hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4663.txt

Episode: 4663
Title: The hallway track at T-DOSE
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4663/hpr4663.mp3
Transcribed: 2026-07-31 16:16:12 (official HPR transcript)

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4663, for 2026-06-17
Today's show is entitled, "The hallway track at T-DOSE"
The host is Ken Fallon and the duration is 01:19:58
The flag is Clean, and the license is CC-BY-SA
The summary is "Ken talks to the hosts at The Technical Dutch Open Source Event (T-DOSE) booth village."
I'm at the Tido's event in Eindhoven, outside Eindhoven in Keldorp.
Remember a few weeks ago we had an interview with Peter Verginneke and oddly
enough I'm talking to Peter Verginneke here at the Tido's event second day.
This is the 20th anniversary of the event, I did not realise that.
Yeah it is, it started in 06, I didn't hear of it for a couple of years.
I took over with a couple of other people and we're still here.
So if you want to go back and actually listen to the interview that I did, it'll be linked
in the show notes.
So fantastic event so far, this is the beginning of day two, we had day one yesterday, it's
on Saturday and Sunday.
The facilities are fantastic, you found a nice spot.
So how has it been going so far, any hiccups?
Nothing we couldn't control, there's always a few fires to put out but it wouldn't be
fun without them.
I had a weird thing with my laptop not wanting to go into the right resolution yesterday during
the presentation but other than that.
So what has the attendance been like compared to other years?
It felt busier but there's no admission, no one has to register so we definitely can't
predict it was here but we can't really tell either.
We can do a head count in some rooms and get a fair indication but that's about it.
Is there anything that, have you been able to get any of the talks at all yourself?
I got two samples of the first one and I got most of the last one.
Are those talks going to be online at all?
All talks will be online, they are streamed today and yesterday on YouTube, probably on
Peertube too but I'm getting signals there, still some technical hiccups there.
But starting in a few weeks they will appear on YouTube, about one a week.
Very good, Al, but keep our community up to date on when those happen and thank you very
much for organizing everything else and thanks for the free cup, we got free cups and we got
free dinner last night which was absolutely awesome.
Yeah, thank you for being here because we feel rather silly without any stands or speakers
or audiences so.
Well, for us it's fantastic, you're just sitting there and you're not bored, people are coming
up and they're talking to you and the conversations are not just please explain free Libra and open
source, they are, I have this idea for something and I've been working on this thing, do you really
think somebody would be interested in that?
Yeah, most people get the concept of open source here, that's, that's a good thing and yeah,
you tend to meet people who know what they're talking about and some have, some don't, but
most do and some are, know very well what they're talking about, much better than I do because
I'm a civil engineer, I'm not a software guy at all.
Show me the concrete.
Oh, you've seen it on the way here, I know you have.
Very good, well thank you very much for putting on such a fantastic event and really hope to
see you next year when we do this again.
Please, keep coming back and also yeah, if you heard about us, you can manage to get
here.
It's free!
Yeah, well, entrance is free.
Entrance is free, exactly, yes.
Okay, thank you very much and enjoy the rest of the show.
We're at TDoS, right?
And I'm at the Infobooth and I'm talking to?
I'm Nick Hipmer, I'm the financial administrator for the TDoS Foundation.
By day, but by night you apparently sell fuel geeks with coffee.
Yeah, something like that, but yeah, I have other hobbies too.
Excellent.
So, how did you end up being involved with TDoS?
Well, it's a long story, I've been in open source for about 20 years I think, since FreeBSD,
2.2.2 and at some point I lost open source as a hobby and I gained it again a few years
back and I thought I'd participate in some organisation that actually does some good work.
So, I sent them a mail saying like, can I help?
And they immediately put me in the organisation and said like, yeah, sure.
You sucker!
So, obviously you're very important because you've got a big yellow t-shirt, very clear
that you're involved in TDoS. So, what are you doing here today?
I'm manning the booth where we sell our little products, our T-shirts and we help people
who have questions and, well, that sort of stuff.
So, over here we have a range of T-shirts going on, how much of those?
The T-shirts are 25 euros for the new ones and 15 euros for the old ones and we can give you a discount
if you buy more than one because many of them are really old and collector's items but we would like to sell them
and get some money for our organisation to get next year's event on the road.
And all the money goes back into the organisation but, as was mentioned earlier, like there's no charge for people coming in here.
It's a free event, everybody can come in and participate. Also, the participants, the stands and the speakers, they pay nothing.
We try to fund a bit of extra things for everyone, so it's fun to be here.
But mostly sold on by our sponsors. I have to mention Adfinis, which is a big sponsor this year,
and other sponsors which you can find on our website. So, we're very happy with them
because they make it possible that we do this event every year.
Very impressed. What is this stuff?
Yeah, well, that's a good question.
So, I'm looking at a crate of bottles. I happen to know what this is because I've been at Fostem.
And I am alerted.
Well, we have this thing with Hackalot. It's an organisation within Eindhoven which does hacking all sorts of stuff.
And they have this habit of drinking a lot. With them it comes in with a pallet.
And our president, he's very involved in Hackalot, so he thought it would be a good idea for us to sell this stuff as well.
But it's, as he says, well, it's sort of an iced tea, but it's an acquired taste.
That is for sure. And not in a good way.
So, we sell it for a little margin, so everything else goes back to Hackalot, so we will see what that gives.
So, yeah, it's a fun thing.
And then we have the magic cups. They're never empty. They remain filled with coffee at all times.
We actually, we have this thing where we sell them a cup and it's 20 euros. And you can have, today it's 12 and a half.
But, yeah, you get free refills for the whole weekend with tea and coffee. So, and that works well. We sell a lot of coffee.
We give away a lot of coffee with the mugs. So, that works really well. People drink a lot of coffee here.
Well, we are geeks. So, there you go. And then we've got the info desk. Then we've got a PIN contactless payment session.
And we're over here. And the little gimmicks. What are these?
If you refuse to be photographed, you can fetch a lanyard. And a photographer will take this into account and remove you from any pictures which you happen to be on with this lanyard.
Okay, that's a good idea. Yeah, I like that. We're very conscious of people who are looking at their privacy and at their personal space.
So, we try to accommodate that for that as well. Simple solution. And we've got our selection of teas, coffees, fruit and the endless coffee and more tea.
Excellent. Well organized. A nice little event. If people wanted to help out remotely, what can they do financially?
They can always promote our site. We can also promote our event. Next year is going to be again around this time. I don't know exact dates, but it's going to begin beginning of June.
It's going to be mentioned on the T-Dose website, www.t-dose.org. And yeah, you can always promote it, look at it, see what speakers are and try to help us out with mentioning us everywhere.
So, on the socials, that's always good. You can always send an email if you want to help out in a more substantial way by sending us an email at info at T-Dose.org.
T-Dose.org. Yeah, just try to get in contact and we'll get back to you as soon as possible. We're always happy to talk to people and have more speakers, more stands. Yeah. And talk to people in any way. I mean, we're hackers ourselves, so we enjoy that a lot.
And English, I've noticed, is the common denominator language around because people are coming from various different countries. People just switched to English. It's not a problem. I'm not talking to you, you know this. But just for the people listening, don't be embarrassed. It's fine.
I speak German and Netherlands, so any language really is good. And we're also happy to accommodate if different languages are needed. So we're happy to have people here who want to be here.
Speak the language of hackers. Yes, excellent. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to show us through your booth. There'll be a picture in the show notes.
Okay, thank you for being here and enjoy yourselves.
I'm here at the Hackalot Eindhoven booth and I'm talking to...
Hi, I'm Booker Worm, also known as Crystal.
Oh, you're Booker Worm?
I'm Booker Worm. Hi, nice to meet you.
I follow you in Mastodon. You're probably one of the reasons I'm here because I didn't know about this event until I started reading your posts.
Okay, nice to meet you in person.
Nice to meet you too.
Very good. And you're here at the Eindhoven Hackerspace booth?
Yes, I'm part of the Eindhoven Hackerspace. It's a place where people come together and work on their projects, both software and hardware, which means there are people doing open source development, there are people looking into security issues, there are people who are building things and building things are nice because you can show them.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we are here showing some of the things we have built, we are working on, and we're here to tell people that there is this awesome place in Eindhoven where you can go to, where you can find other like-minded people, where we have some tools, where we have some spaces to work at, we have decently fast internet.
You just come there, you sit and work on your projects, and then at the end of the evening you had a nice social evening, or an evening where you worked on your projects. Either way, I'm happy at the end.
And you don't need to clean up the mess, you don't have to deal with the mess at home, you have to clean it up over there.
Yes, the idea is that we keep the tables clean and everything, and that we have everything in nicely labeled boxes at the site, in a nice metal rack.
So the idea is that there is space to work and you don't have to do the laundry, you don't have to do your cooking, it's just a place where you go to.
Do you have 3D printers?
Yes, of course we have a 3D printer. We have the mandatory one broken 3D printer, we have the mandatory old 3D printer, and we have a modern printer.
Very good. So do you want to walk me through what you have on the, what's going on on the desk?
I see you had a skill scope doing the cool demos thing yesterday, but above that I see a butterfly on what is possibly a speaker.
Butterfly wings about the length of your arm, I guess. What is that?
The butterfly wings is one of my projects that I wanted to do, to get my feet wet into robotics.
I had no idea where to start, and I knew there was this awesome tutorial on adafruit.com, and I also found when I had to add like a tiny bit to some order to get the minimum order number,
I found these cheap children's butterfly wings, and I thought, I'm going to robotize that.
So I did that, I bought some of, I bought the wings, then I repainted the wings and enforced them, and I made them fit on the adafruit frame,
I put on slightly different hardware, and now I have butterfly wings that flutter.
Awesome, awesome, awesome.
And they are, and they are on top of an oscilloscope with indeed a speaker.
We have some oscilloscope music on a mp3 player that plays Rockbox, and that whole setup is, the music has encoded some images in the oscilloscope,
so you get awesome images.
God, you're really, you're really hitting all the buttons here now with the Rockbox and oscilloscope images and stuff.
Moving down, what have we got?
There'll be photos of all of these in the show notes.
Good.
We have a small, in Dutch it's called a flipper display, it's a display with little flaps.
Yeah, the ones that go t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t, or used to go t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t.
So they are very easily 3D printed nowadays, and with about a day of printing you have a complete clock with letters and numbers,
and it makes a nice noise.
Cool.
And next to that?
This is a...
Examples of 3D printers and stickers.
We've got a worm, made out of LEDs, RGB LEDs that the light flutters from head to toe.
It's kind of nice, I like that.
Yes.
Very zen.
We've got a PCB with all the hackerspaces in the Netherlands, I guess?
Yes, that's all the hackerspaces in the Netherlands, well at least it was five years ago when it was made for 15 years hackerspaces in the Netherlands.
Nice, yeah.
And it shows with an LED if an hackerspaces open or closed.
Well, that is handy.
And, okay, that brings up a whole buttload of other questions.
However, I'm not wanting to preempt anything because, yeah, okay.
We'll talk about that later.
And we've got the requisite, the time clock with words.
Anything else back there?
Oh, there's lots of interesting things now, but I can't, I can't, I can't go into them.
So, you're not just involved, what else are you involved in?
What's your background?
How did you end up being involved in the hackerspace?
Oh, there are very different questions.
I've been, out of high school I decided I wanted to become a physicist, so I did that.
And after I was done with my studies, there was a big recession.
So, I had a spare time and I was missing some of the hardware I had at my school.
So, I bought an Arduino kit.
Yeah.
And then I found a local hackerspace, but it wasn't a perfect match.
I moved to Amersfoort, to BitLair.
Oh, yes.
And there I found, like, this is an awesome community with amazing people who do exactly
the things I like at BitLair, the hackerspace.
Yeah.
So, I became a member there, active, and then I had to move away.
Yeah.
And in Eindhoven there was nothing of that caliber, so I decided to start that.
You started the hackerspace?
Well, not on my own.
Yeah.
Well, I mean...
But we were with a group...
Well, you did say, I decided to start it, so like...
Yeah, well, I kind of decided to start it.
Yeah.
But it was very easy to find other people who wanted that too, because it was a good goal.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And that was a good start.
Apart from that, there were some hacker festivals that were happening at that time,
and I decided to do the infodesk there.
And I did that well enough that they asked me to get into the project lighting.
Yeah.
Which event was that, Pre?
With SHA 2017, I did the infodesk.
With MCH 2021 and 2022, I did the project lighting.
And with YI 2025, I also did project lighting.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, this is like the...
We've been...
We've covered one of those events, a few of those events.
Why do you keep changing the name of the Dutch ones?
So, the Dutch event was one of the first in Europe.
It was the first one that happened in Paradiso.
That was not a camping event.
So, when they moved, they wanted to do a camping event.
And then you need a new name, because it's slightly a new event.
Yeah.
Uh...
But then they were not allowed to go back to the same place in four years,
because there was some negative publicity, which can happen.
Yeah.
So, they decided, let's change the name, because, well, the name they had in mind
was mostly harmless, and that's maybe not the best name.
Uh...
They kept in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy team.
So, they changed the name, and then a tradition is born, you know?
Yeah.
You do anything three times.
You have to change your name three times, then you keep doing that.
A few years ago, there was a community vote.
Do we want to keep our name, or do we want to keep changing the name?
And then it's keep changing the name.
The name is community proposed.
There is a small community who chooses the actual name, because choosing in a group is hard.
But, uh...
It's community proposed.
No, I love the names and all.
It's just, when I want to refer to, like, that Chaos Computer Club event in Germany,
you know what it is, because it's that event in Germany.
And with this, the disadvantages, I'm trying to look at the hashtag,
but I don't know what the hashtag is going to be, because I only find that out after I've missed the event.
Yeah, that is a problem, and we should try to fix that.
Okay.
But we try to be in events like this.
Why was at Tito's last year's?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, we try to get it out there, but it is a thing.
Yeah, yeah.
You have to start from scratch every time.
But, no, I get the idea, I get the idea.
Anything else that I missed here that you would like to bring to our attention?
Ooh, yeah.
Well, if you cannot see the booth, we have a lot of flashing LED lights, and that works.
We also have some flyers about the hackerspace in Eindhoven, but also the international,
of the hackerspaces in the Netherlands, because there are more.
And they have kind of the same problem as the hacker events, because we're all giving them different names.
Yeah.
But they're findable with hackerspace with City.
Yeah.
That's helpful.
And apart from that, Tito's is a very nice event.
How have you found it, actually?
You've gone to other events, obviously, but how would you compare it to other events?
Well, I found it because it was happening next door to me, when Hackerlot was still in its
infant phase.
Yeah.
And then I decided, well, event next door.
You have to go.
It's not next door anymore.
It's now in Geldrop.
Yeah.
And it is, it is a mid-sized event.
No, yeah.
Small to mid-sized event with two rooms with talks.
Impressive talks, and also the wide array of talks.
Yeah.
And apart from that, there's a big room with boots.
So not really a hallway, but more...
Yeah, no, but I like this, because like the restaurant is over there, across and that
is tables, and then across from that is us.
So it's, the natural flow is that you amble in, and...
Yes.
Amble around.
Heel gezellig.
Yes, it's absoluut gezellig.
And there is things like fruit, and there are sandwiches to buy, and you can buy a mug,
and then you have free coffee and free tea.
That's just awesome.
Yes, I really like it.
That's a brilliant idea.
I'm sure people will be stealing that idea, and rightly so.
And like a social event after the first day, which is food with nice people sitting on
table.
Yeah, and I thought like, oh no, we're going to have to trip to the other side of town,
but it's actually over there in the restaurant, literally 10 meters away.
You just walk over and sit down, and then that was it.
I was wrecked.
I just watched the film and went to bed.
It was awesome.
Yeah, so I really liked the scale of Tito's.
Yeah, it's lovely.
And you can talk with most people, you can talk, you can take your time at the booths,
because there are a decent amount, but an amount that you can spend time there.
And for Hegelot, it's amazing that you can really take the time to talk to people.
Yeah.
And they come from all over the Netherlands, some parts of Germany.
We even have French visitors today, I believe.
So it will be, it's an amazing conference.
Yeah, it's cool.
It's cool what you can do if you put your mind to it.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Well, thank you very much for taking the time.
No doubt you will be hearing more about this later on.
Yes, I will show, but we'll talk about that later.
Thank you very much.
It was my pleasure.
I'm always happy to talk about things that are interesting, and I think more people should
know about.
Hi everybody, and I'm here at the Laptop Revive project, and I'm talking to...
Alex.
Alex, what is Laptop Revive?
It's a volunteer organization that gets donations of laptops from people that don't use them anymore.
For instance, because they're not usable with Windows 11.
And we wipe them, carefully, and install Linux Mint on them.
And we give them to, for instance, students who can't afford one.
Well, that's it.
Thank you very much for listening.
Short, sweet, and to the point.
How did that start?
That seems like a brilliant idea.
I have questions.
Namely, how did it start?
Where do you get your laptops?
How do you know who to give them to?
Where did it start?
Probably would be a good beginning.
It started with a guy called Rinus, who thought it a good idea at the time.
And he set up an organization and some software things for forming a community.
And he just started by asking around for laptops from people.
And we found a way that works.
We make publicity, like an interview like this.
And people think, hey, that's a nice idea.
I have some laptops in that cupboard somewhere that I don't use anymore.
They can contact a volunteer they know, like me.
Or they can use our website to help donate them.
And they are then contacted by the nearest volunteer of the organization,
who gets a laptop and takes care of wiping the data and installing Linux Mint.
And the central organization, Winus and one other guy, they also have contact with organizations
that have contact with students countrywide.
Like people who are asylum seeker center inhabitants and they want to do a Dutch course
for which they need a laptop, which they usually don't have, just a phone.
But that's not very handy for that kind of stuff.
So I've handed out several laptops to people like that and they were extremely grateful.
Super.
Well, lots of questions.
The first question would be, if you're getting random laptops from people,
you're going to be getting random versions and random sizes and random amount of memory.
How do you deal with that sort of variation?
And what if you can't get Linux Mint installed?
What happens then?
Well, the oldest one I got was about 30 years old.
It was certainly unusable for Linux Mint or any modern operating system.
So in that case, we take care of making sure that the data is unreadable and we just scrap them.
And most of them are quite usable.
I personally have taken care of installing Mint on laptops that were more than 12 years old
and they run just fine.
Chug-along.
Why did you pick Linux Mint?
I didn't.
That was Rinus who did it.
Because, well, it looks more or less a bit like Windows, which most people are used to.
It's open source.
It's free.
And it installs everything.
I know.
Because you turn it on and it even finds the printers on the network.
It's a fantastic...
It's a great choice.
So, are you looking for volunteers?
Say, I live in the Netherlands.
I could sign up.
People could donate laptops to me.
And then how I upgrade them.
And then what happens to the laptops?
As in physically, I now have a stack of Linux Mint laptops.
What then?
We tell the central organization about those and they get laptop requests centrally, which
they allocate to a volunteer who has laptops available and who is near to the person needing
them.
So, would I need to bring them to that person physically?
Absolutely.
So, the physical point of there's a laptop in Jan's desk over there and Anamika is over
the other side and needs a laptop.
It has to come through me.
Do I have to go and pick it up from Jan and deliver it to Anamika or does somebody come
in a big truck?
All ways of getting to the one who needs it are used.
Sometimes I come and pick them up.
Sometimes I go to, for instance, the public library or to railway station where we meet
and we hand it over and everybody is happy.
Super.
And do you put in a login information or...?
They get login information, of course, and if they want a short explanation of how things
work.
Super.
Very, very simple.
How can we help the project?
That's one of our mottos.
Keep it simple.
Yeah.
Great.
I love it.
Alerting people to our website, which is laptopprevive.nl, and encourage them to look
in covers and other blankets to find laptops that are not used anymore and are not too
old.
Like, if they were made from Windows XP, it's probably better to find another destination
for a laptop, but any laptop that is less than 12 years old is probably fine.
And what about Chromebooks?
We don't do Chromebooks.
Okay.
So, have you had any discussions with businesses about recycling old laptops?
We certainly have.
I recently heard from a volunteer that a small company was willing to donate 15 or 20 old
laptops.
Nice.
So, could I go and volunteer to be part of your organization?
If I did that, then how much work is it?
It depends entirely on the amount of laptops you get donated.
I did an interview for a local newspaper once and we had lots of new laptops then, but we
also got lots of new volunteers.
So, on average, it's a few hours a month that I spend on it.
So, a few laptops and then pick them up, install them in, drop them off.
How difficult is it?
Well, we have a very good little booklet that tells volunteers how to install Linux, how to
wipe it first and how to get to the hardware settings, BIOS stuff and so on that you need
to change sometimes.
It's all documented so, well, most people who have little knowledge of computers can do it.
Do you do any refurbishment on the laptops at all?
No, the laptops need to be in good working order.
They also need to come with an adapter so that they can work on mains power in case the battery
is not very good anymore, which is usually the case with old laptops.
But we don't repair and they must be in good working order.
So, no broken screens, no missing keys, that kind of stuff.
Okay, very good.
And links will be in the show notes, but it's laptoprevive.nl.
Super.
Thank you very much.
Was there anything else that I didn't mention that you wanted to talk about?
It's okay, like this, I think.
Okay, very good.
Thank you very much for the interview and enjoy the rest of the event.
Thank you.
And I'm here at the TDoS event and yes, a little bit of deja vu I'm talking to.
Geert-Jan.
And Geert-Jan, what hats are you wearing today?
Ah, I'm wearing a lot of hats today.
But probably you know me from a previous podcast episode number 4000 something something something.
That I work for the Coalition for Fair Digital Education.
But today you have a different subject because we as a society have a huge big fucking problem.
And it is, the glass holes are back.
And by that you mean?
By that I mean the smart or not so smart glasses that are being pushed by Meta.
And they contain cameras and microphones and AI.
And that's it.
Lovely, that could possibly go wrong.
But okay, so obviously you're concerned about that.
But wasn't there a huge backlash when Google did that a few years ago?
So should we not expect the same now?
Well that backlash did not came out of nothing.
You need to campaign for that.
And some people or rather a lot of people need to start doing that right now again.
Because if we let this happen and we wait for a year, then they've sold a million pieces in like only the Netherlands.
And then it becomes normalized and everybody thinks, oh, it's just glasses with a camera.
What are you complaining about?
Exactly.
What are you complaining about?
I mean, everybody has smartphones.
Everybody's got cameras outside of the house.
When you break it down, what is the problem with it?
They're the most creepy devices that there are imaginable.
Well, isn't it useful to know, to walk up to somebody and be able to remember who they are?
And yeah, I met you at the link.
You're connected to me via LinkedIn and I met you searching your kids names or whatever.
Is that not useful?
Yeah, very useful.
Except that it's not only for the user.
It's also Meta that's collecting everybody's biometric information and facial profile.
Meta as in Facebook?
Meta is the mother company of Facebook and of WhatsApp and of the Meta glasses that are sold by Ray-Ban and some other brands.
Well, surely if you're walking around in public, you're allowed to be photographed in public here in the Netherlands at least.
Unless you're the main subject of the movie and unless there's a biometric analysis behind it.
Because that's something you can only do if there's explicit and informed consent.
But that's not possible to obtain because probably the wearer has not even read the terms and conditions
and is not even aware of what is actually happening because the wearer probably bought it because it's a nice handy gadget that remembers recognizing faces.
Super, okay.
But we have the GDPR in the Netherlands, so obviously I can fix that by contacting the regulatory authorities.
Yeah, I have some experience contracting the regulator about privacy violations.
As do I. I'm still waiting to hear back.
Of some complaints I'm still waiting for an answer. That's not gonna work.
We should as a society now be very clear and just reject them.
And how do we do that?
Well, if you're starting a campaign, first of all, check out the website banray.eu.
So, I repeat, banray.eu.
Yeah.
Link in the show notes.
Ray-Ban.
Ray-Ban, Banray.
And why are you targeting Ray-Bans particularly?
They're the biggest and most visible brand that makes the most commercials and advertisements everywhere to sell these devices now.
Okay.
And I also heard online that places like Pearl and stuff are selling these.
So, if you are a customer of these, no harm to mention that you don't appreciate the fact that they're selling these surveillance devices as part of their catalogs.
Yeah, please.
If you're a customer at one of those opticians that is selling those devices, please complain about that and ask them to stop selling those devices because they're partner of a crime.
Because it's not possible to use these devices in a legal way.
Super.
And where can I get more information about this?
Well, on the banray.eu website and here at Tidos, of course.
You can drop by at the stand if you're present.
That'll be a bit late now.
So, banray.eu and you'll have more information.
Is that just limited to the Netherlands or does that allow action across Europe?
That will allow action across Europe.
But we're now forming an action team in the Netherlands to really push this campaign through.
And hopefully other countries will follow suit.
But the banray campaign initiative comes from Sweden.
So, yeah, we're very happy with that.
And now we're setting up a local campaign team.
So, if you want to join, please reach out.
That can also be done via the banray.eu website.
So, reach out and we'll provide you with stickers, example letters that you can send to.
And we'll probably file a petition at Parliament.
And we'll ask as many establishments as possible to be very clear that these glasses are not allowed.
Because if you have a pair of glasses, what you want to achieve is that you cannot visit the library.
You cannot go to the bar.
You cannot go to the swimming pool.
Because every time you're asked, hey, is there a camera in your belt?
Can you please take that off right now?
Otherwise you can go out.
Yeah.
So, contact your congress critter or the equivalent as well.
And push it.
Also tell your swimming pool.
Make them aware that this isn't allowed.
Make your library aware.
Make your local rape crisis center aware that it isn't allowed.
And generally make people in your community aware this is what to look out for and this is what's happening.
Yeah.
And start the debate about it.
Absolutely.
We have some stickers.
Provide them to start as a topic starter.
To start talking about it.
And make people aware of what is happening behind the glasses.
Because we really don't want to have a society where if you have a face-to-face conversation,
you think that meta is in between and analyzing everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Thank you very much for taking the time.
Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about?
Maybe.
That's enough for today.
For today, let's be specific on one subject.
And next time that we'll meet, we'll talk about kicking Big Tech out of the classroom again.
Yes.
I thought you had that already fixed to me.
It's been four weeks.
So, I mean.
Oh, yeah.
That's true.
That's true.
Okay.
Thank you very much for taking the time.
And enjoy the rest of the show.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me on the show.
Have a good day.
Yeah.
And we forgot to mention something.
Hold on one second.
What is this?
Yeah.
Today in the Netherlands, there's another fantastic campaign that's called Doei Dag.
So, on the first Sunday of every month, you say goodbye to a particular Big Tech service.
Nice.
And so, check out Doei Dag.nl.
And then you can find easy recipes how to migrate from WhatsApp to Signal or from Google Docs to Proton or from Gmail to Sovereign or whatever.
Whatever.
And it's only once a month.
So, it's presumably if it's a hard one, you can take a month or two.
But the idea is that every month, you get rid of one.
Yeah.
You can really take an approach step by step and in your own pace.
But every month, do something.
Perfect.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Continue on.
Hi, everybody.
Another table here at the TDoS event.
And I'm talking to?
Joost van Baal Iliets.
And what table are you at?
I'm with my colleagues, friends, running the Debian boot.
And what is Debian for people who have never listened to Hacker Public Radio before?
Ah.
Debian is a Linux distribution.
It's an operating system to run on your computer.
Yeah.
Smartphone is a bit tricky, but on the computer it works.
And if you're used to running Microsoft Windows or Apple, you can also probably install Debian or another Linux and have more control over your system.
Super.
And we run Debian on our content distribution network as it's one of the most oldest distributions and one of the most stable and quite conservative, but yet up-to-date patches.
So that's why we picked Debian.
So why are...
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
I have something to add to this.
Another thing about Debian is that it's not backed by a commercial entity like Red Hat or Suzo or the other well-known Linux distributions.
So it's really community driven distribution.
And old indeed.
Yeah.
How is that even possible to survive as an organization without the backing of our corporate overlords?
We shall never know.
Yeah.
Indeed.
It's a...
I think it was...
What's the name?
The guy who...
I can't think of the name now.
Forget it.
Okay.
Not to worry.
I can cut that out if you want.
No, it's fine.
Okay.
The thing about...
I go around to a lot of conferences and when I come to a Debian booth, there always seems to be lots of people.
How is that possible?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
I'm also very frequently at the Fosdam conference in Brussels and the Debian booth is where all the people hang.
It's...
I don't know why.
We just do our thing.
And yeah, maybe it's...
I'm a volunteer for the Debian project myself and I'm also running the Debian booth.
So, people running the Debian booth are like geeks, like technical people.
They're not...
Their main thing is not running booths.
The thing is they like Debian and are part of the community.
So, I think that it's a kind of atmosphere and I think people are sensitive to that and that's why they hang out.
Yeah, it's probably the official town halls and stuff.
As you're not a corporate entity, you know, this is where you guys meet up.
Always very well.
So, what do you need to do on a Debian booth?
Yeah, I think the mode...
It's like a meeting place.
I think that's actually the main thing.
I thought it was selling t-shirts.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We...
We...
We...
We...
It looks like you're here for t-shirts and flyers and demo systems, but people are not really interested in that.
Well, some are, but people like to meet Debian people and meet other people who like Debian.
And so, yeah, that's the way it works.
What did you think of the TDoS conference?
It's awesome.
I really like it.
I very much appreciate that you don't have to sign up or register upfront or you don't have to pay anything.
You can just walk in.
So, it's very open.
And, yeah, and they've been doing it for 20 years now, which is really amazing because it's also a very volunteer driven organization.
So, yeah, applause for them.
Yeah, I'm very impressed.
It's my first time, oddly enough, because I've been living here for 25 years.
It's the first time I've been here.
It's like, my bad.
It has the feel of Fostem, but with a nice, more comfy, more intimate sort of feeling.
Yeah, it's like Fostem, but then micro, micro, micro scale.
So, more gezellig.
And, yeah, but the atmosphere, I think the feeling about it is very much, very similar.
And I've noticed from the people going past, like, you're not, everybody has their thing.
They're deeply involved in a particular project.
You don't need to explain what Free Libre Open Source is.
It's like straight down to the heart.
They're high quality attendees at it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, a lot of people have been part of the community for a long time, but they're also newcomers.
They're, like, retired people who think, yeah, now I have some time to try out this Linux stuff.
Oh, good.
So, and they're newcomers to the community.
But, of course, they're very welcome and we like it.
Cool.
And anything coming up in Debian that we need to be aware of, new announcements or stuff like that?
Now you're the official Debian spokesman for the entire project.
Oh, God.
This is where you go, yes, we have an announcement page.
If you go to Debian.org, you'll find all the news up there.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I didn't prepare this interview.
Well, in fairness, we haven't had our coffee yet.
And I came over and said, we're doing this now.
Yeah.
Well, we have a new project leader since pretty recently.
Oh, yeah?
A lady from India, which is awesome because she's not a white, straight, male, Western European person.
So that's, I like that very much.
And in the platform, she also very much put an emphasis on stimulating more diversity in the project.
So we're struggling with that and it would be awesome if we can achieve something there.
Super.
Super.
Thank you very much for taking the time and enjoy the rest of the event.
Thank you.
And here we are again at TDOS and we're at another booth and I'm talking to...
Birgit.
Hi, Birgit.
Hi, Birgit.
What booth is this?
I have to say, it's up there with the Hackalot Eindhoven has been the most interesting booth.
So tell me what I'm seeing.
Well, what you're seeing is a model train, our free model train project.
Free model train project.
So there, if you imagine that there's a double sized table, kitchen table, and around that you have a circular track.
Inside of that, there is another track.
And inside of that, there is a smaller track.
And there are three junctions, there are junctions connected to all of those.
On the smaller circular track is only about half the table.
And there's an offline junction.
And there's a tiny station house and there's other buildings knocking around.
In the middle of it, we have pictures in the show notes for everybody.
In the middle, we have QR codes and boots, bootlets.
We have a piggy bank.
Just describing what I'm seeing.
We have various different business cards and such.
We've got some adorable cute knitted penguins, which we'll talk to you about in a while.
And we have at the back some banners and posters.
So let's walk me through all of this.
Okay.
Well, for your model train, what you can see here is our project that attracts, of course, a lot of people because model trains.
Because model trains.
So what we're seeing is two trains running around.
And at the back, there is an 18650 battery being carried, probably to the scale of like a big petrol tanker, if you saw that on there.
So they're carrying hazardous fuel around.
Yeah.
But the purpose is that with the different firms of model trains, normally you can't run the train of one firm on the tracks of another firm.
And with these, well, as we have freed them, you can run any train on any track as long as they're the correct width.
So that's our purpose.
And of course, for us, it's a symbol for how important open standards and free software is.
Absolutely.
And if you so that so long as the different gauge is the same.
So if you've got something from Hornby, it doesn't necessarily work with other train trains because they've got proprietary protocols for how the tracks are signaled.
So how are you breaking all of that?
Well, we cut the connection between the motor and the track.
Normally, the electricity comes from the tracks.
And then we just put a solder on new cables and connect the cables to the power bank and then they run.
So how is control done?
What sort of control do you have over the trains?
Sorry.
I'm warning.
I am a train nerd.
I'm not that big into it, but I can see this is a cavern I could go down onto.
So I'm asking for my nephew, obviously.
I'm asking for my nephew.
Well, the most simple one is just if you switch on the power bank, the train runs.
If you switch it goes around and around and around and around as long until you switch it off and then it stops.
There's one of the trains running here.
And the other train, it has an ESP 32 in there.
The train has its own Wi-Fi and then you connect to the Wi-Fi and you have a web page and you can slow down or accelerate the train and steer it via web page.
Somebody has to integrate this with Home Assistant.
This is a project for somebody.
Please.
Can you just imagine that?
Like you're leaving work and then the train starts going around.
Well, if someone can do this, do it.
It's free software.
It's all documented.
It's all open.
It's all open.
So if you want to improve it, just do it.
Where do I get information about that project?
Well, of course, on our web page, we have linked it there.
And there's in GitHub, there are all the things of the ESP 32 stuff.
There's another one of the many QR codes there.
Okay.
So would I be able to get it?
By the way, all links will be in the show notes, obviously.
So it's free-software.org as in the German version of free software.
So Foxtrot Romeo Echo India Echo-software.org.
Okay.
Cool.
So ESP 32, but trains are expensive.
My nephew spends hundreds of euros on trains.
Well, I've got my first freed locomotive there, train there, and it was five euros on eBay.
Okay.
Five euros on eBay.
And a vape, the battery from a discarded vape, and you've got yourself a train that runs around.
And then we bought those.
Okay.
Yeah.
Just two or three euros or so.
Some cables, some soldering, and that was it.
Yeah.
Fantastic.
Okay.
But that's not all of interest on this table.
Tell me about these two adorably cute sewn...
No.
Not knitted.
Knitted.
They are knitted tuxes.
One with a little hoodie, and the other with a cap.
So, imagine the tux, the penguin, which I have over there in our booth, but knitted.
Who did that?
I did them.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, that's...
The end.
Obviously, all my questions stop there.
I'm going to tune in tomorrow for another...
It's my very personal project called Strict Tux, and it's an open source project.
So, I publish the source code under Creative Commons, and you have to compile it on your
own.
And how do you compile it?
Knitting.
By knitting.
But oops.
I walked into that, yeah.
And they say the Germans don't have a sense of humor.
So, I have been long trying to get people to do a knitting course on HPR because it's
something that I really would like to get into.
It seems to be something that's right up our alley.
So, I look forward to continuing to encourage people to send in knitting episodes.
Okay.
No commitment, no comment.
But you've got business cards for other things.
I was talking to you yesterday about what sounds like the coolest bus journey ever.
Yeah.
For more than 15 years now, there is a bus going from Düsseldorf to Chemnitz.
Because in Chemnitz every year, I think it's the biggest open source conference in Germany,
community conference in Germany.
Chemnitzer Linux Tage.
It's always in the end of March.
And it's quite hard to get there because it's right on the other end of Germany.
And so, we are organizing a bus going from Düsseldorf starting on Friday.
So, we have prolonged the event for one day.
So, we're traveling together to Chemnitz and stay there for Saturday and Sunday for the event.
And in the night to Monday, we return home.
And well, it's the bus journey together.
So, we are talking about free software and there's a lot of chatting on the way to Chemnitz.
On the way back home, it's a lot of sleeping and very, very...
Very tired hackers, yes.
Very tired everyone.
And well, of course, there are hotel rooms.
We can book hotel rooms via this project.
And we are organizing dinner together on Friday and Saturday.
So, it's a whole and all.
And how do you get from the hotel to the event then?
Well, the bus is a shuttle bus at that moment.
So, he brings us to the event in the morning and takes us back to the hotel in the evening.
Yeah.
So, rather than going by yourself to some event, you sign up for this and you're with a team of people, hackers, like-minded hackers for the whole event.
Yeah.
Like this.
Sounds awesome.
And if you have got an idea, well, we want to have also a bus.
So, just ask us and we can give you hints and tips and perhaps help you to organize this bus.
Because we now have an experience of more than 15 years and know how to do it.
Super.
Fantastic.
What else have I forgotten?
Well, we also support other projects like we're a Germany-wide club, not only situated in Düsseldorf.
And for example, in Saarbrücken, we have got a project that puts Linux on old computers and collects old computers and gives them to people who can't afford an own laptop.
And so, you can give your old laptop.
There are many projects like that in Germany, I think in the Netherlands too.
And, yeah, we also support one of these projects.
And, well, and if you have a project, a free software project that thinks, well, I need some help in promotion or just to get some ideas, just contact us.
And, yeah, we can see if we can help you to promote your project.
And, yeah, perhaps we get in contact with that.
Cool.
Fantastic.
So, how has it been to come to Tidos?
Why did you come to the Netherlands?
Well, it's nearby.
For us, at least.
We just live close to the border.
And, well, the Tidos is a very, very nice event.
We know it also for years now.
I've been here private before and now with the club and, yeah, presenting our club.
And, well, it's a very cozy event.
It's a very nice event.
You meet a lot of very, very nice people here.
And so, yeah, we love to come here.
Love it.
Gesellig.
That's the important word we're learning today.
Gesellig.
Gesellig.
Well, thank you very much for taking the time and enjoy the rest of the show.
Thank you very much.
Hi, everybody.
This is Ken again here at the Tidos conference.
And I'm at the Ubuntu Touch booth and I'm talking to...
Sander.
Hi, Sander.
Can you tell me what Ubuntu Touch is?
Ubuntu Touch is a Linux-based operating system for your phone.
That's short and sweet.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Tune in tomorrow for...
No.
So, tell me.
So, it's on your phone.
I remember this was out years ago, but didn't Canonical drop it and it's gone by the wayside?
Yeah.
In 2017, Canonical dropped the project.
And then there was the beautiful Ubiports foundation.
And these days, it is a foundation.
And the community of developers picked up the operating system and it continued its development.
So, it just continued on and life continues without Canonical.
Yes.
Yeah.
Actually, a lot of the project is done by volunteers today.
So, it lives on without Canonical.
Yeah.
Okay.
And as people who are following the world of Android and stuff, okay, why would I run this
instead of Android?
Let's get that out of the way.
Well, the fun thing is that Ubuntu Touch isn't Android.
It's not Android.
A lot of options you'll hear when you try to de-Google your phone.
Yep.
You'll end up on one of the open source Android variants.
Yep.
And Ubuntu Touch is Ubuntu in its basis.
So, it's different than all the Android spin-offs.
But, okay, that's great.
And now, as Google appears to be doing weird stuff attempting to lock down Android, at least
Android development, it would be nice to have an alternative path.
So, how useful is an Ubuntu Touch phone?
Should I say Ubuntu Touch?
How should I refer to the project on my phone?
I'm running...
Ubuntu Touch.
Ubuntu Touch.
But if Ubuntu is not...
Yeah.
So, that's separate from Canonical.
And are they cool with you using the name?
Yeah.
Yeah, they are.
We actually have quite good relationships with Canonical.
They like what we're doing.
Because they still love to see Ubuntu on phones, of course.
And although they don't develop it by themselves anymore, they are quite happy that the project
is still alive.
Okay.
So, obvious next question.
I have a Pixel 6a.
Can I run Ubuntu Touch on it?
I don't believe the 6a is in the supported devices list.
Because it isn't as simple as you would install Ubuntu on your desktop.
That just all machines are supported.
But every device needs to be ported.
The installation needs to be adapted to run on your phone.
So, you need someone with a spare device.
Who doesn't care if the device turns into a brick when trying to port Ubuntu Touch to it.
And also someone who has the time to make a port for it.
And currently there are 31 devices that run the latest version of Ubuntu Touch.
And besides that, there are a lot of devices that are an older version or are in development
to make it possible to be fully supported.
So, there are options.
But not on the 6a, unfortunately.
No worries.
Other phones are available.
And where would I get this magic list of phones that are supported?
You can look on the ubiports.com site.
Link in the show notes.
We also have ubuntu-touch.io and there is a device list with supported devices.
Super.
So, what does the Ubuntu Touch phone look like when you install it?
What sort of apps can I run on it?
I've been using it for 10 years now.
Okay.
Since the canonical time.
And still I'm daily driving Ubuntu Touch.
And sometimes...
You can make phone calls.
You can get SMSs.
Yeah, those are the main features.
Well done.
And you can get an SSH terminal.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But without jokes, besides that, sometimes you need to be creative while using mainstream
things like WhatsApp or your banking app.
But for example, for WhatsApp, we have what's new now in the open store.
The open store is the app store for Ubuntu Touch.
And it is the WhatsApp web app packaged for Ubuntu Touch.
With some adaptions to really use it.
And there's also a green line in development now.
And that is a WhatsApp client using what's meow on the back.
And it runs in a daemon.
It has a nice Ubuntu Touch QML interface.
So, yeah, sometimes cool people come along and they make these things possible.
So, it isn't really a pain for me to daily drive it.
And does it have something like OSM Android or map navigation?
We have UNF.
It was developed specifically for Ubuntu Touch.
And it's quite a good navigation program.
And also we have Pure Maps, which has origins in Sailfish.
And it was ported to Ubuntu Touch.
And it's a fully featured navigation app.
Browsing works?
Yeah, it does.
We recently upgraded from Qt 5 to Qt 6 on the browser end.
And there are works going on to make the whole operating system upgrade from Qt 5 to Qt 6.
And with the upgrade to Qt 6, we have a more recent Gromium version.
So, browsing works okay now again.
Yeah.
Okay, fantastic.
What am I forgetting on my app list?
That actually I think covers it.
Can you do a hotspot and stuff like that?
Yeah, we can.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm done.
The phone that's supported by Ubuntu Touch.
So, tell me.
Do you go around to a lot of these booths and stuff?
Do you go around to a lot of conferences?
I'm an end user from the Netherlands.
So, whenever there is an event I can attend in the Netherlands or nearby, I'm here to talk about Ubuntu Touch.
Cool.
And how have you found the TDoS event?
I found it through Ubuntu Touch.
I heard that we would be here and I was asked to get behind the stand.
So, that's why I'm here today.
And have you been enjoying it?
What's been the interactions with the community like?
Yeah, it's lovely.
Because of Ubuntu Touch I have been at more events in the Netherlands here.
And it feels really cozy.
Gezellig is the word we're looking at.
Exactly.
Gezellig in Dutch.
It feels really good to see familiar faces here.
And also learn new people about our project.
But also make, yeah.
You make connections with the other people and the other projects.
You're nodding and I know exactly what you mean.
We're having the same on the HPR booth today.
The quality of the attendees is quite high, is what I would say.
Even people who are new to us, they come from a technical background and they're openly, you can skip a lot of stuff.
Yeah.
Okay, so what are you showing off here at the table?
We have a couple of devices.
Right now there are still some missing, but they will be here in half an hour.
The armored transport is on its way from town.
I understand how it can be.
But we've got a couple of devices to test.
A couple of phones.
New phones from Vola.
It's a German company that sell phones with their own de-googled Android, but also provide phones with Ubuntu Touch.
I'm liking this.
Yeah, you can buy it now in the store.
How much would that be?
And this is where you go, five million dollars.
I believe their tablet is around 700 euros.
And the phones range from 500 to 700.
But in the meantime, you're sponsoring open source development.
Well, that's what this is.
If you're buying a new Pixel 10, for example, you're in that ballpark.
It's a lot of money, I think.
But then again, you're back in my day.
But then there also is here a Nothing Phone.
Nothing Phone 1.
It was recently ported to Ubuntu Touch.
And it's quite a nice device.
And it was bought for 90 euros secondhand.
So it's also possible to buy a cheap secondhand phone and just have it as your Ubuntu Touch phone.
Okay, cool.
A photo of that will be in the show notes, just by the way.
And of course here, through the magic of me describing what he's doing with his hands.
Yeah, we could do it live here.
I've got a Fairphone 5 in my hand and the Fairphone 5 has HDMI out support.
So what you're looking at is a dock connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse.
And when I...
It's just a regular old boring...
Well, probably not a regular old boring USB dock, but installing USB dock.
And then suddenly...
And suddenly we have Ubuntu Touch on the desktop.
So that's like regular boring Ubuntu.
It isn't.
It isn't.
No, no, no.
It's Ubuntu Touch with the Lomiri desktop environment, but it's just scaled up.
That's the convergence part of it.
I remember that word from years ago, yeah.
But can I drop to a shell here and do my daily work?
You could.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Remember folks, it's not about the power of the computer you have.
It's about the power of the computer you control.
It scales up quite sexily now, I must say.
But then again...
And the side menu pops out and all the apps are there.
The radar application's been opened up.
Vaudenberg, giving away your hometown probably.
No, no.
It's just random people I've been stalking.
That is kind of handy.
Open it.
Yeah.
And the weather site for...
What was it?
Radar NL.
Where we all go to to find out when it's going to rain in our backyard.
And we have a shell.
Ladies, this is Unix.
I know this.
See, oh, we've got the GIMP on there.
We've got Firefox.
Oh, hold on.
Go back, go back.
Go back to the menus.
Let me see.
What have we got?
We've got the GIMP opening 100 thingies.
So nothing's changed there.
And we've got the demo doing its demo thing.
KeyPassX.
Oh, cool.
That's handy.
Offline Translator.
I use that as well.
Check.
Boring Telephone.
InstaPhoto.
FreeTube.
CitySim.
You've got a lot of stuff on here.
Barcode Readers.
Good.
Actually, that's important.
Addback Plus.
UNAV.
Webber.
Ubuntu Touch.
Tiedit.
Radio NL.
Tippi's Needle on there, eh?
Oh, actually, that's important.
Addback Plus.
UNAV.
Webber.
Ubuntu Touch.
Tiedit.
Radio NL.
Tippi's Needle on there, eh?
Cool.
All the applications that you could shake a stick at are available on this.
And you can then just use this as a more ergonomic device, I guess, then.
Yeah.
And the fun thing is, if you're looking at GIMP or LibreOffice, it's also possible to install
via Snap.
Because the Open Store recently got Snap support on devices that supported to install Snap.
Yeah.
But the fun thing is, if you connect it to a monitor and a keyboard and a mouse, it really
feels like you're using a desktop computer.
Yeah, but it kind of depends on the power of the phone then at that point.
Yeah.
But the Fair phones, those are, to my knowledge, the only phones that support HDMI out.
Yeah.
They are more powerful enough to run basic desktop apps.
Yeah.
Cool.
Fascinating.
I will write this.
Sorry, I'm getting distracted now because I'm thinking, do I have a phone that will be
able to run this?
Yeah.
And I desperately want to run over and see if your list of supported devices.
So thank you very much for taking the time and I hope you have a really good show.
And thank you very much.
Yeah, thank you too.
Hi everybody.
It's Ken again here.
I'm at the T-Dose event and I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for these guys.
They are the Adfins team and they are premium sponsors of the event.
And I'm talking to?
Koen.
And?
Robert.
And Annabella.
So, who wants to start?
What is Adfins?
Yeah, Adfins is an open source system integrator.
We do everything with open source and we make sure that open source goes to the companies
and we help them with managed services.
And when you say managed services, what do you mean?
Now for example, OpenBouw is something that we do that's a secret management tool and we
make sure that they have support.
So we help the companies that they have support if they need something for the open source
tool.
For example, when you use OpenBouw, it's open source.
Who are you going to call on a Sunday morning?
That's Adfines.
Ah, I see what you're doing here.
Okay.
And why are you here?
Yeah, we are a gold sponsor and because Adfines is really a technical club, we find it very
important to give back to the community.
So that's why we're here today.
So you're a premium sponsor of this event, hence why you're here.
So what sort of background?
How did the company start?
Well, the company is originally Swish.
In Switzerland they exist 26 years old.
26 years.
And we started the Dutch entity six years ago.
So we exist now in the Netherlands for six years.
And the Swish group is bigger.
So they have also more the traditional Linux workload.
And in the Netherlands we are more oriented on cloud native workloads.
So more Kubernetes infrastructures code and also how to secure that.
And yeah, that's what we do.
So in this age of digital sovereignty, I imagine those are nice words to hear.
Yeah, we always say we have a great new sales guy with the orange hair from the US.
No, but I mean, it's a very important topic and it only empathizes already that the open
source thought that is already there for decades.
But you can see now more from the practical point of view how important it is.
So this, we all know that as an IT guy myself, I've struggled trying to get tools that I know
are going to be better, more secure, more open into an organization.
And I think you mentioned that there in passing that the problem that you come up to is you go to,
they want guarantees.
It's all about risk.
It's all about managing risk.
And as you say, who are you going to call in the middle of the night?
So I have developed something and it's all based on free Libre open source software.
And then I come to you guys and I want you to do the support for it,
even though I know I probably never need to call you.
But at the same time, that's what I can arrange.
Who do I go to?
Who do I call?
Well, then you can call Annabel or another salesperson that we have.
But it's like you said.
And we also, I think what's important, it's not only open source is alive.
But what's important is the vendor lock-in.
And where you also always should watch is that they have a kind of an open source core or whatever.
But at the end, you stick to the company and you bring all the money to the US
instead of innovation or everything that you can do else with the money.
So we really believe that it should always be open.
And OpenBow is a great example.
For example, it's HashiCorp Vault.
HashiCorp decided in 2023 to close to make it a business license, not open source anymore.
We are an open source company.
So we had troubles with that.
And there was a fork of the HashiCorp Vault code.
That's OpenBow.
So it's basically the same.
But it doesn't have all the enterprise features that the enterprise version has.
So what we did is six full-time developers.
We made the enterprise functionalities.
But we gave it back to the community.
So open source.
But we also tell the customers that we have, who are you going to call on a Sunday morning?
It's our code.
So that's, of course, we share it.
You can do whatever you want to do.
But in a production system, and it's really important if you use it in the correct way.
It's very nice that you can also call somebody that can help.
Absolutely.
Because I do like to go on vacation from time to time.
And I guarantee you, as soon as you step on that plane, that's when the phone goes off.
So I'll just pass you over to my colleagues there in advance, and they'll take care of it.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's what we do.
And that's really working great for us.
But we also tell our customers, and I think that's very strong.
If you want to do it without us, you're able to.
And we also tell customers, we need to do our best to make you happy.
Because if you're not happy with us, you can go to somebody else.
And we also invest in long-term relationships with customers, and not just throw the software at them.
And, hey, thank you for the money, and good luck with it.
No, it's an investment, it's a relationship, and we really believe in that.
I just want to make a note there about the digital sovereignty thing.
That is an initiative now where Europe wants to have more control over its own software.
But if you go down the road of free, leave, and open source, that's not being exclusive of all the countries.
There's no reason why other countries can't take that code, improve it, and give back.
So everybody can have digital sovereignty, even if you happen to be in a small state, in a farmyard somewhere, in a small province somewhere.
So it's a great idea all around, public money, public code.
I think we're all behind that.
Okay, now I have an embarrassing question.
And that is, are you guys profitable?
Are you making money?
Can you make money?
Yeah, yeah, and we can even sponsor this event with the money that we make.
Oh, that is actually fantastic.
And some people will say, well, you're taking the code from other people, and you're just using them.
And do you not feel, how do you sleep at night?
Well, what we think is, and that's a little bit of dirty world in the open source area,
it's you need to have business sense.
You also need to understand, because the companies, they also talk a different language.
So if you, from your political point of view, whatever, you know, if you really think, you know, money, big companies, and whatever,
it's up to you.
Everybody has his own opinion.
But at the end, you also need to, you need to do business.
You need to have business sense.
And that's, that's about money.
And, but I think Adfinis is a great example where those two cultures can really work together.
Because if you go to the Techiesync days, for example, it's like Tito's.
It's the same thing, and et cetera.
But at the end, we also need to make money.
And then, of course, it's also what you do with the money.
Do you invest it?
Do you give it back to the community?
Do you share it with the people that work with you?
Or is it just only for one owner and filling his pockets?
Yeah.
Yachts and space.
You don't have a rocket program by any chance?
No, no, we don't.
No, not yet.
No, no, no, no, no.
Maybe when a rocket would be electric, we would invest in it.
So where are you guys based?
Well, we don't have an office.
Because we, the engineers and people, also the salespeople, they work from everywhere in the Netherlands.
Because there are, it's a little bit shattered all over the Netherlands.
But once a week, we rent an office and then we work also to have that colleague feeling.
And, but mostly we work from home.
Oh, cool.
So what do you do because you haven't spoken at all?
I, well, it's a small company, so any title can be used.
I'm a Linux DevOps engineer.
No, architect.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
Are there any people that you can mention?
Any contracts or any names that I might know or that we're not allowed to say?
Some, some.
You're right.
So this, the products we use are quite sensitive.
So most organizations will not be open to that.
I think we've got NXP that you can mention, right?
Yeah.
Semiconductors.
They, NXP, for example, had Volts, which we helped them with a couple of years ago.
But they want to change to OpenBow.
So we help them migrate it and install it and set it up, basically.
And our intent is there also to help them and say goodbye once it's done, right?
So we don't want to, well, I mean, probably Kuhn and Bell here, the commercial people,
would love to be there forever.
But from an operational perspective, we like it if a customer themselves can operate the
product or the service themselves.
Fantastic.
I'm liking this.
Okay.
Is there anything else that I missed in this discussion or I should have covered?
Well, if companies do need somebody for their OpenBow support, just call us.
We are happy to help.
Excellent.
You're doing your job.
You're doing exactly what I told you to do.
And is that just limited to the Netherlands or does that extend?
The whole Europe.
I mean, everybody can call us because it's also important for us to keep open source alive.
So what we do, we reinvest our money also in our engineers who are developing also new open source tooling
and also contributing.
So let's keep open source alive.
Super.
Do you have any open jobs at the moment?
Always.
Always.
And where would I go to see those?
I guess the website at finis.com.
I don't know where it exactly is, but if you look at jobs, it will be there.
Super.
I'll put links to all of you guys into the show notes.
And thank you very much from everybody here for supporting this event and enjoy the rest of the show.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Oh yeah.
Bye.
Bye.
You'll be free, Eggers
You'll be free
If you want to be free
From the dirty middle of the meeting
Come to our side
You won't believe it, you see
We got everything you need
For your canu station
Take it from me
With no manipulation
Tighten up, no ploy
Down, no end joints
Easy to say
We'll come on the roof of the lake
Youngin is as a well
You can put the weight from the back
You see the light, my friend
And I know you do that
Come on, join us now
And we share the software
You'll be free, Eggers
You'll be free
Join us now
And we share the software
You'll be free, Eggers
You'll be free
If you want to be free
From the dirty middle of the meeting
Come to our side
You won't believe what you see
We got everything you need
For your canu station
Take it from me
With no manipulation
Tighten up, no ploy
Download, enjoy
It's easy to say
From coming to the roof of the lake
All you need is a well
You'll break it with the back
You see the light, my friend
And you'll be fine
Join us now
And we share the software
You'll be free
Yeah, cause you'll be free
Join us now
And we share the software
You'll be free
Yeah, cause you'll be free
They'll be free
Yeah, cause you'll be free
Join us now and share the subway
You'll be free
You'll be free
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