Promouvoir et défendre le logiciel libre: notre mission depuis 1996.

Moral report on activities of APRIL in 2001

Activities between 11/11/2000 to 30/11/2001

  1. Moral report on activities of APRIL in 2001
    1. Bref rappel
    2. Contexte économique
    3. Contexte politique
    4. Bilan de l'année
      1. Les membres
    5. Les groupes de travail
    6. Administration du serveur et le Web
    7. Les actions
    8. FSF Europe
    9. Contacts avec les média
    10. Le lobbying
    11. Conclusion et prospectives
    12. Merci
    13. Brief history
    14. Economic context
    15. Political context
    16. Year assessment
      1. Members
    17. Working groups
    18. Server Administration and Web
    19. Activities
    20. FSF Europe
    21. Contacts with media
    22. Lobbying
    23. Conclusion and future
    24. Thanks to...

Brief history

Note : Many of groups and events refered in this report are about the GNU/Linux system but call it "Linux".

Created in November 1996, APRIL isn't aiming to promote the GNU/Linux operating system or set up a simple GNU/Linux User Group. APRIL aims to promote free software in general, and to a larger audience, including companies and institutions in France and all of Europe.

APRIL is one of the most important associations for Free Software in France, and encourages publicisation and greater awareness of Free software in France either via direct action (conferences, installation and training days, meetings, debates, etc.) or via action of a more indirect sort (meeting in Sénat, regular publishing of papers in different media, common action with other associations against patents on software, etc.). A strong partnership, strong sympathy with their ideas and a privileged relationship exists with Free Software Foundation created by Richard Stallman. This helps explain why the association attaches great importance to the promotion of the FSF's ideas in France.

Since 1996, the first set of objectives we set ourselves have been successfully achieved. From an almost complete anonymity, free software (and not just "Linux") is now known to a large audience and also companies, journalists, and decision-makers. Of course, this success is not only due to the association but we have greatly contributed to it.

Free software continues to become more commonplace, but there are still many goals we wish to achieve in the future.

Economic context

The economic outlook has changed considerably since the last general assembly of the association. The computing industry is generally in crisis, and the world of free software has also been badly affected. Several companies which provided free software services have had difficulties, have changed their business model, or have disappeared. On the other hand, a few companies that provide free software services have proven their maturity in the management of these problems and have shown that it is possible to base an economic model on the development based on free software (providing that model is well chosen).

APRIL considers it important that economic models based on free software succeed.

Political context

International and national political climate has some impact on development and the future of free software in different ways:

In that field, our adversaries are very well prepared and armed.

The fight against these changes fills a great deal of our action time, in collaboration with other organisations (Eurolinux, AFUL, LSIJolie, ..). In France, several private bills related to free software (closely related to or not far from it) were not accepted. Nevertheless, we can note some progress, see for example the Carsenac report, creation of ATICA [Agence pour les Technologies de l'Information et de la Communication dans l'Administration -- Agency for Information and Communication Technologies in the Civil Service], ex-MTIC (interdepartmental mission of support for development of inforamtion and communication technologies in the Civil Service).

Note that in France and Europe, free software has got supporters (Direction Générale de la Société de l'Information, financing plans of IST, ATICA).

Year assessment

Members

The association today has around 200 members distributed over several French-speaking countries, with a majority of French people. Last year over the same period, we had about 130 members. Among these members, we find people who work for different companies or the Civil Service, as researchers, teachers, students, as well as some people who are not involved with computer science.

Last year, the association modified its rules to accept membership of moral people mainly to have a running budget that can allow us to think about future actions in a different way (for example, to finance permanent members). The association counts one more moral person: the free software "technopole" of Soissons. The current economic difficulties make us fearful that among the 9 moral persons, several may have to leave sometime in future for economic reasons.

Besides, we are currently looking into the possibility of hiring a permanent member for APRIL; however, no progress in this area has yet been made.

One dificulty of an association like ours is the spread of members but we have successfully co-ordinated action, particularly via several mailing lists. The board of directors has a face-to-face meeting at least once per month and follows that up with a public report.

The way new members are integrated into the association is satisfactory. This is due in part to the setting up of an information system: a member's section on the web with the archives of the mailing lists, documents about the software architecture of the server, howtos allowing everyone to take part to the activities of the association, a description and progress monitoring of the working groups, a task-manager, a shared calendar, automatic management of new joiners who receive an automatic e-mail with a whole presentation of the association, which allows the new members to know almost everything about what the association is doing.

We can note the joining of people who have not come from the free software world, whose activism will be beneficial for the association.

Working groups

One part of the association's running relies on the notion of working group. Working groups are in charge of implementing all actions that can fulfill objectives of the association, and are not limited with respect to time.

Since the beginning, the management of each working group has been provided by people who also had lots of work to do at the head of the association. That is a reason why most of working group leaders have chosen to vacate responsibility for their group. We note the excellent resumption of the working group on "GNU Philosophy Translation", which regularly publishes new translations on www.gnu.org, and new joiners have taken charge of working groups "Documentation/Labo". Working groups with fixed deadlines, like the organisation for Linux Expo stand, have been also well managed.

The working group called "Samedis du Libre" ("Free Software Saturdays") has recently taken off again with the help of GCU-Squad and Parinux, and will take place one saturday per month, at the Cyberbase of La Villette (the first meeting took place on November 17th and was a critically acclaimed success).

The groups "Documentation" and "Labo" ("Laboratory") have been dormant since the last time Alain Riffart added documention.

The group "Press review" was created in June 2001 and appears to be proceeding well. Nicole regularly sends newspaper cuttings to the FSF.

The group "Free Software and scientific research" was created, and some dicussion has started.

The group "Education" will soon revive under the leadership of Charlie.

The other groups are really dormant (Catalog, interviews).

Server Administration and Web

Lots of procedures have been/are being set up to facilitate the administration of the association's server.

The management of website is provided by CVS/WML, allowing a cooperative administration, despite some architectural limits. Lol Zimmerli, the current webmaster, has done a very good job, but now wishes to stand down (volunteers wanted).

The association's machine has moved to Easynet's building.

New administrators joined the team in charge of server administration. Incidentally, organisation problems in the team still exist and need to be resolved.

Activities

The association took part in numerous activities on several occasions (organisation, event stand holding, meeting, ..).

We can specially note this year:

Entertainments:

Conferences:

More APRIL specific actions:

Several Initial contacts:

Press releases:

Patents on software:

Several press interviews, among others: InternetActu, Politis, 01net, Internet entrepreneur, Cadres On Line, Linux Loader, Ordinateur Individuel, Silicon.fr, Monde Interactif, 01 Réseaux, Transfert, Login, Linux Passion, Place Publique.

FSF Europe

The association played an important part in the successful creation of FSF Europe. 3 members of APRIL (Loïc, Raph, Fred) belong to the FSF Europe coreteam; some APRIL members are involved with the success of FSFE (Cyril, Jérôme, Hugo, Olivier, Gilles, ..) either by helping with campaigns, administration or webmastering. The association became the first associate of the FSF Europe. The FSF Europe has started several campaigns, in collaboration with the association and/or external people.

Among these actions, we can note:

Contacts with media

Contacts with journalists are getting better and better, especially for non-specialised national press. Lots of interviews were done and journalists have also contacted us to record our opinion or to get information. The association is now clearly well established as a referee that should be consulted.

Our press releases were mostly cited and/or used in press (electronic or paper).

Last year we talked, within the scope of our contacts with media and our lobbying actions, of an official April moving closer to the FSF, with the objectives of signing a kind of partnership. This point is no longer on the agenda since the creation of FSF Europe and since APRIL became an associated organisation.

Lobbying

An important but less visible activity of the association is lobbying, with numerous initial contacts in lots of circles (political, economic, ..).

The patent question remains at the centre of many of our actions (on the APRIL side or the Eurolinux alliance side).

Conclusion and future

APRIL is well established in the world of free software and its position is well understood, including even external people. APRIL has cultivated a privileged relationship with the media, decision-makers and so on in the field of free computer science. Its role has been strengthened by the creation of FSF Europe and by the official relationship between the organisations.

The association is full of life, well organised and is building constructive partnerships. The creation of FSF Europe has increased the visibility of the association and the knowledge other people have of it. Nevertheless, the work load has also considerably increased this year and the question of the durability of the association is more and more pressing.

Last year, several leads were mentionned:

Thanks to...

Thanks to all people, members of the association or external people, who allow us to successfully carry out all our tasks.