Despite the heat, Caliopen has a lot to share with its community this summer!

Beta version

First, of course, we released a Beta version, which has been the conclusion of a continuous development effort over the past 2 years, and even more so in recent months. We were focused on bringing you a fully functional messaging tool: you can now use Caliopen on a daily basis – both on your computers and smartphone – to receive and send your emails, and your Twitter, and quite recently, Mastodon private messages.

Above all, your messages are groupes in a single discussion, regardless of the tool used to write to you.

If your cat writes to you from Twitter under the @Tapioca42 ID, then from Mastodon under the @Tapioca@mamot.fr ID, his messages (and your replies) will be classified in a single conversation inside Caliopen.

This is a first promise kept and – although there are still many messaging tools to include in this model – the foundation is there, the algorithms are working as expected, and the interface is great.

Interoperability

At the same time, knowing well that for the time being some services do not allow us to aggregate the conversations held there, Caliopen has been at the forefront of ensuring that the European Political Agenda takes into account that interoperability is mandatory: we are asking, together with la Quadrature du Net, the EFF and many others, for the mandatory opening of personal data to third party services.

We want the Internet to become what it should never have ceased to be, interoperability is the logical next step of the GDPR (which gives you the right to request all your personal data at any given time) and must allow you, if you wish, to leave a service without losing touch with those of your correspondents who remain there (by giving you the right to access your personal data at any time, this time).

Confidentiality

On the other hand, and because Caliopen’s goal remains to allow better confidentiality of digital exchanges, each message is now shown with a confidentiality index, which shows you how well you are protected from prying eyes. Although this index still needs to be greatly improved (and be brought with advices to better protect your privacy), once again we now have a reliable working base on which to build for the foreseeable future.

Now what?

At the beginning of June, the money obtained for 2 years from BPI France – and extended for 6 months by the sole support of Gandi’s registrar – ended, and our European subsidy application was rejected (under conditions that were dubious, to say the least, but nevertheless rejected). Our priority is therefore to seek new sources of funding, in order to be able to continue this project.

To this end, we have chosen to move forward in 2 simultaneous directions, planned for a long time but postponed until now, due to lack of time.

Association

First, quite recently, Caliopen has been incorporated as an association (under the French 1901 law) dedicated to the protection of privacy and the confidentiality of private communications. The legal announcement should appear quickly, and – in the long term – it is this association which will ensure the long-term evolution of Caliopen and will be in charge of the future federation of services using Caliopen, without neglecting other actions, always with the aim of improving digital privacy. A first action has already been voted, and Caliopen will join la Quadrature du Net’s appeal against the announcement made by the CNIL (French DPO authority) to grant a year’s delay to certain services for the strict application of the GDPR.

It is also this association that will now directly solicit the necessary funds to continue its development.

Partnership

At the same time, we are now actively seeking an industrial partner with whom to work to improve our tool.

Our objective in this context is to make Caliopen a non-commercial product (Caliopen is and will remain free software) but marketable, in the sense that services based on Caliopen should be economically viable. We firmly believe that these economic models exist, and that one day they will be enough to sustain the association – through membership fees – which will continue its work without having to obtain subsidies that are still very uncertain.

If your company is interested, do not hesitate to contact us : we remain open all summer long :)