hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4641.txt

Episode: 4641
Title: Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE)
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4641/hpr4641.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:15:43 (official HPR transcript)

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4641, for 2026-05-18
Today's show is entitled, "Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE)"
The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 00:31:12
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "Ken interviews Peter van Ginneken who is chair of T-DOSE"
Hi, everybody. My name is Ken Fallon, and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
Today, I am happy to announce that I will be interviewing somebody about the T-DOS event,
which will be held on the 6th and 7th of June in Gelddorp, near Eindhoven.
And for those of you who don't know, it is the Technical Dutch Open Source Event.
And I'm interviewing Peter McGinnike.
Hi, Peter. Thank you very much for joining me today.
So, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and how you ended up being involved in this event?
Yeah, that's a bit of a sign. I still wonder sometimes how I did get involved.
Basically, I'm a civil engineer by trade, so not an IT person at all.
I did learn a bit of coding in school.
The latest language I learned was Turbo Pascal or something.
And I always did those assignments and I stopped short of writing code,
because other people are much better at it than I am.
My code never compiled.
But then again, I did get involved.
A mate of mine was deeply into embedded Linux.
And he was writing an article about how to buy a laptop without windows on it.
And he asked me if I could help him, because he didn't have time.
Could you call those shops and ask about possibilities?
And after doing that, he also asked me, well, could you write that part of the article?
Because, yeah, well, you talk to those people.
Well, I did.
It wasn't that hard to do.
It wasn't even fun to do.
And then before I knew it, the article got published and I got paid for it, which was nice.
Nice, yeah.
I could do very well with getting paid at that time.
And then I started thinking, what can I do on open source?
I was aware of the phenomenon of open source.
I wasn't really that much into it at that time.
When would this happen?
I knew it existed.
This was 2005 or something.
Yeah.
And, well, I got to thinking I can play games.
I mean, I can't code, but I can use stuff.
And he had an idea about starting a series of articles on gaming on Linux.
Yeah.
And we started cooperating on that.
We took turns writing articles about, well, basically, we went looking for games.
In the beginning, open source games were available.
Not many.
Not.
And there were a few commercial games available.
Yeah.
And what we would try to do was find a similar game, open source and commercial, and basically
install them, play them, compare them, and tell you if it was any good in the first place
and if it was worth spending money on.
And how much of a nightmare was getting it running, I imagine?
Yeah, sometimes.
Sometimes, some just worked out of the box.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Some, you really had to do something.
And we did that for about seven years.
Who were you writing for?
Linux magazine.
Dutch.
Ah, the Nederland.
Yeah.
With Klaas von Kind.
Yeah.
All right.
And we had fun doing it.
I learned a lot about writing, about making shorter sentences and all that stuff.
I didn't have a problem writing a sentence that ran across four lines.
No, no, no.
But apparently people have trouble reading that, so I had to learn to do that different.
But we were kind of ruthless in editing each other, and yeah, it was fun.
Only in the end, after about seven years, we noticed that the Linux gaming scene was really
starting to develop.
But when we started, it was really hard to find any commercial games.
Yeah.
And when we stopped, I think Steve alone had about a few thousand titles available.
Yeah, yeah.
And that was just one website, and there were many more.
So that was my start in open source.
I just, and then also I got pulled along to Fast M once.
Ah, the mecca.
I loved it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Every one I loved it.
The whole vibe, the atmosphere, the energy there, I like it.
I did some talks, and basically I did a lot on the whole track.
Yeah.
I've loved that most ever since.
And I basically haven't stopped going to Fasten.
I still go, and it's been maybe 10 years since I last seen a talk.
I do a lot of volunteering there, and I talk to a lot of friends and people I meet.
And it's a fun weekend every year.
Family stays at home.
It's a...
It's absolutely nuts.
Absolutely nuts, please.
Brussels is not too far away from my toes.
No, no.
Yeah.
It's easy to reach.
So that way I got into the community.
You start recognizing people when you come back.
I got dragged on to Tito's, which had started in 06 for the first time.
It would have our 20th anniversary this year.
And, hey, I know these people, or at least some of them.
And they start recognizing me.
So sooner or later, somebody asked me if I would mind helping.
And, yeah, well, why not?
Yeah.
And you just get involved.
And then people, some people, basically around Corona time, I think I started on the board.
At least I started to help organizing at around 2017 or something.
Yeah.
And a couple of years later, the chairman was thinking of retiring, Jeroen.
And I got really dragged into it.
And then I had to basically own up and then join the board.
And, well, I definitely wasn't going to be the treasurer.
And secretary, not really my thing either.
I have to be accurate at work.
So, well, chairman was basically the only seat left for me.
So you're chairman of the board.
Yeah, here I am.
And it turns out I'm good at nagging.
So that helps.
That, yeah, I think there's quite a lot of running an open source project, asking people
to do stuff is essentially the core requirement.
And I manage them and they promise you something and asking them again and maybe again.
Well, I get it.
Sometimes I need to be asked a couple of times, too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, T-Dose.
Is it T-Dose or T-Dose?
T-Dose.
Technical Dutch open source.
It's all English words.
Well, I was reading the name going, oh, that's a tea box.
And it's like a tea cozy.
Or no, not a tea cozy, but a tea.
You know, get the, you have the home water and you ask somebody to get the tea box that
you bring over the tea box.
It's a joke that's made sometimes.
You're hard to do it, Jim.
Anyway, I distracted you.
Carry on.
Yeah, well, so I got involved.
I really got involved after COVID because 2019 was a bit of a disaster year for us.
In that, um, last minute we heard we only got the venue for the Sunday, not for the
Saturday.
Wow.
And relations were getting, uh, yeah, worsening, getting worse slowly for a couple of years.
So that was the final drop in the bucket.
And we decided to, uh, to leave our former venue and to look for another place.
And we found one here in, uh, Geldrop, a local theater, multicultural, uh, place, multifunctional.
And where was it before that?
It was at the, what's that in English?
The University of Applied Sciences.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's close enough.
Yeah.
Polytechnic.
Uh, yeah.
Whatever you want to call it.
It was a great place, but they had some, they had new, uh, management and new management
didn't like us that as much as the old one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Can happen.
So we, we left and we organized a new conference in April, 2020, but that got canceled a bit.
Wonder why?
Obviamente.
And it took us until 2023 to, yeah, organize a new one.
And I had to, in basically summer 22, I started calling people for, Hey, we need to get this, uh, out of the moth balls and then, and start doing it again, which was hard, which was really a lot of nagging.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because people were, yeah, they were doing different stuff.
They had found different uses for that time.
Uh, a couple of guys, the guys that did the funding, most important, they had left a new job.
Uh, uh, moved on, uh, and had the timing more.
Uh, so it's at first, the first year we still had some funding.
We had sponsors left from the, the one that got canceled.
Uh, those vouchers got called in and, uh, that was okay.
And the year after that, it got kind of, well, maybe not forgotten, but, uh, it also didn't get done.
So we went through a couple of lean years.
We had basically from scratch, I had to learn how to raise funds.
Uh, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, this year, yeah, we, yeah, I'm getting the hang of it.
We're coming.
We're fairly confident that we're going to, uh, end up with a positive, uh, with something
left in the bank, basically.
But the event is free for participants, is it?
Uh, the event is free to, uh, to attend.
Yes.
Uh, so it's, yeah, we, we really, really rely on sponsors.
Wow.
We sell, we sell, uh, t-shirts.
We sell coffee mugs.
Yeah.
And the coffee mugs are getting to be a collector's item.
If you buy a mug, they're expensive.
Mm-hmm.
I forget what we, what the rate is this year.
We still need to finalize that.
But you get, once you get a mug, you get free coffee and tea all weekend.
Ooh.
You get free hotels, just need to buy the mug.
Fantastic.
Fantastic.
It works.
That's a good idea, actually.
Yeah, it's, it's a nice, uh, it's, yeah, we can't, uh, vacation on it, but it, it, it
helps pay the bills.
Super.
And that, that, uh, wafer fabric, am I pronouncing that right?
Is that, uh, that looks like a fantastic venue.
Uh, is it expensive?
Partly new building, partly, you know, textile mill.
Yeah.
Kilderup is an old textile town.
There used to be a lot of bills here.
Yeah.
The only one that's left, it's, uh, part of its museum.
There's a theater there.
There's a movie theater.
There's some, basically, I always call them classrooms.
Yeah.
The way, uh, where stuff gets done.
So what does the, what does the venue look like?
It's outside of Eindhoven.
How far outside Eindhoven is it?
Uh, oh, about five kilometers.
Yeah.
And there's, uh, there's a train connection from Eindhoven Central.
I saw, uh, not walk from the station.
So grand, grand.
That's even probably faster to walk.
Uh, plenty of parking.
Cool.
Pre-parking.
Uh, and so you arrive at the venue as a, as a noob first time.
And, uh, what can I expect?
The signs and you walk into a big, uh, theater room.
Do you need a badge or anything or register or anything?
You don't need to register.
You don't need a badge.
Just walk in.
Fostem type.
Yeah.
Basically it, uh, when your room and John Paul started it, Fostem was what they had in
mind.
Yeah.
And they were very, very enthusiastic.
They bought, I think they bought a thousand t-shirts to sell.
We still have some of those.
How many people tend to come?
Uh, heyday, it was, I think 400.
Yeah.
Maybe five.
Yeah.
Uh, we went back to 150 to 200 and we're climbing back out of the hole.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But that's, that's the whole thing after the whole COVID thing.
People are, are nervous.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We changed venue.
We changed season from October to, uh, to May and we've changed town.
Yeah.
And we stopped for three years.
Yeah, exactly.
Those three together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, you can start over.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a hardcore of, uh, of friends that will still be there, but everybody else, you
get the pullback in.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fantastic.
Yeah.
Word of mouth is still the best.
Uh, so what is Tito's?
What, what, what, what do you do?
Well, basically, like I said, it started off as, uh, not, not a spinoff, but, uh, it's
something inspired by, yeah.
They wanted, uh, they wanted, uh, Eindhoven is of course, uh, a hub of IT, uh, it's awesome.
For Eindhoven, we wouldn't have our, all the mobile stuff that we have now.
Uh, quite a lot of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, so there's quite a few people in this area that, uh, that do stuff with Linux, with
embedded, with open source in general.
Uh, so that's a logical base.
Uh, and basically we provide a space where people can talk about things that interest
them, where people can listen to people talking about things that interest them, and what people
can meet.
Yeah.
And we tend to see a lot of developers, and we tend also to see a lot of people getting
into a corner, buying a coffee, and, uh, just having, uh, serious talks, the whole way
tracking projects get started there.
Yeah.
Fantastic.
And I found my names, cause I, uh, A, I don't know him, and B, I'm so lousy at names.
Excellent.
Uh, people are of projects, I, they go in one year, out the other.
I saw on your website, I was going to ask you the question, like,
what type of talks that you get, but on your website, you have all the videos from previous
events, so you can actually have a look there at the talks.
So you're going for more, uh, uh, um, do you schedule the tracks then?
How many tracks do you have?
And, uh, we have two rooms this year for, no, it looks like we're going to fill them
for two days solid.
Uh, we have, I'm looking at it, I have 27 proposals, only some of them are also for stands.
So there's, there's booths by various projects from the, the fire software from Germany to
Apache to Limo Office to stuff like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So there's quite a few of those.
And then we have, uh, talks by, yeah, that's, there's a few nice names in there.
Cool.
I saw some on the, on the website already announced.
Yeah.
Uh, uh, let's see those 2025 news.
So we have, um, Emil Bock, open source by choice, sovereign by design, bookworm, how
you can start anything, Maya changing the cyber, Breno De Winter, sovereign, sovereign
entity, who done as in, uh, sovereignty, how, and, uh, Leonard Benshop, uh, fourth programming
language, Archer, Archer 72, one of our list is a big, uh, fourth guy.
Okay.
Yeah.
And, uh, Jeroen Bate is also coming.
He's probably doing the same talk he did at Enlug, uh, the other day.
Oh, cool.
Nice.
Uh, he was, we had him scheduled to do, he, there was, he had family coming out.
He even lived in France, uh, half the time and he couldn't make it because he had family
coming over.
And yesterday I learned that he, the family wasn't coming and he, uh,
sat with his wife and they discussed it and they're coming over this year.
So he'll be there on Sunday to hold his talk in person, which is even better than online.
Oh, cool.
And on Sunday, we, for the last three years, we've had, uh, the angry nerds podcast and
they will be there again, which is a whole bunch of people.
Or Breno is in them, uh, Jeroen is in them, uh, they're loose.
If you don't know, I'm a loser of nerds and they, they, they, they get together.
They, they, they talk about news and went a little and, uh, sweets.
Yes.
Yes.
I'm glad we, we, that we got that relationship established and, uh, and it's starting to
become a tradition.
Very good.
So how big is the, uh, is the venue itself?
So we've got two rooms, uh, tracks going on, hallway track.
What is there?
Food and facilities.
There is, uh, yeah, there's, uh, um,
the venue itself has its own bar selling.
Um, so if we only sell coffee and tea ourselves, but there's a bar in the back that sells Belgian
beers and, uh, whatever you would call it.
Check.
They do.
We do sandwiches as well.
They do a more elaborate kitchen.
Yeah.
So that's during the day and Saturday evening, we have a speaker's dinner where all speakers
are invited and anybody that's interested can come along.
If you, yeah, inform us in time that you want to come, uh, it's because we never know how
many people will be there, the sooner we know how much, uh, interest there is, the better
we know how much, uh, seats to, uh, to get how much food to buy.
Super, super.
And then it's basically, uh, uh, yeah, an Indian, uh, an Indonesian dinner.
Super fantastic.
Like, let me just, yeah, I know, but every, uh, every country takes their food and, and
it turns into something, uh, something different.
Uh, there's accessibility access, I presume that wheelchair access, new building shouldn't
be a problem.
Yeah.
Get there.
Any code of conduct with English and stuff.
Uh, yeah.
And, uh, a lot of people, so this is an English language podcast and a lot of people be nervous
about going to an event that's, uh, held by Dutch for Dutch people.
People all talks.
Um, if there's even one person in the room that doesn't speak Dutch, all talks are English.
Yeah.
I, I just need to remind everybody that I speak Dutch and, and the speaker is Dutch.
Well, we won't bother, but if, if anyone there says I have a trouble, problem understanding
in Dutch, I talk is in English.
And, uh, don't be embarrassed about all Dutch people can speak English better than you can.
So.
Various degrees of, uh, yeah.
Perfect.
You see, but we get ourselves understood.
Um, so we've got the stands, uh, general event, uh, on, is there any, um, issues with recordings,
going, doing interviews, taking pictures, code of conduct?
Um, well, if you have a problem, last year we had a photo, uh, photographer running around
and we also have badges available for people who, uh, didn't want to appear in photographs.
Love it.
Everyone.
And we'll try to turn the lens away a bit.
Super.
Yeah.
We'll ask everybody to abide by these, uh, courtesies.
Absolutely.
Talks will be recorded unless the speakers, uh, says the talk isn't, uh, suitable for recording.
It happens sometimes.
We have, uh, a couple of years ago, we had a talk about, uh, his university days and the,
the, the origins of, of, of hacking in, in the Netherlands.
Uh, there were some incriminating things in that talk.
It did not get recorded.
Uh, interesting.
That was it.
But it was a very nice talk.
Yes.
Yeah.
Any, uh, code of conduct thing, uh, where you can report issues or.
I have a code of conduct.
Yes, the organizers are very recognizable.
We are wearing bright yellow t-shirts.
Cool.
And, oh, and if not, go to the, the central, uh, what do you call it?
Stand information booth.
Yeah.
Information booths and, uh, announce, yeah.
Tell us what the problem is and we'll, we'll get somebody to you.
We, we have appointed people for that.
Yeah.
Fantastic.
I think we've, we've covered pretty much everything.
I'm very interested to go down and, uh, and see it.
Uh, I will be walking around with my microphone anyway.
If, if nothing else, I've, I've applied for a booth and a talk, but if there's, uh, too
many, if things are full, that's fine.
I'll just walk around with my mic and, uh, and interview the hallway track.
If that's okay with you guys.
Yeah.
Fine.
No problem.
Perfect.
Is there anything else?
You're talking to a fine with it.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, ask permission.
Obviously we have to do the, are you okay with creative commons CC by SA license?
And the joys of events like this is you don't have to explain that.
They just go, yeah, yeah.
I know what you're talking about.
I must say I'm shocked that it's, it's, uh, that I, this is actually the first year that
I've even heard about the event working in the Netherlands in it for the last 20 years.
So that, that's, that comes from working in a multinational company and not a Dutch company.
We have tried to, to, to, to get a message out there, but yes, stuff like this helps, uh,
Mastodon.
It's Mastodon is key.
It's, uh, it's fantastic.
Like I'm learning more about, uh, more about the community in the Netherlands all the time.
More events to go to.
Yeah.
So we're also learning.
I mean, we are very close, a small bunch.
We were basically the core team is five or six people.
Yeah.
And that's it.
We have a few extra volunteers on the day, but that's also maybe three people.
So it's a really tight core.
And you're all based around Eintorpe?
Yeah.
Uh, well now one lives in Arnhem.
Yeah.
But the, uh, it's not a million miles away, but then again, it's the Netherlands, nothing's
a million miles away.
Yeah.
Dutch.
So far.
For Dutch, it's far away on the other end of this.
No, it's, it's okay.
But yeah, well, I, we have great idea.
So, uh, online meetings are not a problem.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Somebody here joining on.
Well, I was going to ask why Eindhoven, um, but you know, I, Eindhoven is the IT capital
of, you know, originally I think was where.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Originally it was where Phillips, uh, was from.
So, so PSV Eindhoven being, uh, Phillips for anything, the S sporty for any Phillips
sport, uh, was this organization social club?
Yeah.
Social club.
Yeah.
So, um, so that was the answer.
Sometimes I have to think, think what the, everybody else who doesn't live in the Netherlands
would ask about Dutch questions.
So, uh, no, I'm, I'm actually.
To think that there's a Fostem event being held, Fostem inspired event being held, uh, in the
Netherlands that I haven't been aware of, that's, that is a real shame, but we will, we will
correct this and make sure that, uh, that for a while, so yeah, it's, uh, contacts with
and Luke with analogy, uh, the, all the usual suspects, but super.
Yeah.
Well, we'll, uh, we'll, uh, do something about that.
Now, was there anything else in the interview that we can cover or that we should cover?
Well, if anybody still has something they want to talk about, I think officially the
call for purpose has been closed.
Uh, but just ignore that and try, uh, try it anyway.
Yeah.
We'll probably get through.
And if not, send us an email and, uh, we'll, if, if it's in any way interesting, we'll figure
out a way to fit you in.
Super.
And if we're, if somebody was to help us, uh, sponsors, give us money.
Absolutely.
Uh, if you want to come or join the organization or just have ideas, you should get yourself
to this event, uh, advertise here, whatever, please tell us we're a bunch of nerds.
We forget about this shit.
Do you, do you, uh, coordinate with any of the other organizations?
Do you have organization committees from other events like, uh, um, around context, a couple
of our organizers are, have also been organizers at Fostem?
Yeah.
Uh, and, uh, uh, we have some of us are members at NLKG, uh, it's a network.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But even so it's, uh, more help.
And if somebody was coming from the road, uh, where would they, where would they stay?
Is there hotels in the area?
Uh, our hotels, uh, I think everything in town here is booked for the weekend because
I had to, uh, get a bed for a video and my, and I had to send it to Eindhoven.
Okay.
So, but Eindhoven's should be, should be fine.
There are places available in the area.
Yeah.
And it's a business town.
So all the hotels have cheap deals at the weekend.
Yeah.
Pull in.
Well, Peter, thank you very much for the interview.
I look forward to shaking your hand in person or at least somebody walking around with a
yellow vest and hopefully not a bike.
Yeah, we'll, we'll be fishable.
No, definitely not a problem.
Super.
All right.
Thank you very much for that.
Obviously information about this event will be in the show notes for today's episode.
Um, and if you are thinking of coming, can you, um, ping me and, uh, yeah,
we can meet up and yeah, I have, uh, worst case scenario.
I have spaces here in the house and it's only a train drive downtown.
So thank you very much, Peter.
I said, where are you based?
I'm in Busson, north of, uh, round Hilberson.
Yeah.
TV center.
Yeah.
It's a bit further away, but yeah, it's only this far in the map.
All the Americans are going, what?
Zoom out.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, all right.
Thank you very much.
And, uh, tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode of hacker public radio.
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