Transcript of SFP#14: The world of mesh networking with Elektra Wagenrad
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WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:18.120 Welcome to the Software Freedom Podcast. 00:18.120 --> 00:21.960 This podcast is presented to you by the Free Software Foundation Europe. 00:21.960 --> 00:25.280 We are a charity that empowers users to control technology. 00:25.280 --> 00:29.080 I'm Matthias Kurschner, the president of the Free Software Foundation Europe. 00:29.080 --> 00:34.440 And our guest today is Elektra, who works as a software and hardware developer and is 00:34.440 --> 00:39.680 involved in the development of match networking and the Freifung initiative. 00:39.680 --> 00:45.960 She's a philosopher, I think we can say, the author of the book Mesh, a co-author of the 00:45.960 --> 00:52.680 book Wireless Networking in the Developing World, and moderates the Freifung Radio and 00:52.680 --> 01:01.080 Radio Shows of Micro FM at Collaboration Radio on 88fear.de. 01:01.080 --> 01:06.120 So way more experienced than I have with radio and audio recording. 01:06.120 --> 01:08.320 Hello and welcome Elektra. 01:08.320 --> 01:09.920 Enough of the flattering. 01:09.920 --> 01:12.320 Thanks for inviting me. 01:12.320 --> 01:18.400 So Elektra, both of us are from Berlin and at the time lived in Berlin. 01:18.400 --> 01:25.360 And the first time we met was actually in Brazil at the Free Software Conference Fissile 01:25.360 --> 01:26.520 there. 01:26.520 --> 01:33.720 And yeah, so I am wondering actually how you got involved in Free Software before we 01:33.720 --> 01:34.720 met there. 01:34.720 --> 01:35.720 So that's already done. 01:35.720 --> 01:41.840 Over 10 years ago, but I realized we haven't talked about how you actually got involved 01:41.840 --> 01:43.880 in the first place. 01:44.880 --> 01:50.560 Well, my first computer was the Commodore 16 and that sucked because nobody was bothering 01:50.560 --> 01:53.120 to write software for it. 01:53.120 --> 01:55.400 Everybody wanted a C64 back then. 01:55.400 --> 02:03.720 Then I had a PC, a 386 without co-processor was using DOS 5.0 for Microsoft and I actually 02:03.720 --> 02:12.480 was only doing text editing and designing printed circuit boards. 02:12.480 --> 02:20.080 And later I bought my first pensum PC and that used Windows 95 and it was just a bummer. 02:20.080 --> 02:22.080 Nothing did work. 02:22.080 --> 02:27.680 And then yeah, since I'm an electronics person, I often shopped in electronic stores and 02:27.680 --> 02:31.680 they had redhead Linux and Susie Linux in a box. 02:31.680 --> 02:38.200 And at one point I bought Linux in a box and the first thing was the command line is so 02:38.200 --> 02:43.880 comfortable and I got an entire planet of opportunities. 02:43.880 --> 02:51.800 Like all the universities, all the machines, all the stuff you need to do something. 02:51.800 --> 02:58.600 It was all there and was all open waiting for me to play with it like a big planet official 02:58.600 --> 03:01.240 technique but in software. 03:01.240 --> 03:07.840 It's also interesting because like for myself, the first GNU Linux distribution I got, I bought 03:07.880 --> 03:13.320 myself or I got it landed from a friend and then I bought others and we landed around. 03:13.320 --> 03:18.560 Nowadays most people, they just download it and often confuse free software with creative 03:18.560 --> 03:19.880 software. 03:19.880 --> 03:26.800 And for us, we had to buy it from the beginning, this association isn't so present there. 03:26.800 --> 03:33.800 So for you, it was the getting this large tool set empowering you in what you want to 03:33.800 --> 03:34.800 do. 03:34.800 --> 03:43.800 We plan it with all the resources for free and it also rang the bell of Mutual Aid. 03:43.800 --> 03:51.400 You probably know the book Mutual Aid by the Russian anarchist Krapodkin. 03:51.400 --> 03:53.840 I have to admit, no, I don't know it. 03:53.840 --> 03:57.360 Well, this is like a huge gap. 03:57.360 --> 04:04.760 You should read Mutual Aid because it's an anti-social Darwinist book. 04:05.760 --> 04:15.000 And he's proving that for the flourishment of the species, it is important that the individuals 04:15.000 --> 04:17.280 from the species, they help each other. 04:17.280 --> 04:23.520 So survival is not the battle of the fittest and only the fittest one survives. 04:23.520 --> 04:30.600 The fittest species is also that one where the individuals help each other. 04:30.600 --> 04:34.680 So that's, yeah, that's in a nutshell. 04:34.680 --> 04:40.000 So when I think about how we first met, that was when you were, when people asked you 04:40.000 --> 04:44.880 to help with setting up machine networking also there in in Brazil, right? 04:44.880 --> 04:51.360 So we're in the favelias there and looking where could we build the antennas? 04:51.360 --> 04:55.480 How did you end up in this area of work? 04:55.480 --> 05:01.040 Well, I was always fascinated with wireless communication with radio. 05:01.080 --> 05:05.040 I think I was like eight or nine when I've built my first radio. 05:05.040 --> 05:10.560 It was a simple detector radio and probably a bit younger when I first built my first 05:10.560 --> 05:16.040 circuits and radio always has fascinated me. 05:16.040 --> 05:19.920 And there was also the reason why I got involved in electronics. 05:19.920 --> 05:24.840 At first I was more involved in electronics rather than in programming and computing, 05:24.840 --> 05:29.480 but computers of course, so the Department of Electronics. 05:29.480 --> 05:36.160 So it was also fascinating and, yeah, then the came the internet and a minute in the 05:36.160 --> 05:45.720 internet was like two cents back then and so you had to count the minutes and, yeah. 05:45.720 --> 05:51.200 And then the first DSL lines came and there was the opportunity to share those lines via 05:51.280 --> 05:55.240 radio and so I started to build some wireless technology. 05:55.240 --> 06:00.360 There was pre-WIFI, WIFI was already there, but it was an affordable. 06:00.360 --> 06:06.880 And so when WIFI became affordable and there was a budget for that community, I was involved 06:06.880 --> 06:08.560 in the low tech. 06:08.560 --> 06:13.440 It was like before the term hacker space, mecherspace was coined. 06:13.440 --> 06:20.080 There were these groups of like squatters basically in the Netherlands and in Germany that 06:20.080 --> 06:24.680 were setting up internet cafes and training centers for open stores, teaching people 06:24.680 --> 06:31.560 how to use GPG, how to install Linux or open BSD or free BSD or whatever. 06:31.560 --> 06:36.840 Well, that's now more than 20 years ago, 25, 26 years. 06:36.840 --> 06:41.840 And that was also the time when you Electra got involved with Batman. 06:42.320 --> 06:53.760 No, Batman was an invention I made together with Thomas Lopatik in 2005, 2006 because I was 06:53.760 --> 07:03.160 hacking on mesh routing protocols because routing and forwarding is a natural extension 07:03.160 --> 07:10.280 if you do radio communication because every radio communication device has a limited range. 07:10.280 --> 07:16.920 But if there are other devices that mutually help in the forwarding data, then you can 07:16.920 --> 07:23.360 build a cloud like a beehive where everybody is connected to everybody else, regardless 07:23.360 --> 07:25.760 of the individual range. 07:25.760 --> 07:32.280 So all the machines are contributing to build an infrastructure which is based on multi-point 07:32.280 --> 07:37.960 to multi-point networking, radio communication is always a broadcast. 07:37.960 --> 07:44.560 It's an artificial limitation if Wi-Fi networks provide hotspots where all the clients 07:44.560 --> 07:49.400 need the central hotspot in order to communicate with each other. 07:49.400 --> 07:54.840 And since the Wi-Fi protocols, since the beginning, at least in theory supported the 07:54.840 --> 08:01.600 ad hoc mode, which is basically multi-point to multi-point communication in 800.11, I got 08:01.600 --> 08:08.200 the idea that we need some kind of software that organizes the interconnection between 08:08.200 --> 08:14.080 those devices so that every device relates traffic for every other device if needed and 08:14.080 --> 08:16.640 this can be done over multiple hops. 08:16.640 --> 08:22.480 So you can cover an entire area with such a network and it would be license-free, it can 08:22.480 --> 08:25.560 operate in a license-free band. 08:25.560 --> 08:34.160 And so this idea was ripe even before I joined Fryfunk, but when I joined the Fryfunk 08:34.160 --> 08:41.400 community at the beginning, I wrote a Wikipedia article in the Fryfunk Wiki and explained 08:41.400 --> 08:42.400 the idea. 08:42.400 --> 08:47.400 And to my surprise, there was a crowd of people that were excited about the idea and that's 08:47.400 --> 08:54.720 how machine networking at Fryfunk essentially started here in Berlin. 08:54.720 --> 08:59.880 And can you explain again what bad man then exactly is with the machine networking now? 08:59.880 --> 09:06.840 That's the, you explain that, that it's enlarging the range of the network and all the peers 09:06.840 --> 09:10.840 help each other to reach the other peers. 09:10.840 --> 09:16.600 Well in the field of machine networking, so radio-based machine networking with multi-point 09:16.600 --> 09:23.040 to multi-point, capable radios, there are different types of protocols. 09:23.040 --> 09:26.720 Some are proactive and some are reactive. 09:26.720 --> 09:31.360 Reactive protocols, we can just skip there only trying to learn about the existence of 09:31.360 --> 09:37.240 the network and how they can get from A to B if there is a demand while proactive networking 09:37.240 --> 09:43.480 protocols, they always try to have an idea of the network so that if you want to send 09:43.480 --> 09:49.200 something from A to B, you already can scan the network to see who is there and then 09:49.200 --> 09:55.840 you decide I want to send something to B. And in the field of the proactive protocols, 09:55.840 --> 10:04.280 there were, yeah, there are the link state protocols and they try to calculate a graph involving 10:04.280 --> 10:09.400 all the vectors between all these individual nodes in the network. 10:09.400 --> 10:19.080 And calculating this graph is immensely costing in CPU and RAM and also in network traffic. 10:20.080 --> 10:28.080 And on top of that all, the optimized link state routing algorithm OLSR, it's one of these 10:28.080 --> 10:35.320 link state routing algorithms, it created routing loops, it didn't work as promised. 10:35.320 --> 10:39.840 So it was one of the protocols that we tried in Berlin and at least Berlin is still using 10:39.840 --> 10:40.840 it. 10:40.840 --> 10:47.520 I didn't manage to convince the Berlin community to make the switch from OLSR entirely 10:47.520 --> 10:55.720 to Batman back then, it was like 2006, the first Batman code was written. 10:55.720 --> 11:07.280 And so the idea is to have proactive protocol that is loop free and consumes less networking 11:07.280 --> 11:13.760 overhead in protocol messages, less CPU power and less RAM. 11:13.760 --> 11:17.640 And yeah, Batman algorithm has achieved that. 11:17.640 --> 11:23.600 So I mean, maybe it makes sense that you explained to some of the listeners who aren't familiar 11:23.600 --> 11:29.800 with RIFU from out of Germany what that is and that you accomplished in Berlin with that. 11:29.800 --> 11:37.800 It's a community network where people built their own infrastructure based on radio. 11:37.800 --> 11:42.880 Not all open community networks on the planet are only using radio, but at least here 11:42.880 --> 11:48.880 for Berlin and for Germany in general. 11:48.880 --> 11:54.520 It's based on Wi-Fi because here regulations and so on and such are so complicated, it's 11:54.520 --> 12:00.960 easier to set up wireless links than to dig up streets and areas and put your own fiber 12:00.960 --> 12:01.960 into the ground. 12:01.960 --> 12:08.040 There are other communities like the GIFI network in Catalonia, in Spain. 12:08.040 --> 12:11.560 They dig their own fibers. 12:11.560 --> 12:16.040 And there are other communities properly as well that do this. 12:16.040 --> 12:19.880 But yeah, we're building our own infrastructure. 12:19.880 --> 12:26.960 And it's basically also a technology to deliver services to the last mile. 12:26.960 --> 12:32.520 That's when you roll out internet connectivity or a network. 12:32.520 --> 12:38.680 Then yes, of course, you can have a fiber line from a major city to another major city. 12:38.680 --> 12:42.920 But then you have to distribute it to the households, for example, to the individual 12:42.920 --> 12:45.520 people wherever they live. 12:45.520 --> 12:51.160 And one way to do that is of course, with radio and mesh networking can help that. 12:51.160 --> 12:55.240 So what we're doing is not local area networking. 12:55.240 --> 13:02.800 We're doing like metropolitan area networking or yeah, in a certain district, people can 13:02.800 --> 13:04.720 use that technology. 13:04.880 --> 13:09.200 Yeah, and of course, there's much more to explain to that, which would be way out of 13:09.200 --> 13:11.560 the scope of your podcast. 13:11.560 --> 13:21.280 And I mean, for cities or like Berlin or also countries like Germany, the aspects you 13:21.280 --> 13:28.280 talked about before that you need more CPU, more RAM for the other protocol before that 13:28.280 --> 13:33.920 might not be such a big issue, right, because a lot of people they can afford to have that 13:33.920 --> 13:39.200 they have enough energy resources, often available to do that. 13:39.200 --> 13:45.280 I could imagine that this is completely different for the other work you did in some of the 13:45.280 --> 13:53.520 developing countries where it's very more difficult with the energy or yes, it's the 13:53.520 --> 13:58.640 filter I'm operating in, please, everybody don't get me wrong. 13:58.640 --> 14:04.000 If you can afford to put fiber to every household, please do so. 14:04.000 --> 14:11.400 But if you're in an area where money is limited, where energy resources are limited, where 14:11.400 --> 14:19.080 you want to have a basic service quickly, you can roll it out with wireless technology. 14:19.080 --> 14:23.840 It doesn't have, it's not always only mesh, it can be point-to-point backbone links and 14:23.840 --> 14:25.520 the backbone network. 14:25.520 --> 14:30.760 And the mesh is then that part that delivers it individually to the households, it's 14:30.760 --> 14:34.440 so solving the problem of the last mile. 14:34.440 --> 14:39.360 That's also why I got involved in South Africa with the Council for Scientific and Industrial 14:39.360 --> 14:40.360 Research. 14:40.360 --> 14:48.280 They had a program last mile, first inch, there was a development program where they were 14:48.280 --> 14:54.760 looking for delivering internet access to households in South Africa. 14:54.760 --> 15:00.840 And beside being a software developer for a very long time now, you're also developing 15:00.840 --> 15:05.680 open hardware there for accomplishing those projects. 15:05.680 --> 15:13.320 So I am there, there's one part that you create mesh networks with powered by solar power. 15:13.320 --> 15:17.560 Can you explain a little bit how hard that came to happen and what the challenges there 15:17.560 --> 15:18.560 were? 15:18.560 --> 15:23.000 I think you're referring to the mesh potato, maybe. 15:23.000 --> 15:30.920 While I was working in South Africa at the Meraka Institute in Chvane, I got in contact 15:30.920 --> 15:36.360 with Steve Song, who was working for the shuttle valve foundation, and he had the idea to 15:36.360 --> 15:42.520 the project village Telco, the idea of providing voiceover IP services over a solar powered 15:42.520 --> 15:47.400 mesh network, or in general for mesh networks. 15:47.400 --> 15:54.200 And since I'm an electronic person, I got involved in developing parts of the electronics 15:54.200 --> 15:56.360 of the device. 15:56.360 --> 16:05.440 But this is history now, this happened in 2008, and it's already an exhibition artifact 16:05.440 --> 16:08.920 here in the German Technical Museum in Berlin. 16:08.920 --> 16:14.520 What are the current challenges in this field to make sure that more people get a network 16:14.520 --> 16:23.160 connection in places where you can't have fiber that easily? 16:23.160 --> 16:30.960 Well power and suitable radios, but there's already a number of people that are involved 16:30.960 --> 16:35.640 in that field, I'm just one of them today. 16:35.640 --> 16:39.400 So I was kind of a pioneer in that field. 16:39.400 --> 16:46.480 There are not people doing stuff with lower radios, like a text communication in disaster 16:46.480 --> 16:50.200 areas and stuff like this. 16:50.200 --> 16:57.520 And yeah, one of my projects that I'm doing at the moment is a device. 16:57.520 --> 17:02.240 It's the Fryfunk Open Maximum Powerpoint tracker. 17:02.240 --> 17:09.680 There are several generations, one is based on an old 8-bit microcontroller, and now 17:09.680 --> 17:17.520 I'm using ESP32, which is like 32-bit and has Wi-Fi and lots of other gadgets built 17:17.520 --> 17:18.720 in. 17:18.720 --> 17:27.320 And it's essentially to design, to build independent wireless nodes operated with solar 17:27.320 --> 17:31.600 power, where you can monitor the solar system from afar. 17:31.600 --> 17:38.160 And if you have a Wi-Fi device, an extra device connected to it, you can monitor it as well, 17:38.160 --> 17:43.520 and you can turn it on and off, for example, if it has a software hanger and so on. 17:43.520 --> 17:45.600 So that's stuff that I'm doing at the moment. 17:45.600 --> 17:51.880 I mean, you already hinted at it a bit, but I mean, you're traveling many countries and 17:51.880 --> 17:52.880 you used to. 17:52.880 --> 17:54.880 You used to, at the moment not. 17:54.880 --> 18:01.000 Yes, when I was working in South Africa, I probably, yeah, I was one of these people that 18:01.000 --> 18:04.920 created an awful lot of pollution already. 18:04.920 --> 18:11.000 When we met at the Fisley, I wrote to the people, thanks, nice for inviting me, but I usually 18:11.000 --> 18:17.960 don't fry like 20,000 kilometers just for a weekend to give a talk. 18:17.960 --> 18:24.840 Are there other things for me that you want me to do so I can stay for at least a month? 18:24.840 --> 18:31.800 And so they had, and so I started to work in Chile and since I got in Chile. 18:31.800 --> 18:39.320 And later in Valparaiso, so I was already back then, I was aware that my traveling activity 18:39.320 --> 18:46.760 was contributing a huge amount of carbon dioxide to the planet and that we should try to avoid 18:46.760 --> 18:47.760 this. 18:47.760 --> 18:54.320 So I had a personal feeling that I'm also responsible for it, which you could criticize 18:54.320 --> 19:00.640 and say, hey, it's not you that is the problem, but yeah, I was aware of this and at the moment 19:00.640 --> 19:07.080 I'm no longer working in South Africa and I will only travel if it's really necessary 19:07.080 --> 19:09.560 for a really big, important project. 19:09.560 --> 19:15.040 So I reduced my number of flights by a great margin. 19:15.040 --> 19:23.360 And I mean, for me, it was the question I had there was mainly, I mean, the travel part 19:23.360 --> 19:31.320 is one part, which is a bit sometimes difficult and you have to spend a lot of time on that. 19:31.320 --> 19:36.040 But I mean, in general, I was thinking about your involvement and all the energy you put 19:36.040 --> 19:45.080 into all of this work in the last years where it's usually not done by some few hours 19:45.080 --> 19:51.440 a day where you are involved in that and you get some money for that and that's all 19:51.440 --> 19:52.640 of why you are doing this. 19:52.640 --> 19:58.360 So I mean, you are working on this for other reasons and that was the question I was getting 19:58.360 --> 20:05.080 at what, why are you working on all of that and putting so much energy and time of you 20:05.080 --> 20:06.480 into this? 20:06.480 --> 20:13.360 Well, my idea was like that democratizing communication, so giving communication to 20:13.360 --> 20:20.560 everyone and sharing knowledge according to the principle of mutual aid, coming back 20:20.560 --> 20:27.080 to the Kropotkin, works for the betterment of mankind. 20:27.080 --> 20:32.840 We are all standing on the shoulders of giants, the language that we use, the knowledge that 20:32.840 --> 20:40.280 we have, the maps that we use, all that has been created by other humans in the past. 20:40.280 --> 20:43.760 And we are all building on top of others. 20:43.760 --> 20:49.160 And there are people on this planet that are pretty much excluded from that. 20:49.160 --> 20:52.840 Because the resources are not there. 20:52.840 --> 21:02.080 So my idea was to improve the betterment of human society by democratizing communications. 21:02.080 --> 21:07.360 But on the other hand at the moment, I'm also a little bit depressed because with the ability 21:07.360 --> 21:15.840 for everyone to communicate, it was also increasing the level of where people start communicating 21:15.840 --> 21:18.560 hatred and disinformation and so on. 21:18.560 --> 21:21.720 So it's a two-bladed sword. 21:21.720 --> 21:28.960 But I hope that that edge that supports mankind will finally prevail. 21:28.960 --> 21:35.240 I think that's something for many developers when they see that there's also things done 21:35.240 --> 21:43.640 with what they created that they don't think that is something fitting into their worldview 21:43.640 --> 21:45.440 or how people should behave. 21:45.440 --> 21:47.080 That's very difficult. 21:47.080 --> 21:51.880 On the other hand, it's then when you are for open communication and you want people 21:51.880 --> 21:58.280 to work together and the question is like if you start limiting some of the things that 21:58.280 --> 22:03.000 can be done, what good things would you prevent in the world? 22:03.000 --> 22:04.000 Yeah. 22:04.000 --> 22:11.200 Well, this is like you're either promoting open communication, which I still do wholeheartedly 22:11.200 --> 22:18.280 or you don't. 22:18.280 --> 22:24.840 Which would bring us to other fields of censorship, control, surveillance, you know, once you have 22:24.840 --> 22:31.080 an open communication system where people share data and talk about themselves, they can 22:31.080 --> 22:34.520 also be the target of surveillance and so on. 22:34.520 --> 22:37.280 So this is an even another aspect. 22:37.280 --> 22:43.560 That is still sent by my optimism that it is for the benefit of mankind. 22:43.560 --> 22:50.960 And it's just something you can offer back then when I had the idea to Batman to get 22:50.960 --> 22:52.560 it with Thomas. 22:52.560 --> 22:56.720 I got so excited that it would be such a beautiful protocol and then it took me a couple 22:56.720 --> 23:04.160 of hours until I realized, oh, but if that mesh communication protocol is really so powerful 23:04.160 --> 23:11.320 and can do so, can organize communication so well sooner or later the military will 23:11.320 --> 23:14.600 also look for a protocol and that's what happened. 23:14.600 --> 23:22.480 And back then when we started the website open mesh org and open mesh net, we registered 23:22.480 --> 23:25.800 both URLs and I'm still keeping it. 23:25.800 --> 23:32.840 We came up with a license where we took the GPL and we added some comment that the protocol 23:32.840 --> 23:39.720 is only legal to be used in non-military and non-surveillance activities. 23:39.720 --> 23:47.320 We actually asked the free software foundation and we got to reply, don't do it, don't 23:47.320 --> 23:56.320 add more licenses and yeah, well, in the end, the military guys that we saw in our IP 23:56.320 --> 24:02.800 logs, one of them approached us and said, I'm sitting on the board and I try to convince 24:02.800 --> 24:07.880 my fellow people that they use your protocol because it's cool. 24:07.880 --> 24:11.520 But with that name, bad man, nobody's taking it serious. 24:11.520 --> 24:14.840 Can you please change the name of your project? 24:14.840 --> 24:18.640 So he never got a reply to that email. 24:18.640 --> 24:25.720 And there's also people that complained that we did that step and removed that part in 24:25.720 --> 24:29.240 the license, non-military and non-surveillance. 24:29.240 --> 24:30.240 So that's now removed. 24:30.240 --> 24:38.240 We removed it back then after getting feedback and some people are complaining that we did 24:38.240 --> 24:39.240 it. 24:39.240 --> 24:49.240 It's not a free software license anymore from the definition, but yes, it's very hard. 24:49.240 --> 24:54.200 I think that your approach then, that's something which I hear from a lot of developers that 24:54.200 --> 24:59.080 they choose a free software license because they want to make sure that all the positive 24:59.080 --> 25:03.280 things can develop out of it and that we don't go into a direction where then people are 25:03.280 --> 25:09.840 adding other restrictions and then you, after some time, you disable people to actually 25:09.840 --> 25:10.840 work together. 25:10.840 --> 25:14.280 But on the other hand, it doesn't mean that you have to fully support things that you 25:14.280 --> 25:16.520 don't approve and you don't have to reply people. 25:16.520 --> 25:18.040 You don't have to give them support. 25:18.040 --> 25:22.640 You don't have to do special development for them just because they offer money and all 25:22.640 --> 25:23.640 of that. 25:23.880 --> 25:32.280 Well, the conclusions that we have drawn back then was we are not going to patent the algorithms. 25:32.280 --> 25:37.880 So when they see what we're doing, they can study what we're doing and they can just 25:37.880 --> 25:39.360 re-implement it. 25:39.360 --> 25:45.240 And since it's military and they can just keep it secret, you can just copy our code. 25:45.240 --> 25:49.960 And I guess a legal fight would be pointless. 25:50.800 --> 25:52.800 Yeah. 25:52.800 --> 25:59.680 One topic I wanted to quickly go into as well, now some shift from, I'm sorry, but actually 25:59.680 --> 26:04.880 maybe it's not too far because it's also about, yeah, others controlling you. 26:04.880 --> 26:09.240 So at the FSFE, we work on initiative. 26:09.240 --> 26:16.520 It's a route of freedom where we want to achieve it that the ISP, the Internet Service 26:16.520 --> 26:22.160 provider cannot tell you what route or you have to use in your at home, but that you 26:22.160 --> 26:24.440 can decide yourself. 26:24.440 --> 26:35.280 So from your perspective, is this a huge problem in Europe that the ISPs can just decide 26:35.280 --> 26:40.920 there or for mesh networking or is it something where you think that this doesn't have a huge 26:40.920 --> 26:46.640 impact on the, on possibility of, of more community networks? 26:46.640 --> 26:52.400 Well, when you talk about the router lockdown, what immediately comes to my memory is that 26:52.400 --> 27:00.080 I signed a letter to get rid of Tim Berners-Lee and other people against the idea of the Federal 27:00.080 --> 27:07.080 Communications Commission trying to ban open WOT and open source. 27:07.080 --> 27:11.000 Can you quickly say what, what open WRT is? 27:11.000 --> 27:20.760 Well, back then, links is they had a router that WRT 54G and some folks discovered, hey, 27:20.760 --> 27:22.560 this is using GPL software. 27:22.560 --> 27:28.600 So for Fox sake, you have to publish your sources. 27:28.600 --> 27:32.720 And so they had to comply and they actually did at one point. 27:32.720 --> 27:38.280 So people starting hacking these devices and they were immensely useful because they 27:38.280 --> 27:47.160 were like 8002.11 G hardware with two antennas, quite, actually quite good hardware. 27:47.160 --> 27:50.400 And so it was, it was possible to liberate the hardware. 27:50.400 --> 27:56.520 And for like 60 euros, at the beginning, maybe 80 euros, it was a lot of bang for the 27:56.520 --> 27:57.960 buck back then these days. 27:57.960 --> 28:03.240 It's like a wireless router, like 10 to 15 euros, the cheapest ones. 28:03.240 --> 28:13.200 So that enabled us to build fry-funk networks at a much higher pace and much higher penetration 28:13.200 --> 28:16.240 and made it much, much more easier. 28:16.240 --> 28:21.000 Some clever guys from the open source community came up with patches and so on. 28:21.000 --> 28:31.560 So it was a big success and thanks to the GPL-ing and publishing the sources, a project was 28:31.560 --> 28:38.160 created and since it was a project about hacking that wireless router from links and it was 28:38.160 --> 28:44.360 to WRT 54G, the project had to got the name open WRT. 28:44.360 --> 28:50.960 But of course, these days, that's the history and it's now for all kinds of wireless 28:51.080 --> 28:55.440 devices and it's a very great Linux distribution. 28:55.440 --> 29:03.000 It's a meta-distribution that you learn to use in order to support your wireless device 29:03.000 --> 29:08.800 and not only wireless devices, there's also going into the Raspberry Pi and so on. 29:08.800 --> 29:13.400 But clearly the focus is on wireless routing technology. 29:13.400 --> 29:15.840 That's what they refer to today. 29:15.840 --> 29:23.520 So today, don't think of the links anymore, think of wireless routing technology, open 29:23.520 --> 29:25.760 Linux distribution. 29:25.760 --> 29:31.240 And you were at explaining that you wrote a letter or signed a letter with Tim Berns-Lee 29:31.240 --> 29:32.240 together? 29:32.240 --> 29:38.440 And others against the Federal Communication Commission of the United States because they 29:38.440 --> 29:47.840 initiated an attempt to ban open WRT altogether from devices in the United States. 29:47.840 --> 29:52.400 And unfortunately, the European Commission is following that. 29:52.400 --> 29:58.360 So they're coming up with regulations, they say a virus radius can do damage, think 29:58.360 --> 30:06.320 they can do harm and so software freedom has to be abandoned because yeah, so and of 30:06.320 --> 30:12.480 course, why I mentioned this in this context is the argument is that banning open 30:12.480 --> 30:18.520 source would make networking infrastructure more unsafe. 30:18.520 --> 30:24.520 And this is of course a problem that you also mentioned on your website. 30:24.520 --> 30:32.280 One provider has like one million devices rolled out and there is no updates from the company. 30:32.280 --> 30:36.200 The company lost interest in updating the hardware. 30:36.200 --> 30:44.600 So you have to use an unsafe hardware that now in times of war with people, even from 30:44.600 --> 30:49.880 state actors, start attacking networks, this is a clear no go. 30:49.880 --> 30:55.320 On the other hand, if you are ISP and you have the same device everywhere, it's easier 30:55.320 --> 30:59.040 to roll out updates and so on and so forth. 30:59.040 --> 31:07.720 But users should not be forced to obey to a hardware lockdown. 31:07.720 --> 31:12.000 For most people, they are not too involved, there are not many people on this planet that 31:12.000 --> 31:18.400 start to configure their own device, they just sign up a contract and they just use whatever 31:18.400 --> 31:19.400 they get. 31:19.400 --> 31:24.360 And if it's not working, they call the hotline and the hotline tells them to restart the 31:24.360 --> 31:29.000 device and then everything is going to be fine. 31:29.000 --> 31:35.960 That's also one of the aims there for us in the area of device neutrality that some 31:35.960 --> 31:41.000 people might decide that they just use what they get provided. 31:41.000 --> 31:46.920 But on the other hand, that individuals, organizations, sometimes even larger organizations 31:46.920 --> 31:53.360 or even countries that they are able to choose other devices and still be able to communicate 31:53.360 --> 32:01.040 and still be able to act with those devices and accomplish their goals with that and 32:01.040 --> 32:04.800 had something with the route of freedom and the other part you mentioned with the radio 32:04.800 --> 32:09.480 equipment directive on the European level where we are also working on where there are 32:09.480 --> 32:15.640 sometimes really strange arguments why it should be prevented to use other software 32:15.640 --> 32:19.320 on radio capable hardware. 32:19.320 --> 32:25.960 It's completely overarching, the FCC was completely overarching and Europe just follows 32:25.960 --> 32:34.120 blindly and the problem is it's technology from technology devices, it's even not feasible 32:34.120 --> 32:41.680 what they're planning and it will make the planet more insecure and it's ludicrous because 32:41.680 --> 32:47.900 the Raspberry Pi for example is completely FCC approved but you can just use the GPI 32:47.900 --> 32:55.260 open from the device and you can broadcast whatever you like because modern day technology, 32:55.260 --> 33:01.580 modern day microcontrollers, CPUs, they are so flexible you can modulate whatever you like 33:01.580 --> 33:10.940 at what frequency you like and so this is like tell the sun to stop shining because it's 33:10.940 --> 33:17.740 too hot, it's ridiculous, it's ludicrous and that's also a lesson that I think some 33:17.740 --> 33:23.980 bureaucrats in the United States and in Europe have to learn and they hopefully learned 33:23.980 --> 33:24.980 it soon. 33:24.980 --> 33:30.460 It's a long way and I think about all the meetings we participated in and the arguments 33:30.460 --> 33:36.540 you hear there, it's something which really requires long, long time to explain it again 33:36.540 --> 33:41.100 and again and then some things happen and then under arguments that you brought before 33:41.100 --> 33:49.900 are then better understood and yeah but it's yeah a lot of work to get those arguments through. 33:49.900 --> 33:56.700 Well but their idea of control, where does it end, you kind of just stop there then you have to 33:58.140 --> 34:04.300 to ban on the electronic components that you buy, yeah you have to limit compilers, 34:05.100 --> 34:13.100 where does it end, where does it end, this is like it's utterly ridiculous and yeah let's hope 34:13.100 --> 34:18.220 that there is still a rest of sense in your brains. 34:18.220 --> 34:23.420 That's why it's so important that people like you that many other people who who joined us 34:23.420 --> 34:30.220 in those discussions there that they continue to talk with decision makers about that or support 34:30.300 --> 34:38.060 others in doing so so that we get those points across against the sometimes very big large 34:38.940 --> 34:47.500 lobby from other companies there but yeah I still, so I'm exploding the amount of time that you 34:47.500 --> 34:54.700 want to dedicate to the product so we have to come a little bit to the end but so one one question 34:54.700 --> 35:01.900 I wanted to ask you is with all that work in all that different countries and for such a long time 35:03.900 --> 35:11.100 what was the funniest most memorable exceptional thing that you think about when you think about 35:11.100 --> 35:18.460 like free software? Well the most memorable moment was when I reached the lowest south of South Africa 35:19.420 --> 35:27.180 in the area of Cape Town and I went to a very poor area and there were the blue linksys boxes 35:27.980 --> 35:36.380 running a fryphone firmware from Berlin and so that's when I really had to realize 35:37.500 --> 35:44.060 what we had done, what we had achieved that people living in a township 35:44.860 --> 35:48.940 had entered access thanks to software and ideas that were 35:51.020 --> 35:58.940 initiated somewhere here in the western world and I had the idea I would like I would love to 35:58.940 --> 36:06.540 just travel around and see this type of installations and maybe do a film about it 36:07.100 --> 36:12.300 that would have been cool but of course it would involve a huge amount of traveling 36:12.940 --> 36:19.500 but it clearly was like a very inspiring moment. I can imagine 36:20.620 --> 36:27.820 then I have to come to the last question and that's always when I talk to people the same one 36:27.820 --> 36:33.180 so on on the 14th of February we always celebrate the ala free software day where we ask people to 36:33.180 --> 36:40.300 thank other contributors, other groups, organizations out there for their work and I don't think 36:40.300 --> 36:47.260 we have to limit that to one day so I'm always asking my guests are there any developers, 36:47.260 --> 36:53.020 contributors, organizations out there whom you would like to thank for their work for free software? 36:53.020 --> 37:00.140 Oh dear there is too many to mention actually I can only talk about people that I was working 37:00.140 --> 37:07.420 with personally but already to people whose names I cannot remember because there are too many 37:08.060 --> 37:13.660 that provided me with that Linux experience with that Linux kernel and all the stuff that I 37:14.540 --> 37:18.620 that I had access to when I started using redhead linux and later slackware 37:20.780 --> 37:25.980 but in particularly I would like to thank some folks that I have been working with like 37:25.980 --> 37:32.860 Thomas Lopartic who was coding with me Oles R and Batman. He was actually the major coder 37:33.820 --> 37:41.820 and Sven Ola took it from the from the Berlin-Fryphone community for his hacks on the WRT 54G 37:42.380 --> 37:48.940 and especially in the Broadcom driver Axel Neumann who supported me in Batman hand 37:48.940 --> 37:55.980 later forked to his own Batman project Simon Wunderlich. Sven Eichelmann you know there's 37:56.620 --> 38:04.380 there's many many names to to mention and I guess they're all all driven by by by this idea 38:05.100 --> 38:11.020 to share and contribute because actually this is what we humans in a positive sense are 38:11.820 --> 38:18.220 we all share and contribute and we create something that are a stand on and we're already 38:18.220 --> 38:22.060 standing on the shoulders of giants like Albert Einstein has put it once. 38:22.300 --> 38:28.300 Electra thank you very much for talking with me about all those interesting topics. 38:28.300 --> 38:33.500 It's a pleasure. Thank you very much for all the work you did. Yes thank you. 38:34.940 --> 38:39.500 So this was the software freedom podcast. If you like the episode please 38:39.500 --> 38:44.860 recommend it to your friends and subscribe to make sure that you will get the next episode. 38:45.740 --> 38:50.780 This podcast is presented to you by the free software foundation Europe where a charity that 38:50.780 --> 38:55.900 works to promote software freedom. If you like our work please consider supporting us with a 38:55.900 --> 39:08.060 donation you will find more information on their FSV.org slash donate. Thank you very much.