PhD Thesis on Software Obsolescence
From January 2023 to June 2026 I conducted a PhD thesis in Computer Science, at Lyon 1 Université Claude Bernard, under the supervision of Aurélien Tabard, in the research teams Limites numériques and SICAL at the LIRIS lab.
My PhD thesis manuscript, entitled Software obsolescence: analysis and remediation strategies is available, together with related work and publications, in section PhD Thesis of this site.
Publications and prepublications
- Software Obsolescence: analysis and remediation strategies Edlira Nano. PhD thesis. Juin 2026. [pdf]. Permanent link : theses.fr.
- Producing software obsolescence: the case of Android OS Edlira Nano, Léa Mosesso, Nolwenn Maudet, Aurélien Tabard. Submitted in February 2026. [pdf].
- L’obsolescence, modèle économique du capitalisme numérique Edlira Nano and Jeanne Guien, in Capitalisme numérique, book chapter, to appear at C&F Éditions, 2026.
- Obsolescence paths: living with aging devices. Léa Mosesso, Nolwenn Maudet, Edlira Nano, Thomas Thibault, Aurélien Tabard, ICT4S 2023 - International Conference on Information and Communications Technology for Sustainability, June 2023, Rennes, France. [pdf].
- Digital Obsolescence. Edlira Nano, Doctoral symposium of ICT4S 2023 - International Conference on Information and Communications Technology for Sustainability, June 2023, Rennes, France. [pdf].
Research reports
- Predictive policing in France: against the opacity and the discrimination, the need for a ban. Edlira Nano and Félix Tréguer, January 2024, La Quadrature du Net. Available in english and french on HAL.
- Investigation: in Marseille as elsewhere, digital infrastructures are taking over the territory. Edlira Nano, Le nuage était sous nos pieds, La Quadrature du Net, November 2024. Available in english and french.
All of my research publications are available on HAL or on ORCID.
Invited talks
- The production of software obsolescence: the case of Android OS. Talks at the seminar Politiques environnementales du numérique, Centre Internet et Société, Paris, April 2024; seminar Lowtech, Université de Technologie de Compiègne, June 2024; seminar of the Phenix team, Citi Lab, INSA, Lyon, March 2025.
- Study of the maintenance and longevity in Debian OS. NetGouv 2024, annual days of the working group Gouvernance et régulation d’Internet of Centre Internet et Société, CNRS, Paris, May 2024.
- Designing for obsolescence: the case of smartphone SoCs. Conference at the Free Silicon Conference (FSiC) 2024, Sustainability session, Paris, June 2024.
- Social, environmental and territorial impacts of digital infrastructure: the case of Marseille. "L’empreinte environnementale du numérique en débat" annual day, Centre d'études sur les médias, les technologies et l'internationalisation (CEMTI), Université Paris Cité, Saint-Denis, April 2025.
- Social and environmental impacts of digital technology in Marseille, inaugural conference for the RESPIRE course, Université d'Aix-Marseille, Marseille, September 2025.
Research service
- Programme committee member of Undone Computer Science 2026 conference.
- Peer review for the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2025.
Workshops, walks and other event organizing
- I organize and animate workshops about digital self and collective defense, about security, about freeing digital life, (un-GAFAM-isation) for everyone, workshops about coding or digital education for children, workshops about repairing computers, and other events related to digital freedom. You can contact me for everything related to this subject, I would love to help if I can.
- I co-organised three Technopolice art exhibitions (in Avignon, 2020 and in Marseille, 202O and 2024) and three festivals on surveillance and the impacts of datacenters: festival Technopolice 2022, festival Technopolice 2023, festival Le Nuage était sous nos pieds 2024. I am interested in organizing again, do not hesitate to share similar projects with me ;).
- I organize surveillance mapping walks and talks: we walk and talk while analysing public surveillance cameras, how they are used by the police and surveillance agencies, and how they shape our public spaces and lifes. We eventually map them in OpenStreetMap, and discuss how to circumvent surveillance. Future surveillance walks are usually announced on the public agenda of la Quadrature du Net. Do not hesitate to contact me for organizing new ones together.
Podcasts, conferences and media articles as author or coauthor
- Anatomie de l'obsolescence: pourquoi nos appreils meurent si vite ? podcast AZERTY, May 2025, in french.
- Les limites planétaires et l'IA, podcast L'IA en question, January 2025, in french.
- Discussion on my research work on sustainability of Debian OS, discussion with the Debian community, MiniDebConf Toulouse, November 2024, in english.
- Olympiades du cyberflicage, article dans le journal CQFD n°218, mars 2023.
- Contre la technopolice, passons à l’offensive !, La Quadrature du Net, AOC média, 23 septembre 2022.
- Technopolice: one year of activism, conference, LibrePlanet 2021, in english.
Articles, books and projects I participated
- Technopolice : la surveillance policière à l'ère de l'intelligence artificielle, Félix Tréguer, October 2024, Divergences editions.
- « Fini de jouer ». Entretien sur la sécurité dans les cercles anti-Jeux olympiques et paralympiques Paris 2024, Myrtille Picaud and Matthieu Adam, Métropoles, 34 | June 2024.
- Les stratégies cartographiques des membres de la plateforme Technopolice.fr, Collectif du Préludde, Mappemonde, 137 | March 2024.
- Des espaces communs face à l’imposition de l’espace public : la résistance organisée de Technopolice contre la vidéosurveillance, collectif du Préludde, Géocarrefour [Online], 97/1 | 2023.
- Techno-luttes : enquête sur ceux qui résistent à la techologie, Fabien Benoit et Nicolas Celnik, septembre 2023, Seuil editions, in collaboration with Reporterre.
- Marseille’s battle against the surveillance state, an MIT Technology Review article about the Technopolice campaign against police surveillance technologies in France and in particular in Marseille, June 2022, in english.
- Technopolice : défaire le rêve sécuritaire de la safe city>. Claire Richard, Louise Drulhe, July 2021, 369 editions.
- Les Yeux Carrés, Laure Massiet du Biest, Louison Assié, short film, 2020, INSAS - Bruxelles.
Other scientific work
- MassChroQ: A versatile tool for mass spectrometry quantification. Benoit Valot, Oivier Langella, Edlira Nano, Michel Zivy. Proteomics, vol. 11, issue 17, September 2011.
- Proof nets and unit-free *-autonomous categories, master 2 thesis at MPRI (Master Parisien de Recherche en Informatique), under the supervision of Lutz Strassburger at INRIA, Saclay, 2009. (pdf).
- The incremental monadic work, master 1 thesis, under the supervision of Roberto Di Cosmo at the Preuves, Programmes et Systèmes PPS team, in Université Paris Diderot, 2008 (pdf).
- Some theoretical fundamental questions regarding the masses in quantum physics, internship undergraduate report under the supervision of Bruno Machet, at the LPTHE, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique des Hautes Energies, in Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 2003 (pdf).
- MassChroQ user manual, manpage, FAQ and masschroqML scheme are all available here.
- Basic information on licenses and collaborative software development, laboratory information report regarding the free and open source code licences and some collaborative developing tools at Inserm, 2016 (pdf).
- Optimisation de programmes parallélisés de calcul scientifique, conférence aux Journées CNRS ProDev 2018, 2018 (pdf).
- MassChroQ, a complete tool for mass spectrometry-based proteomic quantification, Poster at the Final COST meeting : Plant Proteomics in Europe, 2011 (pdf).
Software projects
For details on these projects see my Programs page.- MassChroQ, a free and open source software for quantification of mass spectrometry data. I was in charge of the project from 2009 to 2012, and responsible of the versions 1 and 2 releases.
- MaDada, a free and open source plateform for freedom of information access (FOIA) requests. I worked for the project from 2020 to 2023.