So it's been a long day and now we are at
the last presentation before wine and
cheese. Our presenter is Tafit and his
topic is journey from syndicalism to
Debian and to syndicalism again.
Thank you.
Hi everyone.
I'm going to have a non-technical talk.
So if you want technical stuff, you're not
in the right place, but that's fine.
I'm going to draw parallel between the
syndicalist Union and
how Debian is organized. And
for this, I will do that in a few steps.
And I would
do that regarding uh my own journey and I
will present you a few few of the stuff uh
with a French point of view and I hope
that you can share with me how it's
organized uh some of you are coming from
uh Switzerland, uh Germany, Austria, um
different places so maybe we can share how
we work.
Um so first uh what led me to synticalism?
Um well I was doing some activism when I
was younger, but uh at one time uh I
began to to work and I became a teacher um
and yeah uh because uh
because I needed it I bought my first
computer, it was running Windows, it was
annoying, so I wanted to free it but I
didn't have time.
I I also joined the mainstream union that
is called SNES FSU.
It looks like a bit like uh the Windows uh
logo.
And um well, same. Uh I just wanted to to
have something to represent me, but I just
wanted to focus on my work. But actually
the same year uh there was a French
pension strike and uh
uh for that I was actually uh um having uh
I was protesting the
streets for uh for a few months and uh I
said, okay, uh maybe that this big
union is not representing me well and I
joined joined another more hands-on union
that is called the Sudden Cacien Member of
Solidai.
So what is uh syndicalism? Well uh I took
uh
I I took this definition from WikiDAR.
So syndicalism is a reviews revolutionary
socialist current.
So something, yeah, okay, worker together,
let's go, let's make some revolution.
Okay, it's we are aiming big. But what are
we actually doing?
Well, the fact is we want to be together.
Yeah, we small people want to be together
to be able to
talk to our chief or to people above us.
And we
unionize to just to be able to defend our
own rights and
we do it by some local actions.
Yes, like well, I can I can aid my
co-workers to talk to them, to say, Yes,
you're allowed to do that or wow, yeah,
versus asking to do to do that to you, to
you too. Well, let's get together and and
And do not accept that.
But also what we do locally can be can be
seen globally with each other and
we can try to influence different stuff
like uh how the law are organized and
that's what I we were actually doing in
twenty oh three and uh and we we didn't
win but yeah we tried again.
So think uh think globally while while
acting locally.
And uh I want to draw a parallel and I
will do it with uh software after that.
Between the mainstream organization uh of
unions and uh more hands-on organization
like uh like the one I joined.
Well the mainstream organizations are
often big, that's why they are mainstream,
they are often hierarchical organizations
like in most companies.
And
they are providing a service to
the members, so you're kind of paying for
a service.
And most of the time these big unions are
actually closer to the employers or to the
low people, because they eat at the same
table.
Well on the other hand, um more enzyme
sending uh is uh often uh
um small organization, but sometimes it
grows big very fast.
And um the organization is actually
horizontal.
So everyone has same uh same power, same
um the same voice.
But you need to do the work. That's it.
So you it's not a real service because you
are also the service provider.
You you help the other people.
You those people help you and you help the
others.
And
I can think about something in parallel
that's how a proprietary software is
organized between and on the other one
free software.
Okay. It's well I think you know this part
of the the talk but uh um
I draw some uh parallels. So it's fast.
Proprietary software is often big, wider
in free software we are often smaller, but
some s sometimes big. But uh we can be
non-profit uh in free software like uh
like in Debian and uh and in order to to
have what we want we we put
uh we put the work to have it.
And uh so the same way, if you want if we
want to improve the the situation, we can
do it by ourselves and uh and try to have
other people to help us do it.
So that's why um well uh at this point uh
I was uh doing some syndicalism and um
uh with my with my union uh I went to
do some programming. It was uh well
big story, but uh try to be small.
Um we were doing some um um yes uh snail
mail for the for press.
And um the law changed in uh in France and
the the Post asked us to to do some of
the routing by yourselves. So we had to do
um well it's quite kind of uh
big work because uh we had a big database.
Well For us at that time, was uh million
uh million entries.
So regularly now it's seems small, but
back then uh it was not easy.
And um and I tried to to develop something
and I was saying, okay, uh some uh lines,
characters, uh we need to understand what
are these characters.
And uh I tried to use some Perl scripts,
uh so that's why I actually learned Perl
to to do this job. And uh um because the
database uh evolved every month, uh we had
to do the work again. So yeah, let's try
to do a script to pass the database and uh
and fit some uh some hashes and um and
then um at the end uh
order the order the data and uh and print
them in the PDF.
So I was doing that work, but I said all
right.
I want to I want to give people the tools
so they can use it by themselves.
So I tried to develop a a GUI uh uh uh
inter uh user
interface and uh I used some ugly TK
thing, but uh it worked, it was working.
You can click on the stuff, uh there was a
documentation and uh you put the data and
uh it it was doing the work. And um and on
the on the side there was a a tool to c
actually correct the addresses to put them
in the right format.
But it was not enough because um yeah you
need to install this stuff, you need to
install it on well whatever system the
people were using, Windows, uh macOS.
But um yeah, we were providing the stuff
it was not easy.
So a few years later I rewrote it uh using
uh um Uh hosting stuff and uh
start uh starting to to learn PHP, uh SQL
MySQL to to host the database.
Uh uh it's still using some PostgreSQL the
database.
And uh and the um updating process is now
automatized because I'm not part of this
union anymore, but the program is still
working, so it's fine.
Um and uh so it was uh well still again an
ugly uh yeah uh web interface,
but uh but it's working.
Um so I've been um
my um
because of the syndicate uh I was uh
because of my union uh I I will I start I
started doing some programming uh using uh
using actually the uh some Linux uh based
stuff and quickly uh using Debian to to
develop this and um and also to host it.
And uh that's why I want to to to have a
small parenthesis about the non-profit
organization in France because I'm going
to talk a bit about them.
Um
we what we call association are uh
non-profit organizations, so well a bit
like uh what I described in the um
in some hands-on um syndicalism.
Um it relies on people doing the work.
Uh some people some technical knowledge is
sometimes needed to to do the work when
it's some competing stuff, but uh
something people can acquire, uh like uh
like I actually did by uh by them.
And you need to have some free time to do
the work like some of us do when
we are not paid for a Debian job, for
example.
And this kind of non-profit organization
are actually sometimes big enough
to offer the kind of the same service or
more service than some companies.
And I take some examples in France.
FDN, that is with an Internet service
provider, was founded in 1992 and is
It's still running today and it's the
oldest provider, Internet provider in
France. So this stuff has working.
Globenet is another non-profit
organization founded a few years later.
It's a hosting provider running Debian and
that's actually one of the places when I
met some people from Debian back then.
These two um um these two uh non-profit
organizations and and others um went
together and uh and funded uh G20, that is
a telecommunication service provider.
Yes, uh so providing the uplink.
And uh what is kind of nice with that is
because FDN uh when you're an an ESP you
mostly download content. When you are a
hosting provider you provide content, so
or upload uh on one side and download on
on the other.
And uh what you pay is actually the uh for
the uh for the uplink, what you pay is
more um The more data you get you get or
you or you give back.
So this uh these two together, well
actually it doesn't cost much, but because
they are together, well they can uh split
the the cost and uh that's actually what
we what we do in the um in the hosting.
The the company no the not the company,
but uh organization like uh some
syndicates that are hosted um can can have
some money and can pay more and the the
little organization that don't have en
enough money pay less and it uh it's
working like that.
And um so why are they using Debian?
Well well because it's working, well
because it's free, because you can uh you
can um
you can add the the thing you want uh with
it.
And um it
It seems like to use actually the same
kind of a of model.
It's a non-profit organization and it's
aiming at technical excellence.
Yes, we're making the universal Debian
operating system.
So we're aiming big too. And even if
Debian by itself is a political,
using it is is a political act for many of
us in small
in a small organization. And some of the
tools available in Debian are actually
useful for work in unions like mailing
list, CMS, And I'm I'm
looking at it from my French point of
view.
Yes, some French tools that are using used
in uh in the university.
Well well some of us teachers were
actually used to this tool at work.
So if these tools are available, we can
we're happy to use them also in our work
like in unions company.
Back then um the Seneca I was uh working
with was hosted in uh RIS which is Resour
Associatif Sympae. So uh a non-profit
organization running Debian, so another
one, and uh providing uh providing hosting
to to many uh many local unions, uh
Senika and uh other uh associations, so
non-profits.
And um on the on this slide it's uh the
website that is Wow.
So even if it's done, there's still a web
page about it.
And on the side, yes, with very very small
characters, you can see there were many,
many
nonprofit organizations and other unions
as well back then.
So when it shut down in 209, we were
thinking, wow, what are we going to do?
And we said, okay, well, we
we used to have a service, so LS was
providing us mailing list, hosting and
stuff. Said, okay, let's let's be together
with other other union inside
Sudication. And we we tried uh we began to
design our own uh
server and uh we tried uh
That's how I actually became a a sysadmin.
I was doing it at home and we started to
design
server to us, most of us service, so web
service,
mailing list, stuff like that.
So started to to write how we want to do
it, why we want to do it.
So we began to write lots of text because
in unions we like to read and write lots
of text. So we try to convince each other,
bring more people.
And
how to do it also on the technical point
of view.
And
then we had a new a new VM and we chose
Globenet,
one of the non-profit organizations I
presented before.
to host this uh virtual machine and uh it
hosted a few a few unions and uh
a few partners uh non-free non-profit
organizations uh who have a partner like
um well it's French never mind.
Globenet back then was also famous for its
NOLOG service.
It was a Internet service provider with
RTC, I think that's the name, you know, on
the phone, it was pretty slow.
Yeah,
but it was
Uh free uh besides uh the code itself.
And uh and at the start it was it didn't
have uh as it's same said didn't have any
log. Once a law change, so that's actually
why we this uh this organization made it,
but um at the at the beginning there were
really no logs.
Um and uh it's still working. Uh I still
have my email address back there and uh
if uh if you already signed my key you
maybe noticed it because uh that's one of
the addresses uh that are uh of part of my
identity.
Um in this years I was also started to get
involved in Debian and uh okay, s s this
is the old uh design, but uh in twenty or
ten we we made a new design back then uh
of the website and that's how I met uh
more more Debian people.
And the story goes on and goes on and goes
on and then
we were more people, there were more
activity because
the web activity grew up and we started to
say, wow,
small virtual machine is too small, so we
need a bigger one.
And we started to think, yes, we need to
buy our own server of physical machines.
And we started to design again a new
infrastructure with different virtual
machines for DNS, mail, mailing list, web
databases, etc.
And um so my way to from uh
syndicalism to sysadmin led me to to
actually uh to actually change job.
Uh so uh after twenty years as uh as a
teacher um I tried um
uh
I learned uh a lot uh via um via my union,
via syndicalism and I lost uh I learned a
lot um on um on software by programming
and uh doing some sysadmin work and I
became uh uh sysadmin as a uh begin by day
job and I
joined uh a small company in France uh uh
that is using Debian.
Uh we are providing Debian for uh on a on
a thousand computer for one hundred
clients about and um
And then well, after a year or two, I
joined another syndicate because I was not
in a public service anymore. I was in the
private sector and I was looking, wow, I
still need a union. Now I'm working in the
private sector.
I I think I need a union even more.
And I joined another syndicate.
It's called Solidaires.
And it's part of the same group of
Solidaires, a previous union I was part
of. And
last year I became an elective
representative of my co-workers at work.
So Solidai big union, big well, it's many
unions together. And Solidaires is my new
My new union. And that's
so I started in a new union and I'm back
in the new union.
That's it. So looking back, as a teacher I
chose a union that is
organized horizontally. And
because I were we were aiming at
emancipation that had lots of sense for in
in the school. And that led me to Debian.
And we were aiming uh aiming B to do a a
universal operating system and we're still
aiming uh at it and we're still doing it.
And that led me to become a system
advisator, so also to work with that, and
then uh to union again to defend uh and
help my uh my coworkers to defend
themselves. So even if we uh uh Sympaism
is aiming at revolution, well maybe we
didn't manage to do it, but uh managed to
do uh I guess uh uh a tour on myself and
uh even if it's not uh on a socialist
point of view, and maybe on a geometrical
one.
That's it for me, dear annoyers.
Do you have any questions?
Thank you, Torfil.
Thank you for your presentation.
I'd like to know if you have any
coordination with the CNIL or the APIL
Association.
Yes, actually not maybe not with own
unions, but with
the other non-profit organization.
I think Globenet is
a one as a one digit in the APIs, so it's
one of the ten first members of APIL.
And
many of these organizations are actually
part of the Of um of these uh groups uh
for uh free software and um and other
actions.
Thanks.
Uh you said that Debian is unpolitical or
I apolitical, yeah.
I don't think so. Yeah, neither do I.
I think nothing which is in the public can
be apolitical.
Yeah, I I kind of agree with you, but um
yeah I'm okay if if someone says
otherwise.
I I don't want to fall there. Maybe maybe
it yeah, you you want to uh mic back?
Maybe it's a special German experience
that nothing is apolitical.
Thank you for that.
So what about this geometry thing?
The geometry. Yeah, okay. You know, a
revolution, when you make a cylinder,
it's the same on the other side.
So I started with syndicalism and doing
Debian stuff and going back to
syndicalism. Yeah, that's it. Thank you.
Any more questions?
If not, we thank you again, Dofik.
Thanks to you.