Meet our Airtime forum manager, Albert
Ever had a question or suggestion and posted in our Airtime forum? Remember those informative people who answered your question? They have been around for a while, but now officially been promoted as forum moderators. One of them is our main man in France, Albert, whom we asked a couple of questions, so that you can get to know him better. Meet a valuable member of our amazing Airtime community!
Salut! How did you get involved with the Sourcefabric forum?
Bonjour, it was back in the years when Sourcefabric proposed Campcaster (the ancestor of Airtime), about three years ago.
Do you work in the field of radio yourself?
Yes, I'm co-founder of the web radio NessRadio (an Airtime web radio), which was my first real web radio made with Airtime. It was also the beginning of a great story of hacking (Liquidsoap, essentially) to adapt Airtime to ours needs. I'm also a volunteer for a French non-profit FM radio in Montpellier in the South of France, Divergence FM, as animator, and administrator of LSM (Linux Software Meeting) 2013/2014 web radio (which is also an Airtime web radio hosted by Sourcefabric since July 2013). I have also installed Airtime and Rivendell solutions for a few French radio stations and web radios. More professionally, I'm also a network and system administrator of GNU/Linux and OS X.
What's your experience with the Linux community?
I'm an old man! I've been using GNU/Linux since 1995. I've created some live CDs (Ubuntu/Debian/Mandriva/FreeBSD) and published some articles in French Linux magazines. GNU/Linux is my primary system (now I have a OS X machine, too).
What's your favourite feature in Airtime?
Since the last version, it's linking shows. Overall, it's everything!
What would you like to have added to Airtime in the near future?
Three features in fact: A background playlist, the possibility to record live sessions (by the show master or the source show) and management of distribution rules.
In your opinion, where is Airtime going?
Over the last releases, Airtime has become increasingly usable in production. It is now easier to use than Rivendell, for example, which requires user training. I think it only lacks a few features to become a major automation application for web radios. Airtime is like a good wine, it improves with age!
What is your experience with the French Airtime community?
I think the community is not very large yet, although it has improved a bit since translations became available. But today many FM radio associations are looking for these solution. Airtime lacks only a few small improvements that would convince them to switch. In France we have 500 (non-profit) FM radio associations, and a lot of web radios, too. I'm trying to promote Airtime everywhere I can!
Anything else?
With the Nessradio team, we are preparing a box to simply configure and send a stream for non-IT people. Stay tuned to find out more about this idea, and to contribute or distribute!