= What exactly do you do professionally?
Very briefly, developing a company, FTPress, that specializes in the online press — for the moment, that is, because things are moving so fast that it might not be doing that any more in a few months time. The idea of FTPress is to create professional media, each specialized in an economic area, such as health, cars, digital pictures, human resources and logistics. Each medium deals with the economic, technological, political and social aspects of a sector being changed by the arrival of new technology and the Internet. The first one was Internet Actu, set up at France's National Centre for Scientific Research in February 1996, followed by Pixel Actu (February 2000) and eSanté Actu (May 2000). We began with written products, but we're now focusing on multimedia, including TV programmes in the near future. FTPress also sets up media for outside customers.
= How do you see your professional future?
I see my professional future as a professional "here and now." If you'd asked me that two years ago, I would have said that through working with the Internet (as head of information systems at the CNRS) and writing things about the Internet (as editor of LMB Actu), I was dreaming of creating an Internet start-up. But I was wondering how to do that. If you'd asked me the question a year ago, I would have answered that I'd made the jump, was all set and had told my bosses I was leaving, to go off and create FTPress. I just didn't want to stay where I was any more. I was becoming bitter. I wanted to start my own company or else take a year's sabbatical to do nothing. Today, I'm fully involved in the firm. I feel I'm living some of the stories we read in the press about start-ups. It's hard to do physically because it's all growing so fast. So I see my future on the beach, without the Internet, relaxing with my wife ;-)
= What do you think of the debate about copyright on the Web? What practical suggestions do you have?
It's a valid debate. Some people, often those hiding behind the authority of an institution that ought to respect copyright, don't respect it and have no qualms about putting their names to articles written by somebody else. At FTPress, we more or less follow the guidelines of the GPL (a public licence used as a basis by Linux for free software). Our material can be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes, with the source mentioned of course. The authors of these articles are paid at a standard rate, have journalist status and are also given stock options in the company. This stake in the firm's activity and its value brings the journalist's pay up to the level for an article written for a given publication. But FTPress no longer pays authors extra if the article is sold to a third party for their own use. I think this is a solution to the problem as far as the press is concerned. But it's a complex issue with many aspects and no single answer.
= How do you see the growth of a multilingual Web?
I don't know how to answer that, except with a truism like "Everyone will keep their own language, with English as a language of exchange." But do we really believe all the world's people are going to communicate in every senses? Maybe. Through written or oral machine translation systems? It's hard to imagine having in the near future the means to translate nuances of thought unique to a given country. We'd have to translate more than the language, and set up bridges to convey feelings. Unless everthing is standardized by globalisation. So I think the real issue is a multicultural Internet.
= What is your best experience with the Internet?
When we passed the 10.000 subscribers' mark for LMB Actu, at the beginning of 1998.