| <html><head> |
| <meta HTTP-EQUIV="content-type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> |
| </head> |
| <body> |
| |
| <h2> Community |
| Articles: Opinions, Interviews, Analyses</h2> |
| <p><a href="//lspintro.html" target="_blank">-Louis Suárez-Potts</a></p> |
| <p>23 April 2001</p> |
| <p> </p> |
| <p><b>Interview: Guy Capra </b></p> |
| <p>To anyone who has visited the OpenOffice.org discuss list in the last two months, |
| Guy Capra’s name is familiar. He has spearheaded the movement to create |
| a section of OpenOffice.org, including a discuss list, where French-speaking |
| persons could obtain information about OpenOffice.org and Open Source in French. |
| The ultimate point: To encourage participation and contribution in OpenOffice.org |
| from all over the world. |
| <p> Guy’s persistence and vision has borne fruit, and as a result of his |
| and many others’ efforts, OpenOffice.org now has a <a href="http://native-lang.openoffice.org/" target="_blank">Native |
| Language Development project</a>, which currently houses the <a href="http://fr.openoffice.org/">Francophone |
| module</a> Guy is leading. |
| <p> Over the space of a couple of days last week, I asked Guy about his background |
| and his thoughts on OpenOffice.org and Open Source. Guy responded in French |
| and English; I have translated, as best I could, the French into English. |
| <p> |
| <p><i>You have been active in the French Internet scene for some while, what with |
| running "<a href="http://www.creatique.online.fr" target="_blank">Creatique</a>," |
| and Sun's French StarOffice, and now OpenOffice.org (and of course, <a href="http://www.alomphega.com/" target="_blank">Alomphega</a>). |
| How did you get involved in the scene? Is your background in programming? </i> |
| <p> |
| Well, to explain the steps that led me to this project and motivations, I must |
| give you a brief account of my professional career. |
| <p> I was, originally, not a programmer but a musician. I did study science at |
| school, but ended up following a line of classical education. I finished my |
| schooling in the region around Avignon, in the south of France, where I studied |
| contemporary music and composition. It was there, in the 1980s, that I discovered |
| the usage of computers in music, and the intersection of rational and creative |
| work, represented, say, by a permanent discussion between Albert Einstein and |
| Claude Debussy. |
| <p> After I received my first prize in music composition, a record company offered |
| me a position as a sound engineer in Paris. It was in this way that I was able |
| finally to realize my dream of that period, to become a music researcher at |
| France’s prestigious center of electronic music, <a href="http://www.ircam.fr/" target="_blank">IRCAM</a>. |
| I worked there some years, moving between recording studios and the <a href="http://www.cnac-gp.fr/Pompidou/Home.nsf/docs/fhome" target="_blank">Centre |
| Pompidou [Beaubourg]</a>, and trying, with good and bad results, to produce |
| some important works on the creation of contemporary music. |
| <p> |
| It was during this time that I discovered that computer science (l’informatique) |
| pleased me much more than creating music: in computer science, when one creates |
| a program, it functions or it doesn’t, without any subjective intervention. |
| Soon enough, others came to appreciate my work, and eventually I gained some |
| success. But in the first place, for me, the reality of a work is purely pragmatic: |
| it only is as it does. Einstein, Debussy… and now, William James: these |
| names trace the evolution of my thought. |
| <p> Around this time, I met my wife, who is a fashion designer. At the beginning |
| of the 1990s, we decided to quit Paris and the artistic milieu, and move to |
| the Cote d’Azur, the region of my birth, where we founded a small fashion |
| house. I had advanced in my knowledge of computer science, and with the rudimentary |
| tools available at the time, I believed that I could create an automatic system |
| that would allow us to offer clothing cut to measure from my wife’s designs |
| at a price the greater public could afford. |
| <p> I became interested in the problematic of business because the municipality |
| of the small town where we lived, <a href="http://www.ot-hyeres.fr/" target="_blank">Hyères-les-Palmiers</a>, asked me to work on communications for the local |
| union of small businesses. |
| <p> Soon enough, the small businesses asked me to counsel them regarding their |
| computer equipment; and to develop for them adaptive management tools. It was |
| then that I officially declared my profession as being in IT (informatique) |
| and named my business “Créatique (CREAtion InformaTIQUE,” in |
| reference to our fashion house, which we had called “Créature (CREAtion |
| couTURE).” |
| <p> |
| I made a point, in my work, to always supply my clients with the source code |
| of my programs, because I considered that I might arrive at a problem and that |
| I must not take the security of my clients’ professional activities lightly.<p> |
| Little by little, I became successful, and the economic model that I offered |
| and used was so original that the French IT press helped to relay my programs, |
| of which were more than 400,000 samples were distributed in CD ROMs in magazines, |
| all without the aide of a press agency or any media plan. For a country like |
| France, this figure is quite significant. |
| <p> But, without doubt, I was too successful: a business group had taken my trademark, |
| “Créatique,” before I had and dispossessed me of the name. |
| I renamed my business “<a href="http://www.alomphega.com" target="_blank">Alomphega</a>.” |
| <p> It was at this period, which was oriented toward very small businesses, that |
| I discovered <a href="http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/index.html;$sessionid$CHRK2WAAADTR1AMTA1LU5YQ" target="_blank">StarOffice</a>, |
| when it was still in Star Division. Seduced by the program and by the alternative |
| economics which it represented for my clients, I searched for whatever resources |
| in French that would assist my clients in using StarOffice. Having established |
| that there existed nothing on the subject in French, I created, in 1998, a personal |
| site on StarOffice. |
| <p> At end of 1999, Sun Microsystems France contacted me in order to entrust me |
| with presenting StarOffice to France--a move that was quite strategic for Sun. |
| This first professional contact passed very well; Sun France asked me to put |
| in place some free help forums (mailing lists) for Francophone users of StarOffice, |
| as well as some help resources online. Thus, my personal site on StarOffice |
| evolved towards what is now <a href="http://www.staroffice.online.fr." target="_blank">http://www.staroffice.online.fr.</a> |
| <p> Naturally, it was with much interest that I have followed the development |
| of the project OpenOffice.org.... |
| <p> At the present moment, we are working with CollabNet in order to propose a |
| Francophone section to OpenOffice.org. The innovative work that we are creating |
| in this “fr” section will serve as a base for the creation of other, |
| native-language modules. |
| <p><i>And, what possibilities did you see in StarOffice (and now in <a href="//" target="_blank">OpenOffice.org</a>), |
| especially for Francophones? </i> |
| <p>StarOffice represents for me the only office suite that is credible in a professional |
| context. I say it again: “The only credible suite,” which is to say |
| that it is much more than an alternative. Why? Simply because I am persuaded |
| that as public knowledge of IT grows, businesses will end up accepting only |
| that which is economically acceptable and pragmatically realistic. |
| <p> |
| The OpenOffice.org project is the logical consequence of the technical and commercial |
| evolution of StarOffice, given the pragmatic context and potential of Open Source.<p> |
| I see the Open Source movement versus the former means of commercializing programs |
| as analogous to democracy versus dictatorship: an irreversible progress, because |
| it represents for everyone the possibility of gains without any real losses.<p> |
| I am happy to be able to participate in this international extension of OpenOffice.org, |
| for I am persuaded that one such opening will allow all to positively enrich |
| themselves. More prosaically, I am proud to be able to offer to French-speaking |
| persons the premises of an innovative tool. |
| <p> <i>Let's turn now to Open Source... Open Source is here, on this side of the |
| Atlantic, gaining strength daily as a business and production strategy and culture. |
| In some ways, Open Source seems characteristically American, what with the iconic |
| "cowboy" hacking away at making code better, faster, cheaper and then |
| sharing his work with others on the range. We know, however, that those icons |
| are not entirely true, that they are mostly myths with elements of truth. Open |
| Source developers are not "cowboys." Many, in fact, are employed by |
| corporations interested in leveraging the wealth of labor and knowledge present |
| in the Open Source pool. However, the promise of freedom and community these |
| icons imply is a powerful attractor to many developers. But this raises the |
| interesting and important question, What is the culture of Open Source like |
| in France? And, what makes it appealing? Clearly, these questions are broad, |
| and you might think of answering them by answering how you came to be interested |
| in Open Source....</i> |
| <p>Here, in Europe, Open Source is little by little presenting itself as an incontrovertible |
| logic. Even politicians have come to register it and are favoring Open Source |
| software in their administrations. |
| <p>Every day, businesses discover the economic logic of Open Source and develop |
| economic models which prove the viability of Open Source; and the public at |
| large begins to comprehend what it is all about… |
| <p> I am persuaded that, in due time, the proprietary model of software development |
| will pass. I am equally persuaded of the great wealth--human as well as financial--which |
| is developing in Open Source. |
| <p> <i>Many in the community are impressed and encouraged by your so-far successful |
| efforts to create and include the <a href="http://fr.openoffice.org/" target="_blank">Francophone |
| informational section and discussion list in OpenOffice.org</a>. What do you |
| hope to accomplish by this tactic? And, can you evaluate how many people would |
| be involved?</i> |
| <p>My aim is precisely to encourage people to join us…. I am, frankly, a |
| “win-win” addict! And, of course, my aim is also to engage Open Source |
| communities. But I can’t anticipate what will eventuate nor the people |
| who will be involved. I work for a near future, hoping my work will be good |
| enough. |
| <p> <i>The concern raised by, among others, Bill Roth, who heads Sun's OpenOffice.org |
| project, was that the French version--and any other native language version--would |
| "<a href="ec27Mar.html" target="_blank">balkanize</a>" |
| the project, i.e., create if not discord, a lack of communication. What strategies |
| will you employ to prevent this from occurring?</i> |
| <p>The balkanization risk only exists if we fail to follow what we are doing now. |
| Look at the other great Open Source projects: they cruelly need volunteers, |
| but they can’t find enough users. What we are doing now in OpenOffice.org |
| is not by any means a balkanization; rather, the contrary would seem to lead |
| to a true balkanization, in which developers end up working independently because |
| there are no tools available in Open Source projects in their native tongues. |
| In my opinion, it is not a good tactic for a world-wide Open Source project. |
| Projects like OpenOffice.org need world-wide support, and the world speaks many |
| native tongues. |
| <p> |
| I also think that right now it is impossible to decide on a definitive strategy |
| regarding Internationalization. I really think we have to look at what happens, |
| then make corrections as needed, always staying involved, especially now, at |
| the beginning.<p> |
| We must further provide a real motivation for the webmasters [of the native |
| language sites] to be involved in the project. It is this motivation which will |
| draw volunteers. They need, that is, initiative: responsibility for their work.<p> |
| Finally, if we see that I’m wrong (and I don’t think I am), it will |
| always be possible to stop the native language websites without causing any |
| serious damage to the central OpenOffice.org project. |
| <p> <i>Say that the experiment--and it is still an experiment--works. What would |
| you like to see accomplished by the "lang" or Native Language Development |
| Project?This experience of internationalizing the OpenOffice.org project is |
| for me an extraordinary opportunity for the global community to come together |
| in a common project and produce superior software.</i> |
| <p>I think that our success in articulating the efforts of an enormous body of |
| linguistically diverse developers who utilize English as the common tongue for |
| core projects will provide us with an indispensable tool, which, when brought |
| to Open Source projects throughout the world, will prove that human creativity |
| has no limits when enabled by pragmatism.</p> |
| <p> </p> |
| <p>Readers interested in tracing the history of the Native Language Development |
| project might wish to look at two previous articles on the subject:</p> |
| <p><i><a href="ec15Mar.html" target="_blank">The International, |
| I</a></i></p> |
| <p><a href="ec27Mar.html" target="_blank"><i>The International, |
| II</i></a></p> |
| <p> </p> |
| <p><a href="./editors.html">Previous Articles |
| </a></p> |
| |
| </body> |
| </html> |
| |
