Episode: 1060
Title: HPR1060: OggCamp12 Farewell
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1060/hpr1060.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 18:11:19

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Accessibility, perhaps this doesn't seem to matter to you right now, but I bet once you've
heard what Jonathan Nadu has to say, you may change your mind, I certainly did.
I've great eyesight, but still enjoy the screen zooming, and now I'm thinking about
installing and using Okra to read things to me when I'm feeling lazy.
So, don't miss the first fundraiser for the Accessibility Computing Foundation.org.
It'll be held on Saturday, August 25th from 12pm Eastern until 12am Eastern.
Yes, that's a crazy 12-hour podcast, streaming live at thenewradio.net or have your say.
Ask questions via the mumble server with up to 300 other people and help make this that
success and proof of how beautiful, Linux and the amazing community is.
Why Accessibility?
In short, right now, Accessibility on a computer carries a big price tag which keeps many of
those people who really could benefit out in the cold as some 70% of disabled people
who need the software can't afford it, or for some lucky people, if the government does
pick up the tab for the overpriced proprietary software, then we, the taxpayer are helping
these proprietary companies make an easy profit, which by all accounts they aren't really
put in into fixing and supporting what they currently have.
The goal for this fundraiser is to have 1000 people become members of the ACF at $2 a month.
There are three other levels of membership, but even just spreading the awareness of this
great event and efforts by Jonathan Nadu and others who flex the big muscles of the
floss community and the power of the penguins.
So take a look at Accessible Computing Foundation at the ACF.co, or Linuxbasics.com, that's
B-A-S-I-X.com, where the last blog post has all this information as well.
And mark your calendar for a 12 hour marathon on Saturday, August the 25th from 12 p.m.
Eastern until 12 a.m. Eastern.
Drop in and show your support even if you can't make the whole 12 hours.
Hey, who of us are penguin enough for that marathon?
Hi, this is Ken, and you are?
I'm Becky Neuerer.
And we would know you from your sterling market, the crunch bank project, I guess.
Yes, but I also have other talents.
And more for those talents, be brave.
I'm also the lug mistress of the Lincoln lug meeting.
A lug mistress.
What is a lug for those of us who don't know what a lug is?
A lug is a Linux user group where like-minded people meet and talk about open source
projects.
Okay, and where is this group?
In Lincoln, which is where I'm based.
Okay.
And how did you get involved in that?
It was the only thing you wanted to talk to us about.
How I got involved with it was through a couple of years of coming to crunch bank listening
to John O'Bacon and the book about like giving back to the community.
So I wanted to do that.
Marietta Philip, Newburgh, who is the distribution editor of crunch bank.
And I just, I know because he's the techie sign of the family, I suppose I wanted to
give something back to the community.
So I wanted to set up the Linux user group in Lincoln.
So this was a, there was no user group there prior to this.
Okay, how did you go about actually doing that?
Well, at first I approached the Lincolnshire lug, which had been solely been run on the
mailing list and was, and to all the intents and purposes are dead lug and I suppose I
tried to reinvigorate it and try to get it going and sort of said, you know, enthusiasm
and I'll do this and I'll do that.
And I met a lot of hostility.
In the form of or can we not say?
Well, no, in the, in the form of, this is my toy box and I don't want to share.
You know, I'd come along to a very, what, what I viewed as a dead lug and a dead mailing
list and sort of said, you know, I know the mailing list is here, you know, how about
if I set up a meeting, you know, would you let me do this and they sort of said, no.
Okay.
So I set my own up.
So you set your own up.
Okay, excellent.
And then you were there all by yourself in a room or?
Well, no, initially I just, it was me and Philip.
We just, we just, last September in fact, it's like nearly a year now.
We're coming up to the anniversary.
So in August, this was all happening on the mailing list and in September, I picked
to date the third Wednesday and I said, we will be at this venue, at this time, if
you want to come along, come along, and I fully expected it just to be me and Philip.
And did you, had you set up another website, another mailing list at this stage, what did
you need to do?
No.
All I'd done was contacted lug.org.uk to set up a Lincoln lug mailing list and to set
up a domain.
I just set up a page that redirected that just said, you know, we are here.
We're meeting at this time.
And that was it.
And I just tweeted it out and Google plus, I set up a, I set it up a Twitter account.
I set up a Google plus page and just tweeted it.
OK.
What was that website that you went to, is it an overall website for Lugs and the UK?
Yes, that's right.
All of the Lugs, they are all, all of the details are held on lug.org.uk domain.
And if you click there, you know, the, the lug meeting that's happening in your area,
you can very easily find out your lug and also neighboring Lugs as well.
OK.
So you're sitting there in the bar, it's, it was at the bar?
It was actually, it was the bowling alley because it does free wifi, free parking, really
nice food, really nice beer.
And I know the owners of the venue because my daughter bowls for Lincolnshire, that's actually
a very good place to have us.
You can shoot a few spurs and talk about Linux.
Absolutely.
Yes.
And they made us feel really welcome.
So yeah, that first day, I just fully expected it to be Philip and I, but actually we had
a couple of members from the old Lincolnshire mailing list.
They had come along and we'd also attracted some friends from Hollug.
So it's almost become a bit of an exchange program.
So we've got the Lincoln lug and the Hollug and each month we travel to each other's
lug meetings.
OK.
That is fantastic.
So you've rejuvenated two areas.
Yeah.
Actually, Dave Harding, he's the lug master of the Hollug.
He has actually said that that due to the enthusiasm that he has seen on the mailing list,
for me trying to invigorate a Lincoln lug gave him some renewed enthusiasm.
He invigorated the Hollug and actually we've become almost like a joint lug.
We are separate, but we've joined together for so much.
And actually no reason why not seeing this as a geographic thing.
And I want to just put it in a note here that there's nothing like when you're sad
and down you go, why am I doing this?
And somebody just sends an email to you saying, thank you very much for the work you're
doing.
I'd like to ask people, listening to this show, to send off an email to other Holls who
you've listened to a show, they've inspired you just a two minute.
Thank you for that show.
This really helps.
Sorry.
I just dragged it back to the star of our show.
No, that's fine.
No, actually you're right because when I was initially, I was so fired for the enthusiasm
and I was emailing the Lincoln lug and I was saying, look, I'm prepared to do this.
I'll organize the meetings, I'll set them up.
There was a definite feeling of, you're not coming to play with my toys.
And I really heard because there was a lot of people on the mailing list were saying,
they were like shooting me down and I couldn't understand why.
You know, for something that is supposed to be so free and open and yet they weren't
prepared to share and I really couldn't understand that thinking that, you know, they wanted
to be a lug but actually didn't want to do anything about meeting in real life.
And that's fine for them, let them do that, but I wanted to meet some friends, I wanted
to talk to some people, I wanted to get techy, I wanted to meet like minded people over
and share an experience over a beer or over a meal, so I thought, stuff it.
So I did it.
Excellent.
So, you know, what's the message for our listeners coming from your experiences?
One, I suppose, not get downhearted.
Absolutely.
I think the message is because there's been a lot of talk, you know, with the likes
of, you know, Facebook chat, Google Hangout now, our lugs dead.
And a lot of people are saying, you know, the lugs have had their time, but I think some
renewed enthusiasm for lugs, I think if you define what you want out of your lug and if
you're not too prescriptive about what you want out of your lug, if you just go with
the flow, you know, you can meet a whole bunch of new friends and that's what we've done
in Lincoln.
Okay.
Fantastic.
I'm just going to end it there.
It's fantastic.
Your website is for your, you know, if somebody wants to get involved, can you give me a website
or, indeed, if anybody's there thinking how they're going to set up a lug in their area,
how do I contact you?
Okay.
If you'd go onto lug.org.uk, certainly for us in Lincoln, we are in the East Midlands,
you would click the East Midlands tab, but if you want to set up your own lug, all of
the instructions on how to do it are there, and they certainly helped me.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Enjoy the rest of the evening.
How's it going Chris?
How you doing?
I'm doing really well.
I'm going to hear all camp this week, this year.
It's been really good.
Met lots of good people, really friendly.
Which I probably tell people, actually, it's over.
We're in the restaurant on Sunday night.
Sunday night, yeah.
We've had a very good day today.
There's lots of talks on, lots of fun and games.
Not as much dancing from Ken last night.
Yeah.
And last set about that the best.
Last time we were talking to you, we were talking about the software freedom.
Software freedom, yeah.
Software freedom then.
Done day.
And done day.
Yeah.
So what's been going on since in your life?
The software in the day event went really, really well, really great.
The biggest change I thought was that we've done at the moment is we've moved from being
a society that was at the university to a private and our limited company, with a limited
company.
When our limited company called the Software Society limited, we have a director ship
who meet once a month to make sure that we're meeting the goals of the site, which would
be helping talks to educate people, trying to set up some events to show people how to
use computers, how to install Linux, how to set them up and any other ideas we can do.
Would that be a, for a profit company or is it a non-profit organization?
It's a non-profit organization.
Okay.
And that seems like a strange thing to do to go from a Linux group to actually start a
company.
We're a limited company by guarantee.
So we guarantee the membership.
The membership is always guaranteed.
Any money paid beyond that.
I think it's usually about 11 pound worth of paying, 10 pound of that's administrative
fee, but that goes to help out organizing events and help to subside some of the events
a little bit to help more people get involved.
We're currently meeting in a coffee shop, which allows people under the age 18 to come
to the meetings.
Very nice.
And things that, although, as per usual, after meetings, we usually head to the food
berries afterwards.
But we're trying to be as open as possible to both the younger generation and the older
generation.
Who decided to set up a non-profit company, you know, from a lug standpoint?
I mean, that's a great idea, but it's a fantastic idea, actually.
The main idea we did from it was, we had a few issues with the university in politics
and things.
Well, I'm going to get into that.
But when we came out of that, we decided we had a structure from the university of
a president, a vice president, and a secretary.
And they were kind of not in charge in this as a sense, but they were like, who the community
spoke to, and then they made sure it happened.
And we found that really useful.
So when we decided what we were going to do, it seemed like a good idea to have a bit,
to get a bank account so that it could put money into that to provide it.
But in the bank account, we had to be something.
Yes.
And at the time, the company by guarantee, the limit by guarantee seemed to be a good
idea.
So then you have to publish your accounts, everything has to be opened above board, that's
sort of thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, we have to have a regular meeting once a month.
All those receipts have to be go through that with the treasure.
We have to put accounts out and everything, which means we're very open in that.
We're trying to transparent.
And it's quite easily found out what's been going on money-wise and other things like
that.
And have you found any difficulties in setting that up, any unforeseen issues?
No, we've had no problems with setting it up at all.
I mean, no, I mean any issues at all.
There was a few issues with different directors, maybe not necessarily pulling the weight
initially and stuff, and that had to be sorted out and things and out.
But we've now got a good team back in it.
Everyone's pulling the weight, getting things done, and we're moving forward.
Well, this will be something that you would advise other looks to do.
We've only done it for what?
I'll hold off the question until next year, how about that?
It seems to be working for us at the moment.
OK.
We haven't had any problems.
We're still meeting every two weeks, pretty much without fail.
And we're getting people talking.
Maybe a little harsh with that kind of push people a little bit.
But once people have started done a talk, they won't come back and do another one.
And we're getting more and more people, more and more.
I'm a big fan myself for pressing the recall button and getting it out there.
Sorry, you were showing me a video where Leon was looking to the show notes, if that's OK.
Yeah, no problem with talking.
Yeah, recently we did a talk on the Raspberry Pi.
Brilliant.
Basically giving you a basic background of its history, why it came about what this hardware was,
what's the hardware capabilities were, and then another introduction to some of the
newer features like the scratch for kids building applications and stuff.
I think there's a seven-year-old girl recently built her own version of Pac-Man using the
scratch, which is like the Jigsaw puzzle, which is great.
But what I like to do is show some people a bit more complicated stuff.
So we've got some Python involved using the RPI GPIO project, which is available in GitHub.
And they, for our library, so you can run an user space and connect to the inputs and outputs
of these GPIO pins on there as we fight.
Yes, very early.
So we've got a button in the demo that demonstrates who got a button within an LED that lights
hardware-wise when the button is pressed, so that shows you the hardware is working and
the button is being pressed.
That's registered by the software, Python adds to a counter, and then outputs those values
on 4 LEDs up to the value of 16.
So as the counts up, it goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, all the way up to 16, and then resets.
That seems like a nice introductory project, was it difficult to set up?
It's very easy to set up.
The wiring diagram is very simple, and we've provided that as well.
I've got slides for it, so you don't get them, so I'll get them in the show notes.
And then we've got a wiring diagram for it, with the pins we've connected to, and the
codes available and GitHub as well.
Just to give a demo and get people started to show them that hardware is possible, it's
not just about software or running XPMC to play your movies or something.
We've said before your Raspberry Pi is all about the connectors, all about the...
Exactly.
I mean, it's not the only device with GPL pins.
Most devices have GPL pins on them, but they're not usually documented.
This time we have it documented in an easy, reasonably easy format that we can get involved
and we can start building on devices.
I think in the future, once as 3D printers are becoming cheaper as well, what's to stop
our kids building their own devices, their own cases, their own gadgets, and then...
I think it's the next frontier actually.
So, listen, you've got this company for your log and stuff.
What do you do to put food in the tavern there?
I used to work for an animation company.
We did some quite big projects.
One of our films was off to nominating stuff, which was pretty good.
Which just worked out well for me around, but I'm finding that I think the moment, there's
a lot of companies out there that are struggling at the moment, especially in the IT department,
because I don't think I can afford to pay a full-time IT guy.
So what I'm trying to do now is start a new business to expand on that and to provide
IT support for these small companies, even if it's a couple of days a week or a retainer
or something so that they can get involved, we can set them up proxies and servers and
cash in servers and file servers and whatever they need to get them moving forward and then
support that.
Yeah, that was all right.
So what's the matter with Jeremy?
The coming of the moment is called Chrysler's IT solutions.
Chrysler's.com.
I'll put the link in the show notes.
What's going on, Walter?
It's going pretty well, it's a moment, yeah, we've got a few contracts just now, we're
hoping to expand pretty rapidly.
Do you use a lot of open source free stuff in here?
Preferably use open source.
If you can use open source, then that's what we'll use.
I mean, if a company has already got a system and they want us to work that, we'll work
it out.
But if we can provide an open source solution that would benefit more than that's the plan
because I mean, the managers are not having the licensing costs and they say, I've always
found open source more stable, more reliable, which of course means they don't call me quite
as much.
But that's not necessarily a bad thing.
No, no.
Okay, good stuff.
Enjoying the show.
Have you been doing talks, actually?
I went to good few talks, yeah.
I think we went to the enigma talk, which was interesting from a historical point of
you and seeing that you can get involved and stuff, which was good.
And a few other, we went to a few other talks, I think the other one is it still work.
I quite like the flash talks section, which was quite good, because that kind of got a
few people involved and getting to feel good in a hurry, quite telling us that it lots
of different subjects with lots of different things and it kind of shocked me in time.
And it was good, and gave you a lot to think about it in my short time.
I mean, there was a lot, there was a few political talks, which were good, definitely got
just thinking about the bigger picture, which a lot of us don't think about when it comes
to open source IT and stuff and our own digital rights and what data we're providing to companies
and how they're going to use that is a big issue, I think, at the moment.
It seems to be moving forward, yeah.
I think I've really enjoyed it.
There's a little great crowd of people.
Everybody's been friendly.
I definitely like one of the advantages of the conference this year is the fact that we
had the hotel that most people were staring at.
I think there were some of the 180 people at the hotel, which was amazing, but it meant
that everybody could go down to the main area and everyone's there and somebody to talk
to.
So, yeah, people have been really friendly.
The facilities have been absolutely excellent, the uni has been amazing, there'll be very
hard press to talk about, isn't it?
It's a pity I can't afford to come down here all the time, but I mean, the fab lab,
the fabrication lab that they've built in the university is amazing, so the equipment
they've got in there and the techniques they build and stuff is amazing, and it's great
to see that they're using a lot of open-source stuff as well, because that's what it's about
and that's what it's for, and the more people use it, the better.
Exactly, yeah.
More jobs for us.
Exactly, exactly.
Right, listen, we'll let you get back to your dinner point, whatever it is at the stage.
Thanks very much for the show.
Oh, thank you.
We're still on the outside to have a quiet chat outside with.
Ian Claus.
Hi, Ian.
Where have you come from today?
Limerick, Public of Ireland.
And what's the Linux scene like over there?
There is a small group of us which, you know, try and keep the open-source ideals alive
in Limerick.
There is one guy who is actually very much involved in it who tries to keep people mostly interested
all the time by doing various stuff, you know, a bunch of meets, you know, love meets
and stuff like that.
I don't think we actually have a lug group, but, you know, we have dedicated, interested
pastier people that try and spread the ideas that we actually, you know, that we all believe
in.
Do you have, like, a website or something that you can...
No, there isn't, unfortunately, there's no website, there's no dedicated, nothing central
really at the moment.
I mean, we do have a conference, I'm not sure what the conference actually is, but it
will be in October, which, you know, consent details on to you as well, which we apparently
do have Mark Shuttleworth coming down to talk.
Okay.
About what?
Just about whatever.
Not entirely sure.
Whatever Mark Shuttleworth wants to talk about.
Pretty much.
I have been to space.
I would talk whatever we want to talk about it, I guess.
But, no, I mean, there's no organized group, there's a, there's a good few of us who believe
in it.
I mean, there's far more, weirdly enough, there's probably far more Android enthusiasts.
I mean, people who really, you know, love the Android system and understand that it's
Linux-based and all that, and then we actually have desktop users who would actually be into,
you know, open source software and all that, it does seem to be quite a mobile-based,
you know, community in a sense, but we don't have, there's no real, huge kind of Apple
Mac user-based, there's, you know, the standard Windows that everybody uses, and then there's
us, you know, who use Linux, and, but there is some people that I have met down there who
are actually trying to push it now, business enterprise, to actually show businesses how
they can actually save money, because obviously, in Ireland at the moment, we have a situation
where, you know, money is tights, companies need to save money, and, you know, there is at
least a couple of guys down at the moment who are trying to push forward a whole agenda
of free software, this is how you can actually save money without a Microsoft license, and,
you know, they have some decent ideas and good plans, but as anything, any economy which
has, you know, virtually collapsed.
It's difficult to still do, like, you know, people are still hanging on to what they have
at the moment, for as long as they can go, you know, so, I mean, you know, it has a start,
I think I'll be moving to Cork in September, and I recently found out that UCC, actually
University College Cork, actually contributors to a open source lettering recording program,
and they actually do have a far more active group down there than we would have in Limerick,
which, you know, is a smaller, less active city.
Yeah.
Is there any sort of nationwide collective we've probably earlier in this, in this episode
you've heard Becky, there's a network for logs in the UK, is there sort of equivalent
for Ireland?
Yes, we do have an equivalent, but you'll find that it's, there'll be a few log groups
like, you know, and it'd be a, you know, there is a national, yeah, there is a national
movement, but I would say it's so much smaller, you know, it's a smaller country, mainly
Dublin, Cork, and surprisingly enough, you wouldn't see it watching Goalway, I think
it's like I have a look group with enough, and if you're looking at all Ireland, obviously
Belfast would probably be one which jumps out more, University towns are always going
to have it more unfortunately the town I live in, University town itself, it is, but UL
is a very, you know, enterprise, business, university, unfortunately, so I don't think
well, if they can make more money from Windows, that's where they will go, unfortunately.
Okay, anything else that you want to, any projects, come on up, any things that you're
catching your mind?
Well, it's not catching mine, it's not actually a project I'm planning to do, I'm like
I say heading to UCC myself, I'm studying history in archaeology, it's, you know, so far
away from anything technological, you know, however, in archaeology there is a number of
tools which has to be used, computers these days, reconstruction of sites, of fines and
stuff like that, I'm looking, when I go to Cork to actually do this, mainly as much as
I can, you know, without actually looking at percentage of the stuff, as much as I can
with free software, CFD alternatives are out there, I mean, this is another area which
there's not a lot of money invested in at these days, you know, a lot of big digs have
already been, and we know we have more coming up, but we need to, you know, look at some
ways of making, of saving money, you know, because in the end we're not getting the funding
these days from the government, so if we, if I can actually do this course, which is
three years, and I can only use open source software than all the better, and I'm hoping
to maybe, I'll be suggested to the free software foundation, I've said that, you know, write
a blog about it, you know, let us know how you're doing and stuff like that, and you know,
this is something I actually plan to do, you know, it's a, I need to approach the college
at some point as well when I go down and say, look, you know, what do you have open source
wise, because, you know, in the end universities say, you know, the open source guys are all
computer, you know, they're doing some sort of computer degree, this would be probably
one of the first times somebody's come up from, from doing a history degree, an arts degree,
and then I say, look, I want to do this, you know, can you help me? So, you know, we'll
see how that one goes, I mean, it's, you know, should be interesting, because I can't,
you know, they might already be, I might go down and find the role of open source anyway,
like, you know, but I severely doubt it, like, you know, it's, you know, hopeful thinking
that's going to be the case, I might be one of the first to actually try and do something
like this, and you see, see itself.
What do you think about Camp? Anything, I don't know, what?
Oh, Camp.
Oh, Camp, oh, we are.
Oh, Camp was brilliant. Again, everybody who's organised it has done a brilliant job.
I, this is the first time I've been from, but I heard about, you know, how well it went
last year. Oh, Camp this year, Liverpool, spiritual home in a sense, I suppose.
Yeah, I really enjoy them. When I've gone to all the lectures, I would have hoped to have
gone to all the talks. Next year, hopefully, might do a talk myself after the first year,
after college, you'd see how it goes. But yeah, I've really enjoyed it. Anything I would
tell you, and I'd say is, please supply coffee for free.
Oh, I know, with that, thank you very much for the interview, and look forward to hearing
next year about your software.
Okay, cool. Okay, this is officially the last recording I'm going to do.
Well, forever. Well, at least for this. And I'm outside talking to Fab, how are you doing Fab?
I'm good, quite tired, but good. Was the whole thing as short for you as it was for me?
Yeah, completely. I mean, I just ran around, I didn't see a talk, obviously, it's just, you know,
yeah, I'm really tired. Yes. And you just had the big move for obviously from Germany?
Yeah, well, I moved, God, must be two months ago. I moved from Germany to London for a new job.
Well, first real job, really. Tecjourn was me, yay. It was, obviously, it was a big, big move
and everything, and quite, you know, quite taxing, but it's all got together with the Okam thing,
you know, it's kind of, kind of, massed together, and all just co-lessed on these two
months, and it's just got too much. Yes, I know, it's pretty out, because we had DJ.
We interviewed DJ here last year on the... Oh, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, my boss, yeah, he's my editor.
Did he interview you last year? Oh, come, that would be cool, the inside track.
You mean did I interview? Did you get the job? No, no, no, no, no, I didn't. I got the job
much later. Basically, I started working for them in March from Germany, back from Germany,
so I worked three months, basically, from home, and then I moved over.
Okay, I didn't even know them, and so I'm at last Okam, but that's the first time I met him,
I didn't know who he was. Every one of these events, I do a private competition myself,
who was the best T-shirt, and he won that. Oh, yeah, he's T-shirt, I see dead pixels.
Yeah, yes, he's got awesome T-shirts, he beats anybody with Kiki T-shirts, and with tablets,
he had like, did he have like seven tablets? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, actually, I've never heard of
the H before that, and then I noticed a question, they have some really good stuff. Lots of people don't
know about us, and they should. I mean, I say this because I work there, but still, I get quite a lot
of, you know, on Twitter and whatever, I get people like, they sent me links, and then like, you should,
you should talk about the story on Linux outlaws, or have you ever seen this, and then I have to go,
well, actually, I wrote about this two weeks, no, not two weeks, more like like three days or something,
ago, and then I sent a link to it. No, the hitch date is a selection resource, I'm glad,
really, I met DJ last year, and was following them. So tell me, I'm not going to bore you with any
house, actually, how was our company? For me, it was awesome. I, you know, it's just, I didn't see any,
you know, I don't know how the talks went, but for me personally, even when I go to these conferences,
now just go to them, for me, some other people, and meeting people, and I think that was good.
I got lots of people telling me and other people, and, you know, on Twitter and stuff, that,
that was the biggest thing for them meeting people, and I think it was, it was really good. It
seems to get better every year. I don't know how, but the venue was awesome. The venue was awesome.
Dan did a great job, by the way. Yeah, I was, it has helped Dan, the hotel has been the weirdest
hotel ever. It's, it's really weird. It is like, honestly, people just give you an idea, if you
think, go rewind a hercule pyro, yeah, type hotel. It's like from the 18s, 50s, it's like
brand rooms. Yeah, but it's not like one of these things where they have, where they converted it
to a hotel, where you can see it was a mansion, or what it was built as a hotel, but in like the,
if you think it kind of reminds you of the Titanic, if you, if you, it's like that kind of like,
it's Art Deco, and it's like, there's this huge, I don't know what it is, like a ballroom or something.
It's just like a hall. Shend liars, and it's just like an avenue to other ballrooms. It's amazing.
I mean, the room, the walk down to the venue last night was like walking through the
toilet, so you go down this stairs, you go left, there's four more ballrooms, and there's four more
ballrooms. There are all these rooms, and it's, it's, it's quite weird, because it's actually,
it's falling apart and it's, and it's actually, they're letting it, I don't know, they're not
looking after it as much as, well, maybe I'm used, you know, I'm German, and we are quite
facetidious with these things. Yeah, and so maybe it's, it's still, it's a cool, and the venue was
awesome. I mean, they did, well, they gave us the venue for free. They did a lot of work for us,
they put up, you know, signs and everything, and they were just extremely helpful on the day,
as well. I mean, we had technician, we had the technician from the venue, we had a lady sitting
at the reception the whole time, and it's, it's a university, you know, it's, it's a Liverpool
John Morris University, and it's one of their buildings, but, you know, they're, they're on the
weekend and just helping us out. I don't know, I would, I mean, obviously, you want to move
on camp around, and I don't know if we're going to move it around. I would do a tear against,
yeah. It would be really hard press to beat that venue. The thing is, the venues have gotten
better every year. Yes. I love, I really love the Maltings, the last year's venue, we said,
this is like, the best venue is no way we're going to be, well, the thing with our campus, it lands
wherever somebody, somebody on the ground is taking the biggest responsibility, you know, you have
to be, you have to have somebody there who goes to the venue and clears all these things up,
and so this year was Dan again, so that's basically how it comes. We're not moving it on purpose
really. But at the same time, I can imagine the absolute stress of Dan, something like that,
you kind of want it a year off. Dan, Dan, Dan, we don't, don't place it, but it was, I think it was
a massive amount of stress and work, and Dan and Les Pounder, I've got to give a shout out to Les Pounder,
he's so organized, he did, you know, we had so much crew, that crew was everywhere, yeah,
and they help you with everything, and it's really cool. So I got like really that, and I just saw,
I can kind of say, basically you just saw happy people, of people that were there, and everybody seemed
to have a good time, which is the best thing, you know, you get these, you hear these things,
like these days, you have these conferences, and there's like this sexual harassment stuff going on,
and you know, all that kind of stuff, and it's just, that the stuff, Okam has such an awesome atmosphere.
Did you notice as well, the breadth of people, there were lots of young people, lots of older people,
I mean, you would not think that, okay, 100% geek, right, from the oldest to the youngest.
Of course. But very different, yeah. We always had that from the beginning, I think it's a factor
of our two podcasts, being very different learnings, outlaws, and Ubuntu UK podcasts,
having very different audiences, and we both pull from these audiences, and I think it's worked,
always worked very well, you know, they're kind of, you think they clash, you know, because they're
kind of different mentalities, but it always works out well, and if you have a place where you get
people together that are different, everybody learns something, you know, and I think that, I mean,
and it's not like, it's also because it's not a free software conference in itself, I mean,
we had Open Heart, where we had culture stuff, we always have culture stuff, I tried to get this,
it was a bit of a fail, I tried to get this Minecraft thing going, and I figured out it was
a lot harder than I thought, but for example, we had people commenting on that, that it's not free
software, and you know, we as the organisers always said, well, Okam is not only a free software
conference, we're much about free software open source, but we're also about Open Heartware
and stuff where there's just not free software involved, and we just want to, we don't want to
exclude somebody from it, because I think we have this mentality, and Dan has talked about
this a lot, that if you get people in there that are maybe not that well-known, well, they don't
know open source that much, and they come there for another reason, and they see all the open source
stuff, then they, you know, you might pull them in, and I mean, even Richard Stallman says, yeah,
it's steam coming to Linux, is a good thing, in general, you know, it's bad, it's a proprietary software
and evil, but it'll get, yeah, and they say, yeah, I mean, the thing with the thing we have with
Linux and Open Source is that, I think there's a huge number of people out there that have no idea
what it is, and they don't come in contact with it, I mean, even if you have what some people
would call the worst case, if you have people that only come to it because it's free as in beer,
I think that's good as well, because that's, I don't, I can't really remember how I got into it,
but that might have been, that was definitely a factor, so I mean, and that's something, you know,
that's something that pulls people in, and they will, they will then, I mean, not everybody will,
but quite a few people will then, you know, hear about all the, the other stuff that's involved,
and then they can make up their own mind, yeah, it's like freedom and the kind of morality that's
involved there, and you know, and it's compatible with it, I mean, the lady who was converting t-shirts
and, you know, the old ol' company shirts into, yeah, I've been to bags, yeah, but the stuff,
it's like, there are a lot of people out there into green culture, into the recycle, and not to
the ways who are very compatible and very open to, to like, the old company and thing, I thought
it was a great tab of those people. Yeah, and it's, okay, it's a bit weird because like,
for example, the name has nothing to do with what it really is, and we just came up with the
name itself, yeah, and it's just sticking, I mean, we had Stephen Fry doing a video and like,
going on about, okay, we can't change the name now, you know, Stephen Fry knows the name,
that's it, but it's just, it's a weird mixture, you really got to be there, and I think it's,
I do think it's an important event because here in the UK, I mean, I'm amazed, it's the biggest,
you know, I was always, I didn't want to say like, we're the biggest open source event or whatever,
but we are, there's really, you know, we basically took over from like, where you live,
and it was a big thing because people were saying we can't let, like, where your life go away,
and then there's nothing there, so basically we started it from somebody's got to pick up the
slag, that was the idea. Yeah, it's stepping up to the page. Actually, this year I must say, it was
the first year over, I thought, do you know my wife would actually like to come and see this,
and then I go around to something else and go, you know, she'd really like this. I think it really
worked out this year that we had other stuff there as well, you know, we had all the hardware stuff
and people, you know, they were like, I don't know, they've even done this moment. Oh, yeah,
but the thing is, Dan's mom is a propagator, but she's also very geeky, but you know, we had all this
stuff, I mean, Katie, my girlfriend was coming along and we actually are English is fantastic,
whether we're picking up an English accent, I don't know what it is. Yeah, well, sorry. No, no,
she always, she's very humble in this kind of things, but yeah, I think that, I think she's
really well, but anyway, we had, you know, it's stupid to say, you know, it sounds weird to say
this, but I always look around and when I see that there's a lot of women there, it's kind of,
you know, for a geek conference, it's still abysmally low percentage for anything else, but for a
geek conference is actually not bad, and I like that, and whatever it is about Okam, I mean,
there's so much stuff going on, I think that's what it is, you know, we have like the geeknake
and whatever, and Dan came up with all this weird stuff that comes around, you know, in the evening,
the music stuff, it's just, it's some sort of work, yeah. So, right, okay, enough about that.
How have you, how are you long enough here in the UK to be adjusted to life?
God, well, the thing is, I don't know, I don't know, I lived in Australia for quite a while,
so I got used to that, I'm really used to being in another country that, you know, since Australia,
basically you're more prepared for it. I was there in school, basically, they, I went for a year
to, you know, in a host family, they dropped me in a host family where they don't speak a word of
German, so I got like the proper culture shock, yeah. And after that, it's really hard to
face me, I mean, there's a lot less differences between the UK and Germany than me, it's between
Australia and Germany, so I, the biggest thing for me adapting is actually London, because I'm
not a big city guy. I was thought Berlin, I'd never moved to Berlin, that's way too big, I don't
want to go there. And now, basically, I wanted, I really wanted this job, I thought the job was
brilliant, and I said, well, if they want to move, want me to move to London, I'm going to do this,
I'm going to make this happen. And I did, but now I'm basically in this huge city, and I'm trying
to adapt. I'm kind of lucky because I live in Wembleton, and I've learned that London is
incredibly green, for example, there's like all these parks and stuff, that I had no idea,
I mean, London has a lot of facets to it that you don't see if you're just there as a tourist,
and I'm kind of just discovering that, but it's coming together well, I think it's kind of
working. Practical things, power cards. I don't know, the power cards, it's like, if you're German,
there's some things that are just, you know, it's with every, you come from one country, and
you only notice the peculiarities about your country, if you go somewhere else, and you see
the different, I mean, one of the things, let me put this way, in Germany we isolate houses a lot,
we've lots of laws that are like, you know, for green housing and stuff, and then put, yeah,
put in each installation everywhere, and like they actually have now, if you have older houses,
you're forced by law to renovate them and put insulation and safe power and stuff, and I move
into this flat, and my father came up, and we did brought my stuff up, and I wanted to put a
cupboard on the wall, so my father takes the drill, and he drills into the wall, and the drill just
goes, and it's gone, and we're like, that's weird, so it's basically plasterboard, and it went
through the plasterboard, there was nothing, so in Germany you'd have plasterboard, and then you'd
go right into stone, you know, whatever the stone they used for the walls, and then you'd put your,
you know, just whatever in there, but that, you know, there was nothing there, and we're like,
we're looking out the window, looking at the wall, like through the wall, like the wall is
this thick, and there's only plasterboard, so we figured out, it's basically just bricks,
so in the UK, they seemed still to build, it was for Germans, amazing, they built houses by
taking bricks, you know, real bricks, in Germany, if you see brick houses, they actually made out of,
you know, they used the stones that are hollow, for decades, it's building houses
with that, and then you put the insulation on that, and then you put like fake bricks that are
really thin, just to put that on the outside, so it looks like bricks, and then you won't find,
like, if you're hard to find a house, really build out of bricks in Germany anyway,
and that was just like culture shock, it was like, I'm going to put something on the wall, yeah,
it was like, so we had, you know, if you use like plasterboard things, but basically I think
they just had bricks, and then they nailed wooden struts on that, and then proposed on that,
and my insulation between, there was, there's no insulation, we looked at it, it's like,
that's called the eras, yeah, so it's basically, basically nothing, yeah, in Germany,
that would, like, there's probably houses like that, but you know, that's one of the things,
that's really, that's a good thing, you know, it freaks you out after a while, but is it,
well, I think insulation houses generally a good thing, but taking that example aside,
it's a good thing to go to another country, see different things, and you assume so much about
where you're living, and you go, like, when I went to the Netherlands and found simply that the
built the house, the built the windows, when they're building a house to build the window frames
first, and then build a house around the window frames, I mean, you think about it, that's so
much more logical than building the wall than cutting the hole in it, but yeah, I mean,
that is nothing to do with that, what do you miss from home? Well, one thing is bread,
if you're outside of Germany, there's no way to get bread like in Germany, there's lots of
people think I miss beer, but I really like to be in the UK, you know, it's very different,
there's a lot more variety. It's a nice real ale, I must say, the hotel doesn't have
no, no, the hotel doesn't know that was, but yeah, however, yeah, but around here in Liverpool,
there's lots of cool stuff, I do like to be, I mean, the one thing you can't expect,
I'm quite a Pilsner fan, and you can't expect a Pilsner, they just don't, if you're outside
Germany, I think they don't, well, it's not from Germany, you know, Poland, you know, Czech
Slovakia, all those countries, but in the UK, you just can't expect proper Pilsner, so, but it's okay,
I can get that when I'm back in Germany. I have to ask the question, you know I do, I can't help
myself, I'll come 13 as I come in. Oh my god, that's just like the, it's too early to say.
Yeah, no, we really don't want to commit, but you know, the thing is, I couldn't do such a stage,
it's unlikely, it's immense pressure from everybody now to have this, because as I said, if it goes
away, the UK basically loses a big thing, and there's like, the question for us is why it's
difficult for us, it's because we are these two podcasts, and we just sit together, and we just
basically have a mailing list, and we discuss, and then somebody basically needs to, you know,
put his balls, I'm going to do it. Yeah, yeah, basically put your money where your mouth is,
and put your spots on the line, to just say, and that's always a bit, you know, because
it's, it's a time, is it getting no big enough where you can take in somebody else and start,
okay, you have your two podcasts, and then just have like a committee that will come together,
external people, like the crew concept, we already have that, I mean, we basically, we already
outsourced, if you so to speak, so much stuff, I mean, the crew was involved before, we have
people helping us, I mean, John speaks writing campfire manager, you know, I can't stuff, we have,
that is really not the problem, but in the end, there is one person who's on the ground, who's
basically taking this responsibility, I mean, then also put up money for this, that we get back,
that's why we sell merchandising and stuff, you know, to get the money back, but somebody needs,
and before that I was Tony Whitmore, did a lot of that, you know, you put stuff on the line,
somebody needs to do it, so basically what we always do is like, we let this rest for at least three
minutes, well usually it's like around Christmas, it comes up, you know, there's so many people,
there's people asking for the podcast around Christmas, it comes up again, and then we'll decide,
I'm pretty sure there will be, okay, so I need to ask is my wife works on a six month schedule,
so I kind of need to plan the holidays, so around Christmas I'll bring up the question again.
Yeah, I know that we are well aware of the scheduling thing, but okay, so in that respect,
so fluid, because we never know who's going to do it, so we don't know where it's going to be,
I'm really, see, I'm split on this, because I saw that then that such so much work,
and I really don't want him to do it again next year, because he, I think, needs to rest,
and well deserves it, but I mean, from talking, we all like the venue so much.
I might be nice to get to look now specifically at universities in all the locations, perhaps.
Yeah, that's definitely one thing, I mean, that's a good thing, I mean, the thing is,
the venue is the biggest cost by far, if we can get it like we did this year,
if we can get the venue for free, that makes a lot of things a lot easier, because then you don't
need to worry that much about sponsorship, you know, the thing we got sponsorship for this year,
it's all extra stuff, it's still needed, you know, it's good, we need it, but it's like, if you get
the venue, you're like, there's like this huge block of concrete, because before you need to get
sponsors, you need to, you need to get enough money upfront from people who are committing,
and then you can go get a venue. So if you have the venue first, it's basically, it starts off
on a lot easier, you know, footing. Listen, I'm going to let you go, this is the last
interview, I want to thank you, oh, first of all, I want to just take the opportunity to thank
that guy who donated the Nexus 7, oh yes, I don't even know who John even knows his name,
no, but he was great, so we basically, we were giving away Nexus 7, that we got sponsorship,
and I think I just donated it back to us, which I thought I couldn't believe it, and then we
auctioned it off, yeah, no auctioned it off, and then but there was two, you know, it was two
fold, because he gave it back, and we auctioned off, and then, and then he gave it back, and then
we auctioned it off, and the guy who bought it, bought it like ridiculously over the price, he could
have just bought it on the Play Store, just to support, okay, I mean, we have so many people
really helping us out, and really showing that they want this event, and that's basically what
makes us put it on over and over again, because there's people that come that they say they like it,
they say it on Twitter, you know, there's people that really have a good time, and that's the thing
that once you make, you know, that basically motivates everybody to do it again, it's basically
like podcasting, I mean, that's what you do, you don't do it for money, you know, if you have
people who come up to you, you know, at these events and say, really like what you're doing,
I mean, you must get the same thing. Well, for the first time actually, that somebody's
been embarrassing actually. Well, yeah, it's a bit, yeah, it feels weird, but it's kind of that
thing that keeps you going, at least that's what, you know, it keeps me going, because if I'd be
feeling like nobody's going to listen to Lynx Olaf example, then, you know, nobody's going to want
it, then why won't you keep doing it. Okay, thank you very much, shake the hand here, shaking the
hand of everybody involved in the whole thing. It was great fun. It was, actually it was unbelievably
short. I don't know why, I was just went into the raffle thing, it was good. It's all, yeah, I felt
like this as well. That's one, one thing I have to say, I fell in this, in this hole. Actually,
know this from the, I was involved with a Shakespeare company in Bonn, and they have this thing,
we call this a production hole, like when you do this production, you put on this play, and then
you, seven days where you produce this plane, you, and then after, after it's over, you met all
these people, you spent so much time with them putting this play together. And after
it was just like over and you feel like, oh, yeah, and I felt like that was okay. I really had that,
but then, that's a good sign though. We came down here to the leaf people. I said it earlier,
there must be models in here working out there. And they're really so nice, they've been sponsoring
the tea and stuff, they've been doing the shop. Yeah, it's something then again, fun. People got
sort of, got some food into them, and people had a chance to say goodbye and kind of walk away,
and yeah, it really just gives me a sense of closure, and that's why I'm now turning this off,
and putting the microphone on the point. And ladies and gentlemen, tune in tomorrow for another
exciting episode of Hacker Public Radio, Liverpool Out.
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