Interview by Eoghan O Neill

Interview with Godefroid Chapelle (BubbleNet – bubblenet.be) 13th Oct. 2005
Eoghan O Neill (EON): Firstly, about your company – are you the only employee?

Godefroid Chapelle (GC): Yes, but I’m not even really an employee.

EON: A consultant perhaps?

GC: Yes, it’s more like that. We have this thing we can do in Belgium, and I suppose you can do it in Ireland too, where you manage a company just to supply the business capital and keep the finances separate from your private ones. So if there is any problem with the company I won’t lose my house for my kids. Up to now though, I am on my own.

EON: When did you start the company?

GC: The company started in ’99.

EON: And have you been working with Zope and Plone since then?

GC: I have been working with Zope ever since – Plone was not on the radar at that time – with more or less success. Let’s say more success in the last few years, the first years were hard.

EON: When did you join the Zope Europe Association (ZEA)?

GC: It is difficult to say – officially I joined in June 2004. I was working with them previously, but as I said the situation for my business was not very good at the time so I was not able to pay the fee. Actually I have been working on Zope Europe projects since October 2003. I have been very much involved because I introduced Xavier Heymans, who is a manager in ZEA, to Paul in January 2003. So I was the one who convinced Xavier to jump on the open source wagon, and so on. I have hybrid status in Zope Europe. I have been looking at the process and pushing it for some time, obviously with Paul and Xavier and other people. I was in a special situation that I could not be officially part of the network because of the money problem I mentioned, but I have been working on Zope Europe projects since its beginning. When Paul arrived in Europe I remember having a lot of discussions with him to see how all those things could fit.

EON: With your own company, what kind of customers do you work with?

GC: Well, I have had many kinds of customers – I can tell you about the ones where it went wrong or I can tell you about the ones where it’s going well! At the very beginning I really had some problems, so I would work with anyone who had the stupid idea to work with me! These were very small private organisations at that time. Since I joined the Zope community in June 2002, the business went in that direction. My first contracts were subcontracts from other Zope companies. Then later that gave me enough presence in the community that I could switch to my own companies, together with subcontracting. Currently I am working with two cities, NGOs, and I will be working with private companies again, but not ones as small as before. Being part of Zope Europe has helped a lot, both personally and the company.

EON: Do you prefer to work with public bodies, such as cities and NGOs?

GC: Not specifically, no. I prefer to work with people who understand why they want to work with open source, appreciate the risk they take and are realistic about it. If I meet someone in a private company that understands that it’s perfectly ok for me. I think it’s a bit more natural for those public organisations to work with open source. I like to work with people that understand that open source has a cost, that it’s not just a free-hanging fruit for them to pick! I think it’s more that open source is less of a risk for people in an NGO or public body.

EON: Have you worked with customers through the Zope Europe Association?
GC: Sure, I have done that twice. I was part of the Oxfam project; I was very much involved – that’s actually how I got started with Zope Europe in Oct 2003. For 6 months I was spending more than half my time working on that –even three quarters – so that was a really big project for me. Then I have been working on two smaller projects last August and September. Obviously Zope Europe has not had that many projects, so it’s impossible to have had many projects with them, right! But I have found work through Zope Europe a few times.

EON: Can I ask you what you did in the Oxfam project?

GC: I worked with Paul trying to manage the project, gathering the requirements with him, and trying to coordinate that with the various technical partners. I also developed some code myself.

EON: Do you feel it is important to your customers that you are an open source company?

GC: Well, the way I present myself is very clear – I’m all for open source. One of the things that has helped over the past few years is that I’m not trying to convince people anymore, but just saying who I am and if they don’t buy it they can go elsewhere and I don’t bother to run after them. That’s just not acceptable for me, I get stressed. I think the people that have chosen me really appreciate the fact that it’s an open source company and the fact that it’s really involved and participating in the community.

EON: Do your customers look for Zope and Plone specifically?

GC: This is something that is happening, definitely. Another factor in the company’s improved situation is that Plone has made its name, which means that now although I am not very good at sales and marketing – but getting better – the people that are coming to me have been convinced by the product itself and are looking for services in the area. Most of my customers are people who come to me because Zope and Plone – and mainly Plone is the name that people recognise. My name is visible in Belgium; it may be the only visible name around the Plone community, or one of the very few if there are others. People come to me because they specifically want Plone and Zope work.

EON: Do you do work to promote the Plone brand?

GC: In a way, yes. I have said I am not very good at this type of work, but each time I have the chance to speak about it I do so. I am really happy to help people who want to allow me to do this. In other words, to give a concrete example, there is one person I am working this that is very enthusiastic about the whole open source thing and wants to advertise it a lot and I am with them each time I’m needed. I didn’t feel secure enough until now to actually promote it. The other activity I am involved in is trying to advance the Plone Belgium User Group, which is a type of marketing, but not specific marketing in the usual way, more like word-of-mouth.

EON: So you are one of the organisers of the Plone Belgium User Group?

GC: Yes, I am one of the organisers and one of the pushers, yes.

EON: How do you find new customers?

GC: That’s the nice part of this currently; most of the new customers come by themselves, because as I have said Plone has really made a name. More and more people know about Plone and when they look for a service provider in Belgium we are one of two organisations that are findable if you use Google. The other one is of a very different technical level, which means we are not competing in any way – they are much more about graphic design, basic sites and things like this, which is perfect because it’s not the work I want to do. And so let’s say that people that need technical expertise in Belgium naturally come to me, which is very nice. That’s one part of my customers and the other part of my customers come through friends and relations that have heard of my work, maybe not specifically Plone, but know that I work on websites. People that I know are aware of my Zope expertise, and when they hear that someone needs something they send them to me. I am not fishing for customers though, I don’t think I am in the situation that I need to do it, but this is more a personal affair.


EON: What are the products and services you offer to your customers?

GC: The one I push the most is what I call coaching, when the client needs some development. This is for organisations that are big enough to have some IT people internally. In this case the idea is to work on the project together, and what I mean by together is two people on the same computer, so when I leave they really understand what I did. That is the product I am pushing the most, it’s the one that I feel is best. I also do external development, where people come to me and they want this and that and I develop it and put it up. I do not host projects, I send them to hosting companies that I work with, where I can manage and maintain the site. Another type of product I have been doing is training, not in an official way, so it’s not a big part of my turnover. I’m also advertising a pure Python development service, but there is not much demand for that in Belgium.

EON: When you develop a system for a customer, do you release it as open source?

GC: The code is available obviously, but it really depends. If it releasable I release it. What I mean by this is that Plone is flexible enough itself and the code that is generated specifically for a customer is of not very much interest to the rest of the community. If people want the code it is available in a version repository on the web. Quite often I show it to people who need some explanation and I can say “go to this address and the code is there.” So it is opened but is not actually released code. On the other hand, the module I developed for the Oxfam project – as I said I was helping on requirements but I also developed some code – is in the release process. Back at the last Plone conference I was surprised to hear that far more people than I would have thought are actually using it. This is something I am in the process of learning – until now the code was available in the Plone repository, but now I am making more official releases to make it easier for people to install it and use it. That is something quite new for me, even if the idea is not.

EON: What does the package that you are releasing do?

GC: This is a package that allows the user to compose content in aggregate. That’s the main use case; the idea is that if you are in a section of the site, quite often you have a subsection homepage and it’s quite nice to compose content from the various documents in that subsection rather than have to write it by hand. It is something we call a “Viewlet” that formats some of the content of the other pages and composes it all on a specific page. That’s the main use case – it’s called CompositePack.

EON: What is the main benefit you offer your customers?

GC: The main benefit they get is someone that is really involved in the community. I have learned a lot from the practices of the community, so I can reuse those practices. I have gained a lot of expertise from working with people in the community and I have participated in a lot of sprints. Sprints are somewhere that you learn a lot, because you meet the other developers and see how they work. Quite often we work in the same way I was explaining that I coach some of my customers. I think this is added value for the customer, and the other added-value comes from a deep knowledge of Plone and Zope. These technologies are not very well documented; they are very powerful but with a steep learning curve. If the customer works with me they do not have to tackle this learning curve, or I can guide them along it.

EON: Do you have problems with variations in workload in project-based work?

GC: As I said the situation for my company was really bad, so I have come very far. I am starting now to see the moment when I will have too much work, it’s quite clear. I am thinking more and more about how I will expand the organisation in one way or another. I have not taken a final decision, but I have been quite shaky about the idea of having employees. I have been an employee myself, and for a lot of reasons I think there is something structurally wrong in the relationship between the boss and the employee – about responsibility and motivation and so on. The other point is that I don’t want to be stressed every month to be sure I can pay the people, who will always expect me to find the money to pay them. This is something I want to avoid, so I am thinking about other ways of expanding where people are more responsible for themselves. It is more like a partnership than a relationship where one person makes the decisions and is also responsible for too much. That is the direction I am looking in and it’s really something I want to explore. In the coming months I will need to find people to work with so I need to find a solution.

EON: So would the situation be to work with other independent consultants?

GC: That would be one system, the other is to grow the organisation to include associates in some way or another or change the legal structure somehow. I have heard about an idea that I like a lot, which is the Mondragon cooperative in Spain. They seem to have found a way to align the interests of the organisation with the interests of the individuals. One of the ideas, if I understood it, and I really need to explore it more, the part that seduces me is that someone who joins the organisation can leave it easily. To me this is a very important point because it helps in reducing peoples fears. If you can reduce people’s fears they work better together. Knowing that if there’s a problem you can get out easily, you are less likely to make a problem in the first place in my opinion – because you are less anxious about your investment. So this a direction I want to explore, I’m not sure that it’s the exact model I want to use but the idea of having people that can trust each other because of how the organisation is structured interests me a lot.

EON: What do you see as the main problem that open source businesses face?

GC: The main problem now is that most of us are coming from the pure technical world. We don’t know how to manage a company, we don’t know how to manage customers and for some of us we don’t even know how to manage projects. So the fact that we are pure technicians is a problem we face. The other problem is that most of our products are not known enough so people feel they take a big risk in working with us. That is something we need to overcome – to gain the trust of people so they know that they face some risk as with any IT project, but not more risk than with other products. This is somewhere I think that organisations like Zope Europe or the Plone Foundation – and I think they are quite complementary really – are very important to augment the visibility of the products, in this case Zope and Plone. I think this is an open source problem everywhere – people in the street know about Apple and Windows, some of them have heard about Linux and Firefox, but that is all. Obviously this doesn’t help the businesses; this is a communication issue, and it’s one of the problems we need to solve.

EON: Within the ZEA, do you have a particular speciality?

GC: I think I am called in the case where there is code needed in the JavaScript side, when the scope of the project extends beyond the server side. I don’t think that I have a special status in the organisation though. Anyway, I am working on making this part my speciality but I don’t feel it’s so much the case already.

EON: You also work on the management side in Zope Europe?

GC: Not officially, the fact that I share an office with Xavier – we are in the same building and are both French speaking implies that we talk a lot, but definitely the management is done by Xavier and Paul. I am not managing it officially in any way, I just share a lot of discussion with Xavier, which gives me the chance to give my opinion and maybe shape part of the process, but not officially. Something I do on a volunteer basis, when we have one of those meetings like the Plone conference where we meet a lot of people, is I really sell Zope Europe Association. I think in this case I am a good seller, in finding new partners to expand the Association itself.

EON: As for your company size, do you find it difficult to tackle projects on your own?

GC: As I have explained, small projects for small organisations are not a problem. In the other situations I try to be more like a coach, meaning that in this case my role is not to tackle big projects. Obviously since I am on my own I cannot take on big projects, so this is one of the reasons it is interesting for me to be part of Zope Europe, where I can be part of bigger projects like the Oxfam project – which of course I would be totally unable to provide myself.

EON: What problems did you experience with the Oxfam project?

GC: I suppose you may have heard of some – we had to learn how to control the customer expectation. At the beginning we were too often asking them what they wanted when we should not have been. Often they did not know what they wanted, so they were imagining what the best solution would be and often they were wrong. The other problem was that we had some project management weakness. This did not help tackling the first problem of customer expectation management. But we learned a lot, on the other hand, about how to manage this type of project. It was a very positive project, but we had some difficulties.

EON: Does your company contribute code to the open source community?

GC: Up to now I have not contributed specific products from my company, but I have long been contributing to Zope 2, Zope 3, Plone, Archetypes, etc., never very big parts, more often refining and debugging this and that. So my contributions are not like 100 lines of code, but more helping improve the whole product.

EON: Does this work help your business?

GC: I can only contribute code if I know the code I am working on well enough. This obviously helps my business because when I then have to work on a project I am far better. The other aspect is that other people get a chance to see what I can do, and this helps me to secure subcontracts. Zope Europe are far happier to give me work when they can see what I am doing, rather than if I was not contributing. Getting a reputation in the community is very important, which means also that other Plone companies will send me projects that for whatever reason they cannot handle. This has happened quite a few times and the projects have not materialised in the end, but eventually one of them will materialise. I think it is definitely helping my business. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it allows me as an individual to gain more self-confidence. This helps business because I approach the customer differently and can more often secure the customer.

EON: Does your work with other open source groups, such as the Plone Belgium User Group, help your business?

GC: Sure, this major city contract I got was related to the first Plone Belgium meeting we had. I have found other small contracts from people involved with the Plone Belgium community. Again, this is very new. The first meeting happened one year ago, we have had a second and the third is happening in the coming weeks. It’s not a major source of business, but it is certainly a way to be well known and recognised in Belgium. It is definitely helping. A lot of the people using Plone in Belgium are not service providers themselves, which means that if they are contacted by someone who needs help they obviously cannot do it because it’s not their business, and then they send the customer to me. So it is the sum of many small factors, as with many things in life.

EON: What do you feel are the main benefits of ZEA membership?

GC: It’s difficult to say what the main benefit is, but perhaps it is formalising the fact that I am part of the Plone community. Because Zope Europe is being lead by someone like Paul that has a worldwide reputation, and because the member companies include the Plone founders, being one of the pioneers involved with ZEA formalises the fact that I am part of this process. That may be the biggest advantage, because as I am a one-man shop people can feel that it is a big risk to work with me because if something were to happen to me they would be left without a service provider. But this allows me to say “I am part of this process and if there’s ever a problem with me you can turn to other people.” Also, something that I think is really important is that Zope Europe is a non-profit organisation which gives the impression that though we need to make money to live, the main objective is not profit. Profit is of course one of the objectives we all have as we all want to feed ourselves and have a comfortable life, but it’s another way of assuring people they are not working with multi-dollar multinationals.

EON: What do you feel the strengths are that the ZEA has when competing with those large companies?

GC: I think it’s still too early to say we can compete with those large companies, because it’s still seen as a big risk in the IT shops to go with open source. It is changing though, but what I think the challenge is for Zope Europe is to gain recognition that this model of project management and software development is viable. This is why I am really selling Zope Europe to many people because part of the process is saying we are now 20, 25 or 30 companies and this is a clue to people that must compare us to others that we are not a transient organisation. When they are faced with five or six companies, as it was in the beginning, it is more likely that the organisation will not still be there in a year’s time than if we have 25 member companies. So I think that one of the strengths that we have, and will have, is that we are not a single company, and that for Zope Europe to go down means killing 20 companies – it means 20 different organisations making errors and so on. Obviously Zope Europe is one point of failure but as we (the member companies) are supporting Zope Europe it helps to keep them alive. Of course, we need Paul and Xavier to get money inside the organisation to make it work. I really think that’s one of the strengths. Zope Europe needs to stay independent of all the members also, to ensure that if one of us is dying the organisation will still be there.

EON: How is the work divided among the partners?

GC: This is something we are learning for now. As I said, one of the major lessons from the Oxfam project was the project management problem, which means we need to find out how to manage these projects correctly. Paul and Xavier are now putting stress on finding the right managers. Obviously it means that those people do more - the people they are confident in. I don’t think it’s a problem for now, Paul and Xavier have made it very clear that one of the objectives you should have in joining Zope Europe is to get some work through them, but it’s not the only objective. Maybe I’m wrong, and we’ll see how many people will resign at the end of the year when they have to pay the fee again. I think that finding work through Zope Europe is not the only objective people have when joining, and that there is some patience with regards getting work. I think also the way the partners have been selected by themselves first and then by Paul, Xavier and the managing partners implies that they understand that this is a long process, and that it will not happen in the course of a few months. It’s a bit too early to be very precise about this question.

EON: Is there a lot of communication among the partners?

GC: Maybe not enough, but there’s far more than there would have been without the Association. I have more communication with the other partners than companies outside of Zope Europe, obviously because we have this common objective. We are all primates and feel the need to be part of a group or band, this is somewhere in our brains even if we are not conscious of it! So there is definitely more communication with those companies, but I would be interested to know what some of the other companies feel about this because it is something we need to improve and find how to work. I saw an email recently saying we will be having the next Zope Europe meeting in the coming months and it is definitely needed – the face to face meetings are really necessary. We are just normal humans and many of us have not been using the media for a long time and still need face to face communication. The way I am talking to you on the phone, we have been doing this since we were very young so of course we can communicate in this way, but for some of the people it is still difficult to do it through the internet as we were not swimming in it from a young age. Obviously the younger among us do it far easier than the people like me who are older.

EON: What do you see as the main issues facing the ZEA?

GC: The main issue, I think, is currently that we lack resources. If we want to keep up with the current demand we are in trouble. We’ll need a way to get more money so we can pay to train the new people.

EON: Do you feel more partners are required, or do you feel the size is correct?

GC: Sure, I think we need to have more partners. As I said, for most of the partners it is still the first year, and we’ll see if they continue as members next year. I think it will be an interesting process and we’ll see by next January when people have to pay again because I think there will be some turnover. Some companies will leave and others will join, which is perfectly fine, but I feel we should be bigger.

EON: Do you feel as an associate partner your voice is heard?

GC: This is where my hybrid status makes a difference. I really feel my voice is heard but I speak a lot as you can hear!

EON: What do you feel a new company needs to have to join?

GC: Obviously this is a long process so they need to understand that. They need to have been in the business for some time, because business is difficult, so someone who has just started his own company for, say, 2 months I think is wrong. The other criteria is that because we sell ourselves as getting the Zope and Plone software to work, I’m not sure we want someone that we have not heard about just because they ask for membership. It’s not a question that there should be certification, but we need to have seen them in one way or another, contributing code or documentation or simply being present at the events that are organised. We need to trust them.

EON: how do you build trust with the other partners?

GC: we build trust by calling each other when we need some help. The other way is participation in sprints, where it is clear that we are really there to share some of our knowledge, experience and so on. Also there are the valuable discussions we have about what Zope Europe should be, where it should go and so on. And not just ZEA but the software itself; more and more Plone is becoming the brand, and is not polluted by let’s say old historical problems. Where we want Plone to go is also about building trust. I think one of the important factors is that most of us are in this for the lifestyle rather than purely to make money, that’s something that is difficult to formalise and is something that is subjective when we speak together.