Lionel Allorge elected new president of April

Paris 21 February 2012. Press release.

April is happy to announce the election of its new board1 which will be presided this year by Lionel Allorge.

Board Member since 2006, former Executive Secretary and Vice-President, Lionel Allorge joined April in 2000. He discovered Free Software through the texts and the conferences by Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation. He regularly gives lectures on Free Software during conferences and co-animates a course for the future lecturers of Free/libre topics. He also acts as the interface between the board and the Raising Awareness working group.

"Our capacity to renew April's decision makers while staying on the same course is a wonderful tribute to April's maturity, especially just after April's 15th birthday in the end of 2011.", stated Tangui Morlier, the association past President. "I am convinced that Lionel will bring a lot to our association as its new President. As for me, I shall remain active within April, especially by participating to its board"

"I wish to thank Tangui for all the work he did as President. I will work on continuing to develop April's actions at a time when new threats on Free Software users appear, such as ACTA, the European unitary patent or untrustworthy computing" said Lionel Allorge.

Beyond the change of President, the renewal of the board has seen the arrival of Magali Garnero, book shop owner, and of Jonathan Le Lous, innovation manager within an IT consulting firm specialized in Free Software.

April has been promoting and defending Free Software since 1996. More than ever, in this new year, April is on the front line to defend Free Software, which is always endangered by the excesses of the European unitary patent bill, by treacherous computing, by bundled sales or by ACTA.

Moreover, only a few weeks from the French presidential elections, April brought back its Candidats.fr service to question each candidate and their political programmes on their views on the digital world. As in 2007, we will be there to submit our questionnaire to those seeking the highest position: DRM, interoperability, patentability, education, research... all the subjects relative to Free Software and the digital society will be included.

We will also be keen to reinforce our ties with the community of associations, through the publication during the course of 2012 of a catalogue of Free Software that are adapted to associations' needs and uses, following the Free Catalogue's example.

About April

Pioneer of free software in France, April is since 1996 a major player in the democratisation and the spread of Free Software and open standards to the general public, professionals and institutions in the French-speaking world. In the digital era that is ours, it also aims to inform the public on the dangers of an exclusive appropriation of information an knowledge by private interests.

The association has over 4,900 members, using or producing Free Software.

For more information, you may go to the following website: http://www.april.org/, contact us by phone at +33 178 769 280 or through our contact form.

Press contacts:

Lionel Allorge, President and former Executive Secretary, lallorge@april.org +33 630 195 390

Tangui Morlier, former President and current Vice-President, tmorlier@april.org +33 681 880 298

Frédéric Couchet, Executive Director, fcouchet@april.org +33 660 688 931

• 1. The board was elected during April's general assembly on the 11th of February 2012