---
sheet_format: 1.0
id: 2024-08-maci-108
title: "Les IA java se microprofilent sur les homepages dégooglelisées"
title_en: "Java AIs micro-profile themselves on de-Googled homepages"
speaker: Erwan Rougeux
with: [Horacio Gonzalez (Clever Cloud, host), Antoine Sabot-Durand (SCIAM), Florentin Dubois (Clever Cloud)]
date: 2024-08-02
event: "Message à caractère informatique #108"
place: "online / studio"
format: podcast
language: fr
duration: "56:08"
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY
slides: null
topics: [international growth, sovereign cloud, africa, microprofile, rag, ai regulation, self-hosting, home automation, unraid]
source: "Summary written by Claude (AI) from the local Whisper transcript, with statements attributed to Erwan by local identification of his voice only (other speakers are not identified). Not a verbatim transcript; check the recording before quoting."
review: reviewed
review_date: 2026-10-22
---

# Les IA java se microprofilent sur les homepages dégooglelisées

**In one sentence:** Recorded on 18 July 2024, right after episode 107: Erwan Rougeux explains Clever Cloud's international strategy (partners, local currency, no "Prometheus bringing fire" to Africa), argues for guard-rails against cognitive bias in AI, and shows his self-hosted home: Homepage, Pi-hole, Calibre-Web, Unraid.

## TL;DR
Second half of the recording session of 18 July 2024, with the same guests as #107: Antoine Sabot-Durand (SCIAM), Florentin Dubois (Clever Cloud) and Erwan Rougeux, host Horacio Gonzalez. Asked about Clever Cloud's international growth press release, Erwan describes a strategy of trusted partners, offers adapted to each country and deals in local currency, starting with Morocco. Antoine presents MicroProfile and the MicroProfile AI initiative he helps steer (SmallRye LLM, a CDI layer over LangChain4j), with a RAG prototype on banking regulation. The regulation debate follows: Erwan argues for guard-rails against cognitive biases baked into training data. The last part is self-hosting: Erwan's Homepage dashboard, Home Assistant savings on gas, Pi-hole, Calibre-Web (presented by Antoine, used by Erwan at the Mission laïque française), Linux 6.10 by Florentin, and Erwan's Unraid server.

## Human stake
- **For whom:** companies and developers in Morocco, Egypt, West Africa and South-East Asia who want a cloud bound by data-protection rules like their own.
- **What is at stake:** paying for one's infrastructure in one's own currency, and not being treated as a market to conquer.
- **The documented choice:** he says the strategy is to sign deals in local currency, dirhams in Morocco for example ([3:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=193s)), and to go in as a technology partner rather than "Prometheus bringing fire to Africa" ([5:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=338s)); both are stated goals, not results.

## Erwan's key points
- He says Clever Cloud's aim has always been a sovereign European cloud, and that its product, "largely mature and acclaimed", must now find international customers: not the GAFAM way, but through strategic partners, trust and a technological sharing ([1:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=100s), [2:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=132s)).
- First horizon: Morocco, with announcements planned for Devoxx Morocco; then Egypt, West Africa (where he says he worked a lot before) and South-East Asia. The strategy, he says, is to sign deals in local currency, for instance Moroccan dirhams where most providers only bill in dollars, so clients are spared their currency's volatility ([2:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=160s), [3:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=193s), [3:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=231s)).
- He argues that acculturation matters because "we do not code the same way everywhere": language and culture condition us, and the diversity of viewpoints is a richness for building products that are international and locally adapted, in a win-win approach ([4:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=271s), [5:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=305s)).
- "Only an African can understand an African problem": he says Clever Cloud does not go to Africa like Prometheus bringing fire, but with a technology built to protect its own data, in countries that have GDPR-like laws (Morocco among them) but no offer to match ([5:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=338s)).
- He recalls lawyers who, in Git's early days, committed every change to the law so that anyone could follow a text with `git blame` ([21:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1266s)). He calls generative AI thrilling and a little frightening, the old pharmakon, remedy and poison at once; its questions are societal, political and legal, like every industrial revolution, and he cites Wizards of the Coast laying off graphic designers in favour of AI: a wave to surf without drowning ([23:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1394s), [23:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1417s)).
- On AI regulation, he answers "a bit of both": no brake on innovation, but guard-rails to accompany a transition in which jobs will change. Above all, he argues, the AIs we train must not carry cognitive biases: a medical chatbot that ingested US textbooks repeated their bias about African-American patients feeling less pain, "which is completely false"; self-driving cars' sensors are not calibrated for every skin colour ([26:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1570s), [26:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1591s), [27:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1635s), [27:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1677s)).
- He presents Homepage (gethomepage.dev) as his self-hosted dashboard: plugins talk to his services' APIs, FreshRSS feeds him the international press his job requires, all on one page, protected by Authelia and Keycloak. It apparently replaced Netvibes, which he had used since 2005 ([31:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1874s), [32:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1940s), [33:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1984s)).
- His whole house runs on Home Assistant, with ESP32 boards he built himself; by tuning a PID on his gas underfloor heating, he says he saved about 30 % of gas over the year. Cheap connected plugs from Chinese marketplaces leak data to unknown servers, he warns: reflash their firmware. Self-hosting lets you "de-GAFAM" yourself; his Pi-hole blocks about 30 % of his DNS requests ([33:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2005s), [34:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2049s), [36:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2200s), [38:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2290s), [39:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2355s)).
- At the Mission laïque française, he says, the librarians built with Calibre-Web an international library of Creative Commons works; he reads on a Kobo flashed with KOReader, over OPDS, so his libraries follow him on every device when travelling ([42:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2572s), [43:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2615s)).
- He runs Unraid on a ten-year-old server with 70 TB of disks, 8 TB of SSD cache and 256 GB of RAM: two parity disks instead of RAID 5, mixed disk sizes, ZFS datasets, Docker and KVM virtual machines hosting his Kubernetes nodes, a Coral TPU for person detection on his cameras. Home automation alone is ten services (Home Assistant, ESPHome, Grocy, Assist); such weekend projects, he argues, train you on new technologies and save "an insane amount of time" ([47:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2873s), [49:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2965s), [52:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=3138s), [53:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=3181s), [54:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=3287s)).

## Outline
- [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=0s) Short introductions, same guests as the previous episode: Antoine (Java Champion, CDI, consultant at SCIAM), Erwan (VP international growth, Clever Cloud), Florentin (network and automation, Clever Cloud).
- [1:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=100s) Horacio asks about the international growth press release. Erwan: sovereign European cloud, partners and trust, not the GAFAM way; Morocco first, Devoxx Morocco; Egypt, West Africa, South-East Asia; deals in local currency.
- [4:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=271s) Acculturation: we do not code the same way everywhere; "only an African can understand an African problem"; GDPR-like laws without a matching offer.
- [6:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=395s) Antoine on MicroProfile: Spring Boot versus Java EE/Jakarta EE, the 2016 initiative, specs for telemetry, fault tolerance, health checks; implementations (Open Liberty, Payara, TomEE, Quarkus, Helidon), native compilation with GraalVM.
- [11:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=703s) The MicroProfile AI initiative: he and a colleague (a Spring AI contributor) end up steering it; no spec yet, "it moves too fast", so a framework: SmallRye LLM, a CDI layer over LangChain4j.
- [14:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=868s) Naive RAG works, text only. Why Java rather than Python: industrialisation and cost control. A prototype for a bank: a bot answering questions on banking regulation with references. Misuses of AI for deterministic tasks.
- [17:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1059s) Antoine's planned Devoxx demo: a RAG over board-game rules and forums. The civil and penal codes, case law; Erwan recalls lawyers committing law changes to Git for `git blame`.
- [21:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1287s) Antoine: SCIAM's mathematicians and PhD students work on limiting hallucinations; a non-deterministic engine for management apps "is not a good idea".
- [22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1373s) Uncensored local models (a Dolphin Mixtral 8x7B, likely Erwan's); Erwan on the pharmakon and Wizards of the Coast: an industrial revolution to surf, not drown in. "Maybe it is just a fad"; Horacio's question on AI regulation.
- [26:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1570s) Erwan: guard-rails, jobs, cognitive bias; the medical chatbot and self-driving cars.
- [28:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1720s) Another participant: trying to regulate is necessary even if it later looks derisory; anticipate social issues (minimum income, intellectual property); do not leave the power to the giants who run the models.
- [30:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1852s) Erwan presents Homepage: plugins, FreshRSS, international press, Netvibes, Authelia and Keycloak.
- [33:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2005s) Home Assistant integration; ESP32 boards; 30 % gas saved with a PID; the MacGyver side; another participant prefers open APIs such as Netatmo's.
- [36:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2200s) Chinese IoT gadgets leaking data; reflashing firmware; Horacio: the loop closes with the Chromium extension of episode 107.
- [38:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2290s) Self-hosting to de-GAFAM: Unraid, Kubernetes, Pi-hole and its 30 % of blocked DNS requests.
- [40:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2419s) Antoine presents Calibre and Calibre-Web: browse your e-book library from the web, OPDS, Kobo readers plugged into your own store, "de-Amazonise" yourself.
- [42:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2572s) Erwan: the Creative Commons library at the Mission laïque française, CBZ and M4B audiobooks, KOReader on Kobo, libraries that follow him on the road.
- [45:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2702s) Florentin on Linux 6.10: Rust kernel modules on RISC-V, new CPU and GPU support, btrfs improvements; a light release.
- [47:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2873s) Erwan on Unraid: the old 70 TB server, parity disks rather than RAID 5, TrueNAS as backup at his parents', ZFS datasets, Docker, KVM, Kubernetes in VMs, Coral TPU.
- [53:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=3181s) Ten services for home automation; Grocy, Assist, consumables tracking; the dishwasher analogy (likely Erwan's); closing.

## Notable quotes
> "Notre idée n'est pas d'y aller comme certains de nos confrères GAFAM ont pu le faire." — Erwan Rougeux, [2:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=132s)
*"Our idea is not to go there the way some of our GAFAM colleagues did."*

> "Je reste intimement convaincu qu'il n'y a qu'un Africain qui peut comprendre le problème africain." — Erwan Rougeux, [5:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=338s)
*"I remain deeply convinced that only an African can understand the African problem."*

> "Le plus important, c'est de s'assurer que les IA qu'on programme n'ont pas des biais cognitifs." — Erwan Rougeux, [26:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1591s)
*"The most important thing is to make sure the AIs we program do not have cognitive biases."*

> "Il y a quand même une grosse fuite d'informations en HTTPS qui part en direction de la Chine sur des serveurs que tu ne connais pas." — Erwan Rougeux, [37:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2222s)
*"There is a big leak of information over HTTPS heading to China, to servers you do not know."*

> "30 % de ma connexion internet sert juste pour de la pub ou du tracking." — Erwan Rougeux, [39:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2355s)
*"30 % of my internet connection is used just for ads or tracking."*

## Questions this answers
**Q: What is Clever Cloud's international strategy, as Erwan described it in July 2024?**
A: A sovereign European cloud looking for customers abroad through strategic partners and trust, with a technological sharing rather than a GAFAM-style landing, and deals in local currency, such as Moroccan dirhams, to spare clients their currency's volatility. Morocco first, then Egypt, West Africa and South-East Asia ([1:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=100s), [2:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=160s), [3:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=193s)).

**Q: What is MicroProfile AI / SmallRye LLM?**
A: Antoine explains that the MicroProfile community, within the Eclipse Foundation, opened an AI initiative in early 2024. Rather than a spec, his team builds SmallRye LLM, a CDI adaptation layer over LangChain4j: declare an interface, get an LLM client; naive RAG already works ([11:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=703s), [13:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=802s)).

**Q: Should AI be regulated?**
A: Erwan answers "a bit of both": no brake on innovation, but guard-rails to accompany the transition and, above all, to catch cognitive biases in training data, as with a medical chatbot that repeated a textbook bias about African-American patients. Another participant adds that leaving the power to the giants who run the models would be a mistake ([26:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1570s), [27:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1635s), [29:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1784s)).

**Q: Which dashboard does Erwan use for his self-hosted services?**
A: Homepage (gethomepage.dev), with plugins connected to his services' APIs and FreshRSS for the international press, protected by Authelia and Keycloak, with a Home Assistant widget; he had used Netvibes since 2005 ([31:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1874s), [33:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=1984s)).

**Q: Can home automation really save energy?**
A: Erwan says he saved about 30 % of gas over a year by tuning a PID on his underfloor heating and anticipating the sun on his large windows with Home Assistant; he cannot say how long it took to pay for the installation ([34:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2049s), [35:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2112s)).

**Q: Why choose Unraid over RAID 5 or TrueNAS?**
A: Erwan says he has little time: Unraid uses two parity disks, accepts disks of different sizes, keeps its configuration on a USB key, places files between SSD cache and platters by rules, and runs Docker and KVM natively. He keeps a TrueNAS machine as backup ([48:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2918s), [49:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=2965s), [51:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwIRvVpgUY&t=3072s)).

## Mentioned
Clever Cloud, SCIAM, Devoxx Morocco, Devoxx France, Morocco, Egypt, West Africa, South-East Asia, GDPR, GAFAM, MicroProfile, Jakarta EE, Spring Boot, CDI, Quarkus, Helidon, GraalVM, Eclipse Foundation, Spring AI, SmallRye LLM, LangChain4j, ChatGPT, Mixtral, Wizards of the Coast, Homepage, FreshRSS, Netvibes, Authelia, Keycloak, Home Assistant, ESP32, Netatmo, Unraid, Kubernetes, Pi-hole, Calibre, Calibre-Web, OPDS, Kobo, KOReader, Mission laïque française, Creative Commons, Linux 6.10, Rust, RISC-V, btrfs, TrueNAS, ZFS, Docker, KVM, Coral TPU, ESPHome, Grocy, Assist, Horacio Gonzalez, Antoine Sabot-Durand, Florentin Dubois