly Eleventy, there’s another thing called Greps.js so it’s a dev…

Walid: Eleventy, didn’t you explain what it was, what it actually does?

Alex: So it’s a Static Site Generator, so it takes HTML templates, so HTML files, it takes content that can come from a CMS, an API, files, whatever you want. And it turns it into an HTML, CSS site that you can put online anywhere, without a database, without anything. It’s called the Jamstack, actually. It’s in a family. But there are a lot of projects in this Jamstack that are half-free, that are open-core, or big companies where we have a hand on them. There you go. And on the other hand, I really pay attention to that. That is to say, Silex depends on projects that are free, that are independent, except for one thing. Apart from one project for the moment, but which we can release when we can, it’s GitLab. It is not entirely dependent on GitLab, but the online version that we give for free and which is hosted by the association by the way, so on v3.silex.me, on that point, it is GitLab that allows us to have, not to host. GitLab is in charge of hosting the sites, which is also in charge of having the files. As soon as we save, it will save on your GitLab account. So we, Silex, have nothing. It’s the user on his GitLab account who has everything. And besides, we see everything. You have all the versioning and everything. It’s quite great this side… in fact, Silex, it’s really at the intersection of a lot of super interesting stuff. So, the static web, the Jamstack, etc., the open source, the training, you know, the social side. Well, that’s it. I don’t know exactly what I was getting at, but…

Alexis: I was a little surprised, to tell the truth, it’s a little user feedback, I was a little surprised to be forced to connect via GitLab to Silex, when I wanted to test. Now, I understand better, but it’s true that it deserves to be explained a little bit.

Alex: yes, it’s true, it’s true. And also, at some point, I’d like to remove GitLab and replace it with Forgejo, for example, which is a real free forging tool, a bit like GitLab. The problem is that right now, on the V3, it must have been six months since it was really released or a little less than a year. And there are already 30,000 accounts that are created on it or 40,000 now, maybe. And so, if we brought all this back to a Forgejo, poor people, that everything is really maintained by volunteers, etc., who don’t always have the business model that goes behind it. I didn’t want to do that to them. It would have been a real blow. So, we have to wait until we can afford it ourselves… precisely, to have contributions. For example, a company that can host a Forgejo and suddenly, we will no longer need this free hosting that GitLab file. The problem with GitLab is very good GitLab. The problem is that it’s open-core. So, for us, what we do with it, we only use the open source part. At no time do we use stuff that requires a license. But still. To illustrate this, at Internet 2000, to make our sites, we don’t use the online version, the v3.silex.me. We use our version because we self-host it. We need to be sure that it never falls. When you update an update, it’s a whole process, etc. We still have full-time people working on it. If I ever blow it up, it’s problematic. And so, we host our GitLab, we host our Silex, we host a server that runs the Eleventy. And then, we host our WordPress or Strapi.

Walid: So, either you use the version hosted by you, or you install your own stack that includes all the software elements we just talked about. Yes. Is that right?

Alex: Yes. Everything is dockerized. If you want to host it, it’s not very complicated. For example, for CapRover, there is someone who did the integration. So, CapRover is a kind of Yunohost , a thing where you can install apps on your server. So you have all these things, all these bricks, they’re already there.

Alexis: I saw that you can download a local version, but just a desktop application. I guess that doesn’t include everything. That’s what the builder is like,

Alex: That’s right, so the Silex Desktop version, it’s still on V2, so the previous version.

Alexis: Ah, OK, okay.

Alex: but it works the same. But it does embark… In fact, it takes a bit of Node.js, so from the front and the back. It behaves like normal software. You install it and when you publish, it publishes in a folder. On the other hand, to do that, we also used something called Electron, I think, which allows you to make desktop apps, but which generates very heavy applications. So there, already, at the ecological level, it’s not good. Finally, there are plenty of things to change. So, we don’t recommend that version anymore. Once again, this is less than a year old, the V3. So, I hope that it will also take place in that direction. That is to say that there are people who will update the desktop part. Because it’s cool. When you’re local, you publish, it’s instantaneous. You can work when you’re on the train, even if you don’t have a connection. SaaS is good, but it’s a little slower. It’s a little more difficult, I think.

Alexis: It’s still the most accessible for most people. As you say, 30,000 people who are registered, it shows that there is an appetite. So that people don’t get scared, I say that because if there are people listening who say to themselves “I’d like to use Silex”, then we start talking about Docker and everything, it’s freaking out. No, frankly, it’s super easy to use your online version. Frankly, it took me three minutes to find myself in a… in a site that is being built.

Alex: Thank you for clarifying, it’s true. Yes, definitely. Just, you sign up, it’s like a normal online web design tool.

Silex’s governance

Walid: If we look at the governance at the moment, what I understand is that you have rewritten the tool and you are evolving it according to your own needs. And that potentially, you start to have external people come in and contribute. How do you make decisions? Or is it… If someone comes with a need, they code their thing, you integrate it. I’m a developer, for example, I arrive, I have a need. First of all, how do I contact you? And then, afterwards, behind, how do I discuss with you the right way to do it, etc.

Alex: That’s a very good question, especially since we have more sponsors. There are companies that sponsor Silex. And the money, so the answer to your question is the decisions, we don’t make them for the moment because I’m the only one who has the rights. I’m telling you, there’s another developer who may be a third-time or part-timer. And then, two other developers who contributed to V3. Unfortunately, for the moment, there are not enough people to make it interesting. Now, we discuss it on the forums. So, we have a chat and a forum. And that’s it, we discuss it and we integrate the requests. But the people who use Silex at the moment are mostly … Apart from the studio, it’s mostly freelancers. And as a result, their needs, they are actually very basic because right now, they are discovering V3.

Alexis: what is his profile? Are they devs or are they more no-coders?

Alex: It’s very weird. It’s more like… or it’s people who make a mistake and come thinking that it’s Wix and that they won’t have anything to learn and that they want to make their site because historically, it was a bit like that. There were a lot of DJs, we had a real community of people. There were associations, stuff like that, but they made a site. But today, Silex is not interesting to make a site, unless you already know HTML, CSS, but otherwise, you have to train. So, there’s a part, that’s it: they, after a while, in general, either make a really weird site, or they give up. And the other, those who take it well, so the freelancers we see there, are more technical designers. It’s funny, but it’s a bit like the old flashers. That is to say, it’s people, they liked to tinker with things, whether it still looks a little bit like they want, really, they don’t want to start from a template, or if they start from a template, they want to be able to demolish it completely. And there you have it, it’s this profile of people who are a bit tinkerers, a little, that’s it. And so, there are also people from free software, but in general, they’re super geeky, and often, it’s more my profile. So me, for example, I never use Silex, I don’t make a site, you know, I don’t really have a vocation to make sites, it doesn’t interest me too much, even if there are lots of interesting parts, but… Well, that’s not my thing. So the ones for whom it works well are technical designers, a bit like webmasters or almost web designers.

Walid: So right now, it’s only you who are developing it. There are potentially people who arrive who could have needs. So for the moment, you don’t have too many problems of collaboration, of setting rules, etc., of putting processes and everything. But potentially, it could happen if there are more people arriving.

Alex: yes, actually, it happens gradually. So there, already, we have a whole thing with the branches, how to merge, etc. Because for the few contributors, it had to be squared. So, we still have a trick, it’s the roadmap. There are people who make feature requests on the roadmap. So, we have roadmap.silex.me. And now, I keep it up to date. So-and-so is working on this. I’m working on that. So, that’s up to date. There is a way to vote for the elements. Then at some point, there is this sponsor’s money that will have to be distributed. So what I announced on the roadmap is that when we get to 10 votes for something, we’re going to put the sponsors’ money, we’re going to put it on a reward to the person who develops it.

Walid: Do the sponsors give you money to keep the project alive or do they give you money to develop things? From what we understand, it’s a fair way to bring the project to life.

Alex: So, there are, I don’t remember which box exactly, but I know there is a box, it was more for visibility on the site, I think. Well, I didn’t really understand. It’s a developers’ company. It’s BairseDev, I believe. It’s a kind of SS2I, in fact, an ESN. But… American. I don’t know exactly why they give, frankly. And the other box is Puter. It is a free and open source OS in the browser. And now, the guy from the project, he likes Silex. We interacted. He didn’t expect anything in particular. But what I did is that I developed anyway… In fact, it’s super simple but I put a Silex in Puter. Now, Silex is the official website editor of Puter l’OS and it goes very well.

Walid : How do they give money, by what means?

Alex : On Open… uh

Walid : Open Collective ?

Alex : How did you say open collective?

Walid : yes Open Collective?

Alex : yes, that’s right. yes you see how I’m not at all… There are even people who have given a little money so it’s good, it’s cool. Now I don’t feel like saying: ok we’re going to put it on there where… You see. So I don’t know how much there should be, there’s less than 10,000 euros, there must be 5,000 euros or something like that. And so at some point, when it takes off, when there are people, I will be in favour of everyone giving their opinion, all the people who participate and that we organise ourselves so that decisions are taken together. We can use the association, I am the president of the association, the association is more social, and even at the moment we have no employees, since Covid there is almost nothing happening. But here’s the thing, we can use that. There are not many decisions to be made at the moment. So, I can’t wait to see what it will turn out to be, Me, my ideal, it would be a kind of Blender. You see how Blender works.

Alexis: Right, I think we… I don’t know if you said it, but it doesn’t seem to me… What language is it coded in? If there are ever any devs…

Alex: It’s JavaScript TypeScript. That’s it, client and server.

The Silex User Community

Walid: I had a question. What do you know about the community of people who use Silex? Do you know a little bit if there are places more than others that use it? The 30,000 accounts, for example, what do you know about them?

Alex: So, historically, Silex is used mainly by Indians and Americans. Because I don’t think we’ve ever translated it into French, actually. But now, we are starting to translate it into French. So, I did something where you can translate the majority into French, well a bit in French anyway. The site is in English and French. And then, we see the French people arriving. For me, it’s because also for the company, for me, it’s in my interest that it be in French. Now, if someone else translated it into something else, we’d translate it into something else. And I don’t track users. Besides, anyway, I know that there are some who use it on their server. So, it’s very difficult, it’s always been difficult for Silex to know. But recently, I did something on the v3.silex.me instance. I did something where people, when they create an account with GitLab, so they create an account, in fact, I get their email address, and I send them three onboarding emails, so welcome, you know. By telling them, well, it’s important to give me feedback because I never get any feedback, actually. Except when it bugs, obviously, but that’s good. But there are plenty of people who give up, actually, who start and give up, and I don’t know why. And so, now, I tell them that, I explain it to them. So, I hope, it’s been in place for a month. So, I hope that now, I’ll get feedback from people who will explain it to me. I’ve already had some, by the way, a few years ago… There you go. A few people have told me that it’s not always very relevant, so I have to filter a little bit. But I hope to improve the tool like this.

Alexis: you have a channel on the Slack of NoCodeFrance, if I’m not talking nonsense. And you do live shows too now. Yes. I was wondering if that… Because unfortunately, it’s not a free project, but there is Didier de Zylio who has been documenting the evolution of his product for three years, I think almost. I think it’s super cool. I’m like that from afar, I interviewed him too. And it’s true that I didn’t have time to look too much at how things are going on the Silex side. But I think that, in any case, it’s one of the things that I find super cool, is that the No-Code France community can allow this too, to connect users and publishers, especially French publishers, and even more Open Source.

Alex: Oh yes, but No-Code France, honestly. Then there’s the NoCodeForGood too, which I think is great. They did a live show earlier. yes, so what’s funny is that… So, the live on No-Code France’s Twitch is with my childhood friend, Brice, who follows Silex (Editor’s note: find all Silex’s lives here). He is a designer. So, he became a web designer over time. And that’s it, we do it together, so it’s a pleasure. And indeed, in fact, what we do is that we welcome people who don’t know Silex well, but who know another tool, for example WordPress or Webflow or stuff like that. So, we try to see when it would be good to use Silex, when it’s better to use their usual workflow, and then that they ask all the questions that everyone asks and that we never answer because we know. And so, there’s that, indeed, the live shows are cool. We don’t really have a channel in the Slack No-Code France. We have our Mattermost, another thing next door. Then, I’d like to move on to The Matrix, but… In short, we have a chat and a forum. I’m really trying to make sure that there, Silex goes towards a… I try to make sure that we only use free software. It’s difficult, but it’s really important for me. That’s why on No-Code France, Slack, I’m personally involved and I like it. There is an open source channel, so it’s all in. But it’s true that for Silex, I’m careful that we only use open source and we only promote free stuff.

Alexis: ok, so there’s no point in asking to create a Silex channel. Yes.

Alex: I’ve thought about it, but besides, I don’t know if there would be people, you know. I don’t really know, but hey.

Alexis: No, but I’m saying that afterwards, it’s not to force it, but it’s true that it would deserve it in any case, because really, you make a No-code tool. In addition, open source, there are not that many. I think it can make it a little easier for people who are asking questions there. Even if we look for Silex, we find you. It’s true.

Alex: But you’re right. You still put your finger on something. Communication is not my thing.

Walid: That’s kind of a question of mine afterwards. How are you going to promote? Because in the end, from everything you’re telling us, it’s still quite far, in terms of philosophy, from all the tools that we can find at the moment, which are rather we make a tool, we raise money, we do a lot of communication, and then we have to be the strongest in the world as quickly as possible, which is not exactly what you do. And so, in fact, the question was more about how can you make yourself known?

Alex: Honestly, I’m counting on everyone. I count on others. It is also not of exceptional quality. It’s free software. So, in fact, the features that I use, I develop them. The features that someone else uses, they’re going to develop them. But for example, the graphical interface, there is no one who takes too much trouble doing beautiful things. So, it’s free software. So, that’s why it doesn’t take off as well. Now, I see, there are other open source, open-core tools that do a bit of the same thing. And obviously, there are investors, there are tricks. So, the communication, it’s squared and it takes. People love it. I have a hard time understanding that because it’s not in their interest, actually, obviously. Me, when I see something super polished with a great ad on Facebook, I know that this ad on Facebook, I’m the one who pays for it if I ever use the software. So that’s why I have a hard time understanding, but communication in Silex has never been… There is no one who has never communicated on it. There you go. So I’m counting on you.

Alexis: First of all, by doing this podcast, it’s an opportunity. I, in any case, find that the V3, from what I’ve seen, and frankly, I really didn’t have time, unfortunately, to test more than that. But I think it’s worth it, because I know that there are a lot of people, often, it’s a question that we are asked in the community. Yes, how do you use open source tools, things that you host, especially people who work with associations. Finally, there is this issue. And I find that there, V3, at least, from what I’ve seen, really responds to this subject with, indeed, a small learning curve, but which is assumed and which, for people who want to do things a little advanced, and there are plenty of them in the No-Code France community, who have a foundation that is solid enough to get them to use tools like Silex, I think it’s worth it.

Alex: yes, thank you. And then, my goal is that we are not the only ones to develop Silex, in fact, I still spend a lot of time doing support. And there, especially on No-Code France, there was a person who contacted me and said, “I’m having a bit of trouble with Silex, I did something for a client, but I don’t really know.” I saw him on video. We saw each other, I take the time. Honestly, I love doing that, in real life. That’s why too. I love interacting with people.

Alexis: Do you have any little training content, things like that? I saw on the site that there is a little onboarding. Yes. But are they things? Is there a Silex Academy?

Alex: No, not at all, but that would be really cool. There are quite a few docs. There are these shows that we do once a month. I still had a hard time doing… No, it wasn’t a headache. We had done workshops like that. We did one workshop per month and as a result, on a specific theme each time. And it makes a video documentation. There is also the text documentation. Now, recently, there is a freelancer, Emmanuel, he contacted me, he told me “yes, I have a question.” And I saw that, just with the doc, without having asked anyone for anything, he still managed to make a site. And frankly, with a CMS and everything, he plugged in the CMS, all that, just by reading the doc. He’s a little gifted, I think, but it can be done. But otherwise, you ask on the forums.

The challenges ahead for Silex

Walid: As the hour passes, there is one last question I would like to ask you, an important one. What are your challenges, the challenges you see for the months and years to come?

Alex: I think really the critical threshold of the number of companies they use for their main activity, whether freelancers, SMEs or agencies. The day we have reached a critical threshold, it will allow us to develop Silex much faster. And it’s important to get there at some point because there are challenges like that, both on the speed at which you make a site, the fact of progressing faster at the beginning, etc. There is still work to be done on that. Then there is artificial intelligence. There, there are crazy things to do. It would be so nice to have a… So, there’s WeWeb, they’re doing a great thing. There are lots of people. Plus, it’s very good not to be the first because in fact, there are plenty of people who have done things that are a bit average. But suddenly, by taking a little bit everywhere, we would have a way to do something crazy and suddenly, to generate maybe or manage to have a lot of templates because people love templates. And then, even, it’s funny. So, in fact, my goal would be for you to wander around the web. There is a site that is made with Silex. You can fork it, very simple, if the person allows it, you can fork it in your Silex, so that the templates are just everyone’s sites. Try to go back to this web where we’re all in. In the end, I don’t mind someone taking my site, they change the colors. What for? What’s the problem? So, that would be it. In fact, it’s about success.

There is also web 3 which is funny with everything that is distributed. I can’t wait for us to get out of this phase where I maintain the thing a little bit on my own. Fortunately, there is Olivier who helps me, who has part-time work on this. But there aren’t many of us. And the moment when it can evolve faster, it’s going to be more fun because we’re going to innovate. And Silex, at its core, is innovation. This was before Wix, we were already doing drag and drop stuff in the browser. I think there is a way to innovate, to make everyone have their own business model and make money, and to have our software that suits us and that corresponds exactly to what we need. We don’t waste money in marketing, please. And then there you have it.

Overview of solutions for making sites in 2002

Walid: I notice, I’m going to ask you a question. When you started, it was 2002, 2003, something like that?

Alex: yes, yes.

Walid: What was the tool at the time to make websites?

Alex: There was a beginning of WordPress. There was no YouTube. There was no Wix, there was nothing… In the browser, it was out of the question to have drag and drop or visual, in fact. So, there was nothing. In fact, the first version of Wix was a kind of clone, almost, the one they raised money with, not the one that really did it later, but it was inspired by Silex, the first version of Wix.

Walid: yes, back in the days of Dreamweaver, back in the days of the Netscape Composer or something like that. What was it called?

Alexis: Microsoft Front Page. It was heavy software that had to be installed. It wasn’t in the browser, as you say.

Alex: yes, then there wasn’t this thing that’s nice in No-code, you know, which is… You handle complex things, but you still try to make it fun, that it’s simple. Front pages and everything, they were code. But they were code editors, but you had a preview, you know. But that was before No-code, but I’ve always regretted not being more visionary or not having been more numerous to give their opinion because in the end, no-code, when no-code arrived, I said to myself, this is what we do, this is what we have to do. There you go.

Introducing Silex to a person who does No-code/Low-code

Walid: That’s good. Finally, I will ask you two questions. The first is what would you say to a person who does No-code or Low-code to present Silex?

Alex: I would say that if the person wants to make high-performance sites, which can be deployed anywhere, where there are no security problems, and with the CMS of his choice, he has to go for it, he has to contribute, he has to make sure that Silex meets his needs.

How to introduce Silex to someone who doesn’t have a lot of computer skills

Walid: And what would you say to a person who doesn’t have great computer skills, but who still wants to make a website and who discovers Silex?

Alex: unfortunately, I often have to disappoint people a little by saying “if you have to make only one site you shouldn’t start with Silex if you have to do three or four then yes you have to start with Silex”. Or “if you don’t even have a site to make but you want to train in web design, CSS, code or web design, well on the other hand, it’s yes, it’s a very good choice”.

Alexis: I think Silex can be a great educational tool. Me, it’s discussions I’ve already had with… I worked in a coding school and I really regret that not all code bootcamps use tools like Silex or No-code tools to offer this abstraction. Because at the beginning, when you start from scratch, learning the code is hard. And so, actually, just learning the concepts, the HTML, the CSS, but implementing them in a visual tool, that’s great. And here, in this case, really, I find that what’s good about the Silex interface is that somehow, it’s still uncluttered since you haven’t implemented a lot of things that aren’t necessarily very useful either, and it’s also in relation to the means you have. But suddenly, it makes her very raw and pure at the same time. Whereas Webflow has become a bit… There are too many things in it. And as you say, it’s not exactly the same level of abstraction, even though both are close to code. But really, understanding divs within divs, the box-model, things like that, I find that it’s much better with visual tools than by typing code, at least at the beginning. Well, the coding schools don’t agree with me, a priori, because none of them has chosen this bias. Too bad for them, but in any case, I think it can be a great educational tool.

Alex: I’ve done that a lot, initiating people who are really far away, people for whom the Internet is Facebook, in fact. Or TikTok, now, no doubt, I don’t know. But, you see, it works well, because actually, in fact, they put something down, they change the color, and “oh yes yes!”. Oh yes, and then, you show them, you put it online, ah well you can go on your phone, Oh yes, there, it changes everything. So then, anyone can put stuff on the Internet, actually. Well yes. And that’s when it opens doors. Indeed, after that, the box model and all that. Well, so once they’re in there, in general, it goes very, very well. yes, I’m quite a fan too.

Final words

Walid: We’re coming to the end. In closing, I wanted to leave you both with a final word. There you go, if you have something to say. Alexis, do you want to start? What are your impressions? Do you want to send a message about what you heard and what you saw on Silex?

Alexis: It was super interesting and I’m happy because it gives me the opportunity now. From now on, I was able to make an update and therefore be able to follow the story a little bit from there. I’d ask for the creation of a small channel, I won’t leave you the choice on the No-Code France Slack to follow. No, but I really like being able to follow, I don’t have the time and I don’t do a lot of websites.

But my last word would perhaps be that I have regained my passion for making static sites for a year, thanks to the LLM, in fact. Because I don’t have the time or the courage to code things myself anymore. So, I had a big No-code phase where I was using No-code tools. But the best of both worlds, as you mentioned earlier, I think it’s a tool that allows you to start in conversational mode, but then to be able to modify what has been generated in visual mode. WeWeb, at the beginning of this, it’s true that it’s quite impressive. So Copilot, if you manage to do something like that, I imagine it’s technically complicated, but here, it’s true that I think there’s a very nice thing to do. And there you have it, we mix the best of both worlds, we abstract a little, while giving people the opportunity to do interesting things.

Walid: Alex?

Alex: We really share the same vision, because it seems obvious to me. It’s not complicated to do. It’s really not complicated to make a hybrid tool like this that really allows you to go into detail about what the AI has generated, to be able to modify it afterwards anyway and to be able to make templates, do stuff, it’s going to be super fun. We’re going to get there, the question is when. So the message I would have to pass on is: you have to.. well I mean, the Internet is contribution, there’s no such thing as a photo, it’s contribution. We did it all together, we didn’t do it in competition, we did it all together, so we have to continue. There you have it, there is nothing better for a user than to master his tools and choose where the time and money he puts into a tool goes. I mean, that’s basic freedom. So, free software to the core, beware of weird stuff going on right now with weird licenses that limit you in some cases, etc. There are no concessions to be made, we just have to make our own tools. The money you put into a SaaS tool, put it into a free tool and then use the free tool. Or even, don’t put any money in, but put in the time, it’s even better. If you have it, it’s true that it’s difficult.

Alexis: I have one last question, can I, Walid? Because in fact, it makes me think of something, which is that, as you say, I think it’s very important to have free alternatives. And in a lot of segments of No-code tools, it’s starting to develop. On database tools, for example, there are several… Well, after that, modulo the license questions, etc. But there is one sector where there is really no alternative at the moment, and that is the application sector. When I say web applications, that is, websites, but with a little bit of intelligence, a little bit in the segment of Softr, WeWeb or things like that. Is that something you could go towards, do you think? Or you, your vision, after all, is websites and you don’t want to have buttons and do programming? that we can build things a little more intelligently with Silex.

Alex: For the moment, I don’t think so, but obviously, we have customer requests, obviously, we have desires and everything. For example, in Silex, it’s very easy today to build Vue.js. So, the Silex dashboard, it’s created with Silex and it’s Vue.js. But there are simply a few clicks. So, there’s a few more things. You see, in any case, there are things to do. There are things to do. Afterwards, if what you want is a really ugly business application, but it works, there are things like…

Walid : AppSmith.

Alex : AppSmith, for example, which I really like. yes, that’s great.

Alexis: yes, but AppSmith is not very accessible. It’s very low-code, though, from what I’ve seen.

Walid: yes, absolutely. Yes

Alex: It’s a bit violent.

Alexis: If I had to caricature it, I’d say, I’d dream, in quotation marks, it’s not very nice for them, perhaps, but of an open source Softr , you know. Because Softr, I think it’s really the right level of accessibility. It’s very, I’m talking for no-coders, well, not just anyone, always. a bit of training, but can build small, simple applications. But there you go.

Alex: I’d like to put some Vue.js and make it really the components. In fact, native web components in browsers should be part of Silex since it’s part of the standards. So, it should be supported by Silex. That’s a trick. Do things like Vue.js with it.

And then there’s this thing where it’s static sites that are built by GitLab. And in this place, we can insert a lot of things. For example, NocoDB. As soon as you have a GraphQL API, if it has to change in real time, that each user has a different screen, it’s dynamic. But there are a lot of things that can be done in static. For example, a comment system can be done in static mode without any problem, because the site takes a second to be rebuilt. And so, as soon as you have someone leave a comment, it rebuilds the site. And so, there are a lot of things, I think, that we could already do. For me, in fact, the real limit would perhaps be the static. That’s where I feel my way. It’s because I’m not keen on really doing dynamics. But with static, even if you have some smart apps on your forehead, you can go super far, I think. I’m keen to experiment, anyway.

Alexis: I find that… Finally, I think that for people who are not technical, it may be a little difficult to understand, but I find it very effective. Me, there’s a really good thing… I find it very beautiful, the fact that everything is… But anyway, we’re going to get into that. We can talk about it again.

Walid: I think this is a very interesting discussion and you will continue it at some point. But unfortunately, we’re going to have to stop. We’ve already been talking for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Alex : oh

Walid : My last word is that every time, when I look at No-code tools, all open source tools or almost open source tools, they’re all commercial tools in open-core mode or something like that. And every time, I complain because well, in fact, we don’t have community tools. You see, if you want an ERP, an open source ERP, you can take an open-core ERP like Odoo, but you have ERPs like Dolibarr. And Dolibarr is a cool ERP, it’s community-based, it has a completely different way of working and everything. And in fact, in open-source No-code or Low-code tools, they’re open source. There is no community thing. That’s kind of the thing I’d like to have. I’d like to have tools that are a little nice where there’s not necessarily a box behind it and then there’s not a trick… a very weird thing. I’m quite happy that we were able to talk about it. That’s cool. I wanted to know if there are people who are motivated to contact you, Alex, where do we contact you?

Alex: or on Silex’s cat. On the Silex site, you have links. There is a contact form on the Silex website. And then, there will be a channel on No-Code France, probably on the Slack of No-Code France at some point. There you go.

Walid: we can contact you by Mastodon too, right?

Alex: Mastodon too, definitely. And don’t hesitate to contact me, because it’s my baby, we also use it professionally. There needs to be more people using it, and there needs to be more people contributing. So there you have it.

Walid: I’ll put the info in the transcript and show notes of the episode.

Alex: That’s it.

Walid: thank you both, Alexis, Alex, thank you for this discussion. We’ve been talking about making an episode for a long time. It was really very interesting. We’ve gone back to the roots of the Internet and it’s very cool. So, as usual, for the listeners of Projets Libres!, don’t hesitate to share this episode and make comments to say if you go or use Silex or if it made you want to use it. Thank you very much. See you soon for new adventures around No-code and free software. and then Alex I hope we’ll meet one day in real life and Alexis see you soon.

Alex: it’s too strong, I love your podcast too much so it makes me very happy.

Walid: well good evening, see you soon thank you very much,

Alexis: see you soon!

This episode was recorded on January 7, 2025

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

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