---
sheet_format: 1.0
id: 2026-03-maci-157
title: "PostgreSQL, Redis et React"
title_en: "PostgreSQL, Redis and React"
speaker: Erwan Rougeux
with: [Horacio Gonzalez (host), Ludovic Dussart (Zatsit), Aurélien Hebert (Clever Cloud)]
date: 2026-03-10
event: "Message à caractère informatique #157"
place: "online / studio"
format: podcast
language: fr
duration: "58:48"
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc
slides: null
topics: [open source, databases, self-hosting, ai coding agents, shadow it, open science, right to repair, data leaks]
source: "Summary written by Claude (AI) from the YouTube auto-caption 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: spot-checked
review_date: 2026-10-18
---

# PostgreSQL, Redis et React

**In one sentence:** An episode of Clever Cloud's MACI podcast covering database news, developer tools and open source; Erwan joins from Hanoi and talks about self-hosted tools, AI-built electronics, open science (eLife) and the open-source car ECU Speeduino.

## TL;DR
Horacio Gonzalez hosts Ludovic Dussart (Zatsit), Aurélien Hebert (Clever Cloud database team) and Erwan Rougeux, who is recording from Hanoi after a conference there. Aurélien covers the out-of-cycle PostgreSQL 18.3 release, PgDog for sharding and the MySQL 8.0 end of life. Ludovic presents Podcasthon and Hellō (hello.coop). Erwan recommends BentoPDF, a self-hosted PDF tool, as an answer to shadow IT. He also describes an electronics project that Claude Code designed overnight, compares eLife's publishing model to open source, and presents Speeduino as an answer to paid car features. The group also talks about running AI agents in "YOLO" mode, AI-generated pull requests flooding open-source maintainers, data leaks, Redis 8.6 and the new React Foundation.

## Erwan's key points
- He describes himself as a "digital backpacker" who often works from a phone or an airport seat. He self-hosts BentoPDF on a small Clever Cloud instance (he estimates about 5 euros) so he can edit PDFs without uploading them to unknown online services.
- He argues that free online PDF sites are a form of shadow IT. He invites listeners to check where those sites really point (DNS, GeoIP). Drawing on his years working in education, he says that giving users a tool under the organisation's control makes them less likely to send data to such sites.
- He calls himself "pro-AI" and likes testing AI on poorly documented fields such as electronics. He describes giving Claude Code (with its Chrome plugin) about an hour of specs for a PID-controlled heat press, then letting it run overnight in an autonomous mode. It sourced the parts from datasheets, found an ESP32 board with a known library bug, proposed LVGL for the interface and wrote the code. The code needed only a few fixes.
- He tells the story of a project an AI rewrote until only about 1.6% of the original code was left, with the licence changed from GPL to MIT. He uses the Ship of Theseus to ask whether the project still descends from the original, and whether open source is heading for an "AI apocalypse" of clones of clones.
- He calls AI a "pharmakon", both poison and cure, and points to an article saying Claude Code found and patched 22 critical Firefox vulnerabilities. He also recalls the XZ backdoor, a critical open-source component maintained by one person and poisoned at the source.
- He says he owes a great deal to open source, which taught him by letting him read other people's code, and calls it "a foundation of our democracies". Recalling FOSDEM in Brussels, he praises the anonymous "shadow geniuses" who keep the internet running while tech celebrities get the attention.
- He presents eLife, shown to him in Vietnam by his former university professor. Drawing on his time in science, he says scientific publishing is a rigged, multi-billion-dollar business. He praises eLife for peer-reviewing papers and then publishing them free for everyone, and wants more open-science models of this kind.
- He criticises cars that ship with all the hardware but charge subscriptions to unlock features (he cites about 35 euros a year for automatic headlights). He presents Speeduino, an open-source engine controller he learned about from Mathieu of Please Open.it. He warns that insurers and manufacturers would likely object and that it is probably not legal in Europe.
- For the closing track he picks "Le Champ de roses" by the French reggae band Danakil.

## Outline
- [00:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=24s) Introductions: Aurélien (Clever Cloud database team), Ludovic (co-CTO at Zatsit), and Erwan, who is in Hanoi after a conference there.
- [03:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=215s) Ludovic presents Podcasthon (14–20 March), which pairs podcasters with charities and is opening to other countries this year.
- [04:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=288s) Aurélien explains the out-of-cycle PostgreSQL 18.3 release, which fixes regressions introduced by CVE patches, and the catalogue fix needed on self-managed 18.0–18.2 installs.
- [07:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=455s) PgDog, a PgBouncer/Pgpool-II alternative that promises proxy-level sharding (horizontal scaling), compared with Citus.
- [09:57](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=597s) MySQL 8.0 reaches end of life in April. Upgrade to 8.4 LTS, with a new LTS expected later in the year.
- [11:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=713s) Erwan presents BentoPDF: a self-hosted, responsive PDF toolbox where processing stays on the client, as an answer to shadow IT.
- [16:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=973s) Another participant recommends Inkscape for local WebP exports. Inkscape, GIMP and ImageMagick are compared.
- [17:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=1070s) Erwan's AI and electronics story: a PID-controlled heat press designed overnight by Claude Code, with parts sourcing, an ESP32 bug workaround and an LVGL interface.
- [23:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=1419s) The hosts discuss the risks of "YOLO" mode. StereOS, a minimal Linux built for AI agents, comes up, along with running agents in VMs without credentials and never giving them commit rights.
- [27:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=1635s) An AI rewrite that changed a project's licence, the Ship of Theseus question, and maintainers flooded with AI-generated pull requests.
- [30:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=1819s) AI as a pharmakon. Supply-chain risks from long chains of small PRs, the XZ backdoor, and the curl maintainer refusing contributions.
- [34:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=2049s) Is a project that refuses contributions still open source? Ludovic says yes, but agrees it loses the community lever.
- [35:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=2144s) Erwan on open source as a foundation of democracy, and on eLife as an open-science alternative to the publishing business.
- [40:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=2423s) "Work in the dark to serve the light" as a description of open source (likely Erwan), then Erwan on FOSDEM and the "shadow geniuses" who keep the internet running.
- [41:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=2490s) Ludovic presents Hellō (hello.coop), seen at API Days: SSO without the complexity of a full identity provider, compared with Keycloak.
- [43:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=2584s) Erwan on "DLCs for cars" (paid feature unlocks) and how locked-down car computers are.
- [46:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=2771s) Speeduino: an open-source engine controller with PID auto-tune that works on any motor with sensors, plus legal and insurance warnings.
- [51:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=3068s) Horacio presents bonjourlafuite.eu.org, which tracks French data leaks (Mondial Relay, the French athletics federation, CAF), and the scams that follow them.
- [55:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=3310s) Aurélien on Redis 8.6: performance work, streams and two new eviction policies.
- [56:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=3405s) React moves from Meta to the React Foundation under the Linux Foundation.
- [57:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=3450s) Erwan's closing track: Danakil, "Le Champ de roses".

## Notable quotes
> "j'ai pas envie […] d'envoyer mes PDF sur des services de shadow IT" — Erwan Rougeux, [12:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=735s)
*"I don't want to send my PDFs to shadow-IT services."*

> "pour moi c'est plus que du code l'open source, c'est une base de nos démocraties" — Erwan Rougeux, [35:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=2144s)
*"For me open source is more than code, it is a foundation of our democracies."*

> "C'est le pharmacon, c'est-à-dire que oui, l'IA, elle peut aussi empoisonner mais elle peut aussi soigner." — Erwan Rougeux, [30:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=1819s)
*"It's the pharmakon: yes, AI can poison, but it can also heal."*

> "C'est ces génies de l'ombre qui sont ces anonymes à qui on doit tout." — Erwan Rougeux, [40:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=2445s)
*"They are the shadow geniuses, the anonymous people we owe everything to."*

## Questions this answers
**Q: How does Erwan Rougeux handle PDFs while travelling without using online PDF sites?**
A: He self-hosts BentoPDF, a responsive web toolbox for splitting, merging, rotating and compressing PDFs, on a small Clever Cloud instance. He says processing stays in the browser, so files never leave his control. ([11:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=713s))

**Q: Why are free online PDF converters a security risk?**
A: Erwan calls them shadow IT. He suggests checking where they actually resolve and says organisations should offer users a controlled internal tool. He recalls children's data ending up online during his years in education. ([14:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=876s))

**Q: Can Claude Code design a hardware project on its own?**
A: Erwan describes giving it detailed constraints for a PID-controlled heat press and letting it run overnight. It built a parts list, found an ESP32 board bug and its fix, proposed LVGL and wrote the code. Only a few fixes were needed once the parts arrived. ([19:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=1184s))

**Q: Can an AI rewrite change an open-source project's licence?**
A: Erwan describes a case where an AI rewrote a GPL project until only about 1.6% of the original code remained, and the licence became MIT. Using the Ship of Theseus, he asks whether the result still descends from the original. ([27:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=1635s))

**Q: Is it safe to run AI coding agents in "YOLO" mode?**
A: The hosts recommend isolated VMs or minimal distributions such as StereOS, no credentials, and no commit rights for the agent. The database team says such access is simply forbidden on production systems. ([23:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=1419s))

**Q: What is eLife and why does Erwan like it?**
A: eLife peer-reviews scientific papers and then publishes them openly, free for anyone. Erwan compares this to open-source code review and contrasts it with what he calls a rigged, pay-to-read publishing business. ([36:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=2168s))

**Q: What is Speeduino?**
A: An open-source engine controller that uses a vehicle's existing sensors and offers PID auto-tune. Erwan presents it as an answer to paid car features and locked computers, with strong legal and insurance caveats. ([46:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmXYn5cJGDc&t=2771s))

## Mentioned
Clever Cloud, Zatsit, Podcasthon, PostgreSQL, PgDog, PgBouncer, Pgpool-II, Citus, MySQL, BentoPDF, pdftk, Inkscape, GIMP, ImageMagick, Firefox, Chrome, Claude, Claude Code, AliExpress, ESP32, LVGL, StereOS, AWS, XZ Utils, curl, VLC, eLife, FOSDEM, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, API Days, Hellō (hello.coop), Keycloak, Please Open.it, Speeduino, Tesla, bonjourlafuite.eu.org, Mondial Relay, Fédération française d'athlétisme, CAF, Redis, React, React Foundation, Meta, Linux Foundation, Danakil, Hanoi, Vietnam