Ludovic Gilbon Application 2010

About me

 * My name is Ludovic GILBON,
 * I am secretary of a LUG (freesoftware, opensource and others things, you know eh ?),
 * I live in Orléans (near Paris, France),
 * and my life has changed in 2005 when I met XMPP/Jabber.

How I met your Jabber
In fact, I did not expect anything : for me, instant messaging was something dominated by closed protocols. Obviously, this was not satisfactory. But, during a trainee period in which I had to develop a webchat, I discovered the existence of XMPP. At first, I was shy, a little cold. Ok, XMPP is a cool thing but... how to use it ? How replace the dominant closed IM protocol in France ? How to popularize this open protocol ? Then I discovered that I don't have to install a server for my friends or my family : public servers has existed. So, in 2007, I created my first XMPP account, this one : [xmpp:ludovic.gilbon@jabber.fr ludovic.gilbon@jabber.fr]. Since I try to convert many people to Jabber with success... or not, but I'm getting better.

XMPP/Jabber in my life
Maybe it's the biggest problem for my family and friends : I can't stop talking about Jabber, trying to explain them why it is bad to use a closed protocol. I can't spend a week (a day ?) without talking about Jabber, without thinking about all the things XMPP has brought to me and... without hosting a conference...

My involvement : Evangelism
Here is my involvement : hosting conferences about Jabber. I am very oriented about the IM aspect of XMPP and I would like people to use a communication tool, not a "partitioning tool" ! (see lgilbon on slideshare, more slides of passed conference to come). The target of my conferences is the general public, because I think that the public have to know the IM tool they used is closed and commercial. Maybe they use XMPP without know it (Gtalk) and they need to know that Jabber is synonym for IM (and MSN not !).

Motivation
In a general way, I fight for open formats that allow people to communicate, work together, exchanging brief. So XMPP is obviously dear to my heart.

My biggest disappointment about XMPP ?
Remember the french tenth anniversary of Jabber (2009-02-28) : photo. Look closer, around 15h30 : I was supposed doing a little conference between Nicolas Vérité and Thierry Stoehr but... my daughter was about to be born, so...

Conclusion
I think I can help the XSF and especially the Communication Team with my knowledge of the field (IM seen by the general public).

Contact and other information
To contact me, you can use :
 * [xmpp:ludovic.gilbon@jabber.fr ludovic.gilbon@jabber.fr],
 * or visit the room of my LUG : [xmpp:cenabumix@chat.jabberfr.org?join cenabumix@chat.jabberfr.org?join],
 * my e-mail : [mailto:ludovic.jabber(at)yahoo.fr ludovic.jabber(at)yahoo.fr].
 * Company : individual (my application is not related to my day job or my company)