Loïc Dachary
Encyclopedia
Loïc Dachary has been a free software
developer and activist in France
since 1987. Dachary currently contributes to Free Software projects and acts as president of the Free Software Foundation in France. He is a speaker for the GNU Project
and the April association
.
based hardware, and Dachary led a Unix System V
port using the GNU Compiler Collection
. When the project was completed, he took a sabbatical in 1989 to create the GNA, a non-profit group for the development and distribution of Free Software. Dachary went back to development for Tic Tac Toon and Agence France-Presse
(AFP) where he learned C++.
In 1995 he founded the Ecila search engine which was acquired by Tiscali
and discontinued in 2001. After two years dedicated to the FSF France, Dachary worked for INRIA on RFID software in 2003. Starting with Mekensleep in 2004, Dachary wrote poker related free software, which was published as part of the PokerSource project. In 2007 he was hired by OutFlop, a startup specialized in poker software services based on PokerSource. In 2011 he became a Free Software freelancer and worked on XiVO and cardstories.
or the GNU Compiler Collection
). The Internet was difficult to access at the time and he became a known dealer, welcoming visitors in need of an update. After working on the Lectra project and because of his intensive use of GCC, Dachary created the GNA (Gna's Not Axis) non profit in 1989.
Although the original goal of GNA was to develop Free Software, it started as a news and mail provider. The connectivity to the a news and mail provider in Washington, D.C.
was provided by Agence France-Presse
(AFP) over a half-used satellite link. In 1990 GNA provided over 200 individuals, non profit organisations and companies with mail and news feeds.
GNA kept distributing Free Software on magnetic tapes. Visitors would walk to GNA offices during working hours with a tape and wait for the software to be copied to it. Dachary enjoyed chatting with them while waiting for the copy to finish. Compiling from the sources was difficult and Dachary packaged pre-compiled binaries for the Motorola 68000 family, x86 and SPARC
. He left tapes at his computer book store, Le Monde en "tique" who sold them to his customers.
Richard Stallman
occasionally visited France and met Dachary when he started to spread free software. During his year at GNA Dachary took advantage of Richard Stallman's presence in France to organize conferences at École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers
, Paris 8 University and his former school École Pour l'Informatique et les Techniques Avancées.
, a French Free Sotftware NGO, to whom he donated their first server, hosted at Ecila's office.
platform. In an attempt to understand the project dynamics, he travelled to VA Linux offices and met with Eric Raymond
and Tim Perdue. He felt the team was too focused on in-house interactions to welcome an external contributor. However, he became familiar with the published code base and when VA Linux started to use proprietary software, he created an alternative platform using the latest Free Software code base published: GNU Savannah
. In early 2001 Dachary secured the funds to buy hardware for the Free Software Foundation
offices and moved to Boston to install them. Late 2001, when VA Linux asked him to assign copyright for his contributions, Dachary published an article explaining why it was time to move away from SourceForge
. In 2002, Dachary gradually delegated his responsibilities to GNU Savannah contributors and Free Software Foundation staff and retired in 2003.
and Dachary took part in the process by creating FSF France (renaming GNA publication number 20010027 in Journal Officiel ) and serving as the first vice president of FSF Europe. In addition to supporting the growth of GNU Savannah, FSF France assisted French developers and companies with GPL compliance. With Bradley M. Kuhn
, executive director of the Free Software Foundation at the time, Dachary worked the first contract of the new GPL Compliance Labs for a French governmental agency. His ongoing interest in enforcing Copyleft
licenses led to a few visible outcome such as the publication of C&CS by Orange and SFR
, and the court case involving Free but most of it is kept confidential. In 2009 Dachary joined the Software Freedom Conservancy
board of directors.
.
compromise created tensions in the governance. Early 2004 Dachary worked with Mathieu Roy to set up GNA! using the same policy and software, but with a different decisional process. As of 2010, the maintainers of Savannah and GNA! overlaped and worked as a network administrator for both.
Although centralized forges
such as GNA! are popular, Dachary is increasingly drawn to distributed hosting. He collects machines and hosting facilities under the umbrella of FSF France and runs ganeti
based clusters on them. Dachary helps projects such as the GNU Compiler Collection
, OpenChange, Software Freedom Conservancy
and Freenode
by providing and maintaining machines on this infrastructure. In late 2008 he created an amateur datacenter (codename microdtc34) in a seven square meter room in the center of Paris with Laurent Guerby.
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
developer and activist in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
since 1987. Dachary currently contributes to Free Software projects and acts as president of the Free Software Foundation in France. He is a speaker for the GNU Project
GNU Project
The GNU Project is a free software, mass collaboration project, announced on September 27, 1983, by Richard Stallman at MIT. It initiated GNU operating system development in January, 1984...
and the April association
April (French association)
April is an association for the promotion of Free Software in the French-speaking field. April maintains close relationship with the Free Software Foundation and translated the philosophy section of GNU Project.- Important dates :...
.
Career
Dachary started as a C and lisp developer in 1986. In 1987 he was hired to teach Unix and programming at Axis. In 1988 Lectra launched a 68k68k
The Motorola 680x0/m68000/68000 is a family of 32-bit CISC microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors...
based hardware, and Dachary led a Unix System V
UNIX System V
Unix System V, commonly abbreviated SysV , is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by American Telephone & Telegraph and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, termed Releases 1, 2, 3 and 4...
port using the GNU Compiler Collection
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
. When the project was completed, he took a sabbatical in 1989 to create the GNA, a non-profit group for the development and distribution of Free Software. Dachary went back to development for Tic Tac Toon and Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...
(AFP) where he learned C++.
In 1995 he founded the Ecila search engine which was acquired by Tiscali
Tiscali
Tiscali may refer to:*Tiscali, an archaeological village of Nuragici people, in Sardinia, Italy, notable because it was completely inside a huge cavern*Tiscali SpA, a telecom company based in Italy*Tiscali TV , multiple uses...
and discontinued in 2001. After two years dedicated to the FSF France, Dachary worked for INRIA on RFID software in 2003. Starting with Mekensleep in 2004, Dachary wrote poker related free software, which was published as part of the PokerSource project. In 2007 he was hired by OutFlop, a startup specialized in poker software services based on PokerSource. In 2011 he became a Free Software freelancer and worked on XiVO and cardstories.
GNA
When employed by Axis in 1987, Dachary offered copies of free software on magnetic tapes (such as EmacsEmacs
Emacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively...
or the GNU Compiler Collection
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
). The Internet was difficult to access at the time and he became a known dealer, welcoming visitors in need of an update. After working on the Lectra project and because of his intensive use of GCC, Dachary created the GNA (Gna's Not Axis) non profit in 1989.
Although the original goal of GNA was to develop Free Software, it started as a news and mail provider. The connectivity to the a news and mail provider in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
was provided by Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse is a French news agency, the oldest one in the world, and one of the three largest with Associated Press and Reuters. It is also the largest French news agency. Currently, its CEO is Emmanuel Hoog and its news director Philippe Massonnet...
(AFP) over a half-used satellite link. In 1990 GNA provided over 200 individuals, non profit organisations and companies with mail and news feeds.
GNA kept distributing Free Software on magnetic tapes. Visitors would walk to GNA offices during working hours with a tape and wait for the software to be copied to it. Dachary enjoyed chatting with them while waiting for the copy to finish. Compiling from the sources was difficult and Dachary packaged pre-compiled binaries for the Motorola 68000 family, x86 and SPARC
SPARC
SPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....
. He left tapes at his computer book store, Le Monde en "tique" who sold them to his customers.
Richard Stallman
Richard Stallman
Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
occasionally visited France and met Dachary when he started to spread free software. During his year at GNA Dachary took advantage of Richard Stallman's presence in France to organize conferences at École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers
École Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers
Arts et Métiers ParisTech is the French leading engineering school in the fields of mechanics and industrialization.The school trained 85,000 engineers since its foundation in 1780 by the Duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt....
, Paris 8 University and his former school École Pour l'Informatique et les Techniques Avancées.
Nineties
In 1990 Dachary took a secondary role in GNA as his friend Hugues Lafarge became president. In 1996 he met with the founders of AprilApril (French association)
April is an association for the promotion of Free Software in the French-speaking field. April maintains close relationship with the Free Software Foundation and translated the philosophy section of GNU Project.- Important dates :...
, a French Free Sotftware NGO, to whom he donated their first server, hosted at Ecila's office.
Savannah
Dachary returned to a more active role in non profit work in 2000 when he wrote code for the newborn SourceForgeSourceForge
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
platform. In an attempt to understand the project dynamics, he travelled to VA Linux offices and met with Eric Raymond
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...
and Tim Perdue. He felt the team was too focused on in-house interactions to welcome an external contributor. However, he became familiar with the published code base and when VA Linux started to use proprietary software, he created an alternative platform using the latest Free Software code base published: GNU Savannah
GNU Savannah
GNU Savannah is a project of the Free Software Foundation initiated by Loïc Dachary, which serves as a collaborative software development management system for Free Software projects. Savannah currently offers CVS, GNU arch, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, mailing list, web hosting, file...
. In early 2001 Dachary secured the funds to buy hardware for the Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
offices and moved to Boston to install them. Late 2001, when VA Linux asked him to assign copyright for his contributions, Dachary published an article explaining why it was time to move away from SourceForge
SourceForge
SourceForge Enterprise Edition is a collaborative revision control and software development management system. It provides a front-end to a range of software development lifecycle services and integrates with a number of free software / open source software applications .While originally itself...
. In 2002, Dachary gradually delegated his responsibilities to GNU Savannah contributors and Free Software Foundation staff and retired in 2003.
Copyleft compliance
In 2001 the Free Software Foundation established a presence in EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and Dachary took part in the process by creating FSF France (renaming GNA publication number 20010027 in Journal Officiel ) and serving as the first vice president of FSF Europe. In addition to supporting the growth of GNU Savannah, FSF France assisted French developers and companies with GPL compliance. With Bradley M. Kuhn
Bradley M. Kuhn
Bradley M. Kuhn is a free software activist from the United States.Kuhn is currently Executive Director of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Until 2010 he was the FLOSS Community Liaison and Technology Director of the Software Freedom Law Center . He previously served as the Executive Director of...
, executive director of the Free Software Foundation at the time, Dachary worked the first contract of the new GPL Compliance Labs for a French governmental agency. His ongoing interest in enforcing Copyleft
Copyleft
Copyleft is a play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work...
licenses led to a few visible outcome such as the publication of C&CS by Orange and SFR
SFR
SFR is a French mobile phone company. It has over 20 million customers, and provides over 4.6 million households with high-speed internet access...
, and the court case involving Free but most of it is kept confidential. In 2009 Dachary joined the Software Freedom Conservancy
Software Freedom Conservancy
The Software Freedom Conservancy is an organization that provides a non-profit home and infrastructure for free/open source software projects. The conservancy was established in 2006. As of June 2011, the conservancy had 26 member projects, including Boost, BusyBox, Git, Inkscape, jQuery, Samba,...
board of directors.
EUCD.INFO
In late 2002, Dachary became concerned by the lack of protest against the European Copyright Directive that was about to be transposed into French law. Instead of acting in the name of FSF France and because the problems were not limited to Free Software, he launched the EUCD.INFO initiative. After six months of full time lobbying, he hired Christophe Espern to work for FSF France and delegated his responsibilities. Dachary has not play an active role since, although he keeps in touch through his friend Jérémie Zimmermann, Christophe Espern's successor, co-founder and spokesperson of La Quadrature du NetLa Quadrature du Net
La Quadrature du Net is a French advocacy group that promotes the digital rights and freedoms of citizens. More specifically, it advocates for the adaptation of French and European legislations to respect the founding principles of the Internet, most notably the free circulation of knowledge...
.
GNA! and hosting
Late 2003 the GNU SavannahGNU Savannah
GNU Savannah is a project of the Free Software Foundation initiated by Loïc Dachary, which serves as a collaborative software development management system for Free Software projects. Savannah currently offers CVS, GNU arch, Subversion, Git, Mercurial, Bazaar, mailing list, web hosting, file...
compromise created tensions in the governance. Early 2004 Dachary worked with Mathieu Roy to set up GNA! using the same policy and software, but with a different decisional process. As of 2010, the maintainers of Savannah and GNA! overlaped and worked as a network administrator for both.
Although centralized forges
Forge (software)
A software forge is a collaboration platform allowing collaborative software development over the Internet. A forge platform aggregates a set of applications with integrated Web interfaces, and generally hosts multiple independent projects...
such as GNA! are popular, Dachary is increasingly drawn to distributed hosting. He collects machines and hosting facilities under the umbrella of FSF France and runs ganeti
Ganeti
Ganeti is a virtual machine cluster management tool developed by Google. It uses either Xen or KVM as the virtualization platform, LVM for disk management, and optionally DRBD for disk replication across physical hosts....
based clusters on them. Dachary helps projects such as the GNU Compiler Collection
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
, OpenChange, Software Freedom Conservancy
Software Freedom Conservancy
The Software Freedom Conservancy is an organization that provides a non-profit home and infrastructure for free/open source software projects. The conservancy was established in 2006. As of June 2011, the conservancy had 26 member projects, including Boost, BusyBox, Git, Inkscape, jQuery, Samba,...
and Freenode
Freenode
freenode, formerly known as Open Projects Network, is an IRC network used to discuss peer-directed projects. Their servers are all accessible from the domain name [irc://chat.freenode.net chat.freenode.net], which load balances connections by using the actual servers in rotation...
by providing and maintaining machines on this infrastructure. In late 2008 he created an amateur datacenter (codename microdtc34) in a seven square meter room in the center of Paris with Laurent Guerby.