...start. Can you just draw on this iPad Pro?
How did you get into code, at first?
You had, I would say a first career. I don’t know if it’s the good word but as an entrepreneur, and then you got involved in politics. When did you get this sense that maybe there was something to do with code and politics?
It was quite natural for you to get involved, for instance, in open source?
What do you mean? With the same words.
Rough consensus and running code.
When exactly are you getting involved in the IETF?
[laughs] You say that very early you had this sense that there was something in common between personal computers and Taiwan’s democratisation. When did you really get practically involved in that?
I don’t know how to say that, but trying to promote democracy through technical terms?
Yes, I think so.
You were immersed.
Can you explain what g0v is?
Yeah.
I think more and more of them do.
Yes. OK.
The idea is to put a global focus on transparencies in it?
I don’t think so.
It’s a lovely story.
Just a question on the side. Is that Frédéric Lefebvre who got in touch with you?
Because that’s an anecdote, but it’s really funny. When he was the spokesman of the government, well, no, he was Secretary of State at that time.
Yeah, it was years ago, maybe 10 years ago. He made an intervention in the HADOPI law, which was completely against the Internet.
For me, this guy is a mystery because I think he really changed, something changed. We had two months ago a big discussion in the parliament about a new law, digital law. He was one of the most precise and aware...
Can you tell me the story of g0v, when it was created before the Sunflower movement? But it was very active during the Sunflower movement. How did it happen exactly?
That was so bad.
Completely. This is a way to get more transparency in what you’re saying.
More reflectiveness. How do you get people involved in it?
Really?
That’s really interesting because, well, most hackathons in Europe it’s mostly coders.
That’s quite interesting. What did g0v do during the Sunflower movement?
Yes, and this was another question. The link between people in Taiwan and people in Hong Kong. At that time, I interviewed a developer in Hong Kong, and he said that they were inspired by what happened in Taiwan a few months ago.
That’s a common problem these days.
Yeah, completely. That’s quite fascinating, because this idea of documenting what’s happening in real time, it’s also a way to change the balance of forces, obviously.
Yes, I don’t know. [French] . OK. Sorry.
Because...
You just have to look at the projection.
In some sense, what is public has to be completely transparent. Is that also the idea?
How is it today? What do you do today? Do you have some examples or...?
[laughs]
Sometimes it can happen, yeah.
No, it’s perfect. It raises a lot of questions.
It’s true.
It raises two different sets of questions. The first one is that maybe because I was entrusted in politics even before spending a lot of time on the Internet I still believe that there are things that cannot be resolved by consensus. Is the idea of what you’re putting in place, maybe there should be a time for trying to get consensus, to have people talking with each other and sharing their point of view, but is there also a time for...?
I’m going to take a very French example. It’s the, how do you call that, work law?
The labor law, sometimes you have to decide whether you, for example, whether you think the legal, the labor week, how many hours, for example? Is it 35?
Yeah. Sometimes you have to decide between 35 hours a week or 48.
One of the question that this label raises is what should come first. Is it negotiation inside companies, or is it the national law?
