okay first of this talk was titled with you know being so well positioned and
then i was gonna lead into the things that can on has done over the
years to get themselves into the ideal position right now but then after meeting with
people on the first day the conference
i realised that it would be more aptly titled do good known know that there's
a well position and did you plan it this way
and there is so much i
so much background to this that i'm going to try to speak slowly so you
understand but quickly with the content
this could feel they could go and so the things i'd like to cover is
who's behind gonna linux hardware why this hardware matter it looks like the screen sizes
of
and most important
how to make got can globally well now before
i start i need to give you a disclaimer globally loved first
so you see this guy putting a little no but in his pocket this was
the first know book that we got to build at all we have level ourselves
in china
and it was so find you wonder you know do people like the laptops or
building or they appealing because we want to have that
that feeling where you love your laptops laptop becomes very much for your life
and this is the first conference we brought that at the this was the tail
pro et one
and a guy tried to take it
if not gonna there's pockets like a
some like that was that was that's the sign of being well loved if somebody
actively tries to grab it
were aiming for sleek beautiful high and
and that's what we hope you know is aiming for also actually your you have
so
i need to give you disclaimer as a hardware manufacturer generally we don't read the
news we're not aware of the
drama
the things that go on the things that are said feeling sort of are all
that the reason why is back in two thousand six two thousand seven we started
i realised that i had two choices i can follow the news
deal with the issues or i can build hardware
and i decided to build hardware "'cause" it's pretty and it's fun
so sometimes people have a hard time understanding wait a minute this blond chick from
california couldn't possibly build computers or be behind the company that builds computers yes this
is what we build
these things hardware
although we were close hardware and software this is our company we built a little
shop in berkeley california we decided to settle in berkeley because is the only city
specifically identified with the distraught
we have in to build to be small light and we the goal is not
to build a large campus i grew up near microsoft ice other campus to go
over the landscape we live near tell again to cover landscape we wanna small light
we and local because that's how for you know in this bill it's but one
person time
we will have messing with the hardware we do work on all levels well i
say we're a harbour builder we also do have to mess with the software but
although we do not make any changes we make we send upstream we do not
keep any proprietary code and house
we have a lot of fun building what we build and rebuild it specifically
for work just like you do to scratch an itch
although when i got to me with karen
and one of my first questions was well want my second question was
why do you do what you do there's got to be a personal reason there's
probably a very personal reason behind what all of us do
and my personal reason is that it's good for us and it's good for our
family my husband and i found that the company we found that this community by
in general was a very happy friendly place for us for example
well links foundation invited me to an invite only event again right near wall street
on in manhattan it was very high and event most of the people there running
multimillion multibillion dollar companies it was
and just to test their strength i asked him can i bring my son
just to see how open and welcoming they work and sure enough not only they
welcomed but the people attending also welcome them
we've been welcomed at conferences
we've been welcomed in this is our oldest son
he's the reason why we started
a whole second all the sun is the reason why start is reason in the
first place and just as a quick intro "'cause" i don't recognise most of you
so super quick interesting you know who we are back in two thousand six our
son cory
wiped one of our machines and put it into on it because you sick of
it crashing
and i long story short i happened to notice that you had some really cool
graphics on screen a he'd installed barrel turn all the effects now companies fusion
and it looks really cool and that's how i heard about free open source software
and i said hey
can you do that's all or computers
"'cause" of course we had quite a few that so the companies run by me
and my husband that we do not deal with that every day work in berkeley
or and we also have a shop it is healing covering us relation
we get to travel to things like this and do work on a
more philosophical able okay but more important than we are who are the people who
are using the code that you've written because we're kind of just to pass through
between you guys and the people who are loading for you know but all sorts
of different gestures on their laptops
when we first opened and february two thousand seven
we
founder that most of the people ordering from us were developers it was but we
didn't advertise "'cause" we not that could business
but we found that it was mostly developers long time free open source software gonna
linux users
they were people who knew what they were doing they were people you had built
computers of their own now i brought a bunch of screwdrivers when we first opened
we have the policy of
are our warranty it was we reserve you're right on your hardware and so we
shipped every computer with a screwdriver
so please
i really messing with because of his machine way to go somebody's appeared anyway
we found that this was the ideal type of persons work with we loved working
with developers and it was just fine we worked with a lot of people it
bend and the field for a long time
there's a lot of history we didn't understand but we've comments most of it we
see we found that a lot of system administrators of course we're using the various
distress and wanting computers that didn't have to deal with the preinstalled linux we also
found that there were preinstalled windows excuse me
we found that there were people of every age and every variety
at one point well at one point we had kid our shop in berkeley isn't
open to the public
generally other people stop by
and one day we had a kids stop by use actually a little older than
this guy the source and
is about fourteen twelve fourteen is middle school kids a lot even in high school
yet
and he stopped by any said i heard use of computers and we're thinking great
this guy's probably gonna break into the store later this light
but he said i'd like to buy a computer and i'd like to buy with
big coins
is also the quite bizarre
so we're like
it's just a kid but those are the types of people that are attracted to
the kind of software that you code
and we found that now here's the part that will hopefully what may surprise you
we found a segment of the population that we never anticipated
we had one lady call in the early days who is in her seventies
and her what she did in her retired years is that she helped her older
case in here me such as an or seventies who helped are older friends
what wiped windows and install gnu linux just rose on their machines
and she told me what one friend said that really
struck
but they did have the whole essence of why we do what we do she
said she installed
free open source software so that she is because her friend didn't have time to
mess with blue screens
when you think about that that's a very humanitarian powerful thing there at the end
of their life is people are you know well
and they don't have time to mess with bugs now that's i know it's a
very bad things that anyway so but they don't have time and that's the concept
that i hope we can take with this is that any incremental changes we make
then increase the difficulty of the user interface or other aspects of
the software make it very difficult for people like this we also had one guy
in the early days at least to answer the phone and every now and then
i still go back and answer we had one guy call in any said i
have a friend
who helps me whatever i get bugs on my machine so we helps me a
lot
and he said he will help me anymore unless i get a machine that's running
i dunno debian i forgot what it was
and i thought that was pretty funny just that was he had to do that
we also besides regular people we also supply places like lawrence berkeley labs that's in
berkeley california that's where many of the elements on the periodic table were discovered it's
the main research lab funded by the department of energy by the us government we
also an or something new zealand we settled here catalyst which is a large global
software company aimed at only for an open source and they're amazing big do amazing
work at
promoting it we've also helped various parts of fedex
who need data crunching machines
also jet propulsion labs funds nasa
we've also helps and the school labs now we are so grateful that we are
not only by anybody we have said no to investors and so it's just my
husband and i and this point we haven't found any investors to
understand the history as they don't understand is goods we do then no
but for example we had a school come to us and say we need thirty
computers in here the specs
and we said that's wonderful but did you know you can get them for free
at the computer recycling centre
now normally a business can't do that they have to take the order and go
through it but since we are privately owned we can do that
but we do give but we do fund other schools with
parent machines
and were able to support there are some of course a surprising number of children
use machines that you can't really see but the computer in the bottom right and
whatever in than areas that has the lights inside and people buy them as night
lights for their children
"'cause" they're pretty red lights we like but we found that all yes
second
no actually no we're now we don't i that's our daughter it just can't keep
that's great as you just once it's inside
so why haven't you heard of us and because we fly under the radar we're
building a very solid base most silicon valley companies prefer to boom and bust they
get their big
you know i figure investors and
but what we'd rather grow for the long term
so far working on north america that's done that covered astral asia we have a
covered next are setting up shop in london
well like i said we're little
where it eve at compared to the other builders out there only to other builders
that are building that are that are in the global coverage for getting linux machines
at least that i know of that as an system seventy six system seventy six
is focused only on are going to so we don't consider them a competitor we
work with any viable distraught keeping in mind that some of those people i showed
you earlier are the people who are getting the machines the machines can't have bugs
they can have
major obstacles that you need to overcome when they open the machine they needed to
just work
that's they needed to
sorry using somebody else's tech raise their so back and we're now we're now and
number two why this hardware matter okay when i came here in the first day
i looked around to see what computers people are using "'cause" that's what a geek
you heard reject us
send i look like twenty five percent they'll twenty five percent know about twenty five
percent apple twenty five percent other but can you raise your hand for
i'm sure many of you on more than one laptop but i raise your hand
for every type of laptop you own wanted out
okay
okay who wants one double
wow
good quality hardware apple
okay other
cool okay that's relatively balance a little bit more a little bit off from what
i thought thank you
systematic your C K Y this hardware matter
now it's my guess
that most of you don't really care what hardware you buy you just wanted to
work you want to be solid and you do you don't wanna have issues with
it
you don't believe hardware matters that's okay most people don't believe it matters that's just
a from my point of view i misunderstood a massive
painfully large misunderstanding
earlier
this year
last year earlier last year
i had a long conversation with cory doctor of it was i think sixty three
emails back and forth and back and forth my only goal in the email was
to convince and the hardware matters
he ended up writing essentially a love letter about our company online which would have
been nice if we shipped computers to the people in who most
prefix column we got a lot of people in europe saying i still
so but my main the thing i got from that conversation is that it's
there's the only way i was able to convince and the hardware matters with by
talking about U E F I secure but now i'm sure you've heard about it
and if you understand i'm sick you have a secure grip on a deep
level then you could you know for about
a minute half
if not i'm gonna give a quick summary of a talk i gave it fast
down
earlier this year about you have five
you have fight is hardwired into the motherboard
it is you have five replaces the bios
it's in between operating system which you guys deal with
and hard one from where the hardware which we deal with and the from or
which the companies deal with
the heart of the bios the original code what it does what you have what
the bias what you if i does is it helps all video cards look like
video cards it helps all memory sticks or like every six all it helps
and a manufacturing level and also helps
on a developer level the bias was written back and these are the hottest coolest
machines you can build
the fact that it is last in this is mind boggling
but the truth is that the original by also so poorly specified i look
they needed updates "'cause" it was causing you headaches and it was causing the owens
the goal of U E F I was admirable but the implementation leaves a lot
to be desired is the nicest thing that's a quote from my husband earl as
the nicest thing you can possibly say
essentially secure do is just a little blob of code within you if i and
it's encryption key that checks to see if drivers are certified with the matching key
and the only execute certified code
now
that sounds like it would increase security on your system right
and it does the security can be good and security can be bad
because who's the gatekeeper
well here's what's happened so far actually even before two thousand eleven two thousand twelve
systems are shipping with you have i no one really noticed
we saw it but that's only "'cause" working williams
in august two thousand twelve was when my alarms all of our alarms at building
level one off because you have can be computers are shipping programs are shipping with
you if i enabled
most of desktop motherboards have you have i
many of the laptop motherboards had you have five servers the same but there already
lockdown environment doesn't really affect them as much tablets have a different architecture are doesn't
have a by also no you have five or at phones what harm and some
laptops which is the crown book use corporate so hopeless super quick snaps
now there are a few solutions that work with secure be now
so that you can avoid
to get avoid am some a lot can issues you can use a tool to
generate your private key a lot of work only people like the people in this
room would enjoy doing that you "'cause" i don't know a stream of the private
key where you can put a public key and the bias you have five but
you have to have traction for that one
here's a potential who knows if this is how it will progress but it potential
this is what i'm still you read this one this is what companies when they
sit down in the border and they say okay what's our long term plan what's
our end goal
what are we aiming for
and that's
the goal for you if i adoption
now i owe em level so what we do is
we go to the factories right now we don't build their own motherboards of course
but we go to the factories
and we have depending on the size in the order the bigger the order them
or say we have and how it's built
we have five built and you have to do
a pretty large order to convince censorship it with secure be turned off
or the thing so if
but it's change the world's change from when you could go and just buy a
laptop wipe it and install your favourite is true every windows a machine now ships
was secure bit enable
so yes
used to be the power of the individual we use to be able to do
that so now if you want to build a really cool machine like used to
be able to do you get a bunch this is jan about ten thousand people
model and the shot of course but if you wanna get about that many people
who want the exact same specs you do and order some computers who go for
it or we need to belittle supply chain in order to support harder the works
so how do you disable
secure boot you get into the bios for you if i set up
there sometimes are changeable it's different for every system for right now
sometimes it have ten sometimes is escape sometimes it's delete it will become more complicated
with time that's just how corporations work
you find a secure be option you select disable if the system has fast but
i'm enabled you're screwed because it disables the keyboard now i am getting to a
point that sounds terribly boring but i'm getting to a point
go and take a minute read that
you got it
if it has no fast but it automatically puts you in the scarab it automatically
will see and so that's how you disable it
that's a turn off
so but do you think there are regular users are gonna do that they're gonna
be able to do that little long press the keys fast enough to be able
to get in
they're gonna walk away
now why does it matter whether we have
these people using our systems are not most companies don't the well wide why does
it matter whether people are using i'm i am so grateful to be don't foundation
is being led by a brilliant leader in the very so whatever you talk to
somebody in an organisation if they can summarise in a sensor to what they'd organisations
goal fantastic they have a clear vision they can help guide people in the right
direction the first question to ask karen was
what's important to you it wasn't there was no hesitation it wasn't even apples and
it was one word and that that's very clear when i gave you have i
talk a fast am even logo on pointed out
you know when working on our own projects it's really it feels really good to
be able to just do it on your own or you know work with a
small group unfortunately we do need users
now here's
why secure boot is so subtly
dangerous
because they call that secure but and disabling something that secure makes you a bad
person feeds disable security on a primal level people create security this is a constant
so people who are just now coming into the field even if they can figure
out how to disable secure based
there is something on a very primal level causing them to
pause wait a minute i'm disabling the security on the system that on so many
levels that's not a good thing
that's even chip on nichols is the one of our favourite media guys
that's pretty obvious it's not really about security but we call secure because that's a
good marketing strategy any gives you two choices
who right now you have two choices
okay i wrote a post i wrote a quick little article about
secure but awhile ago now how many you have but you're on machines
have any bill your desktop a laptop well no that's not you take the screws
up you gotta know hardware you've mastered that you seen what it is engine even
if you just wipe the machine and loaded a free and open just row on
it gives you the ability to essentially flips the bird to proprietary just rose
what secure does now if you are queasy or
don't like it's explicit graphics look away for the second actually knows coming up in
the middle
so
no this is my building your own systems changed it's changed the world for the
makers were slowly adjusting females of if makers were just in time but
since the beginning till now we've all had the luxury of tinkering
but what secure because and this is intentional at the corporate level as the det
to removes your ability to flip the bird to the proprietary corporation
okay
we but
i believe there is a flip side there is a good side and a bad
side everything i'm a diehard optimist
you know that little spiel that sound like a
the good side of you neophyte secure there is that for the first time ever
it gives us the chance
to make
free of source of core look like a worldwide cool thing
throughout the last few decades
all of our after all the effort of all the makers and geeks has been
diluted by getting one particular just rollover than one particular type of machine we've dealt
with
thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of different types of machines going on do
with different just rosewood different configurations we've hammer so many problems
and while that's been extremely valuable in helping make
getting linux a very solid
chunk of code
it's
has made it so that our effort has been very diluted
so now that's now that we
now that's now that machines have to come was secure blue either enable disable this
ultimate different ching factor
now when you when people ask about you have a secure blue and white hardware
matters the best answer you can give is that it's complicated
the just shows actually are going to this one
when just shows were given the choice and most just shows have sorry ago when
just rules were given the choice of you either sign with microsoft or you suffer
death by obscurity
and the obscurity as because it's it will become and it is becoming harder and
harder to load windows on windows machine the clock basically started in august two thousand
twelve
any machine that ships with windows comes to secure bit enabled that just means all
the hardware that's out there right now is ageing owl
and slowly one by one will realise the problem
so they were given and then and then possible choice just by obscurity or that's
by signing with a company that they just didn't necessarily agree with
so
all the different just rose and all the different
house's that they've built
when's your bit of a devastating experience know how many of you have seen the
corporation
i would be okay so only handful so give the hopefully thirty second summary
american corporations mikes also american corporation a lot of the people who manufacture hardware american
corporations
by law
corporations have to do whatever we'll bring in the most profit there are good people
working at microsoft we but there are good people working there
who have good intent but by law a corporation
do something that will lose shareholders value
people can get in big trouble for that
so by law whether they want to or not they have to do whatever brings
in the most profit
there is no upper capture to earnings
they have to earn as much as they possibly can
now in the united states of corporation is treated as if it was a human
being
i get it has no ethics no values no nothing it has one goal make
money
and that's a very dangerous thing and you'll see in a minute
i have a good example that
so we see i hopefully i painted a bit of the picture now why hardware
and software need to work together i'm sure you've seen now as a developer who
doesn't have access to the audience
you bang your head against lots of problems that you cannot fix i see something
like that you cannot fix
because you can i get the harder manufactures to do what you want them to
do
we're right at that intersection between
and we do see possibilities
it told us when we saw all the different distrust signing with microsoft essentially what
they did is they
it smacks of sense encryption key is that it
so
summary you have five is good and much needed secured was poorly implemented complicated is
the point of being dangerous there are solutions the solutions are difficult but doable if
we could what break communicate and
the part we get to we get to the happy part now
how this is the last part how to make a good i'm globally loved
long term now
i don't have the answers
and a lot of the problems but i do have i don't have the answers
but i will give you one example of something that we've been through that's helped
shape how we do what we do now most year software people right obviously
and how many of you have worked on a project
where you had a deadline
and you weren't able to do what needed to be done in time at that
and by the time at that deadline it
and you are had to make compromises that seriously her quality
that's an unfortunate situation that happens
whenever you have deadlines
the one is kind of
because problems throughout the organisation
only that affirmative so we realised that if we said not to investors we didn't
have to have deadlines
the only negative consequences and not having deadlines as it sometimes people get mad they
wanna know what date when the next have what's gonna be released or whatever and
so sometimes people get mad at that
but it's a heck of a lot better than doublings the compromise quality
so that's just one example of something we've learned
actually no i didn't get the full story that and i here are the three
guiding principles that are the
situations
that have helped us come up with three guiding principles for potential solution
our tech support
if you can see a good enough that the guy doing is on tech support
he's cleaning out a system he must are heard that you need to clean the
fan from time to time
is that the water at suppose is using this as blitz as you're doing it
wrong
okay so we take support quite often not always but quite often you call tech
support and you're talking to somebody who may have never even touched the machine you're
trying to get support on
and sometimes six i'm i doubt there are many people in your call tech support
ever you probably just deal with it yourselves
and or maybe you have or maybe you are on the other end of the
phone line and stuff
so one thing we decided to do is one day i said wait a minute
what i could call in the tech support and i could talk to the person
who not only use my particular machine but we built my particular machine or at
least work the next to the guy or one who don't my particular machine
that's why not we're building the shops like clean and small why not
and so something happy happened
when i found out that it's easy the system in a we also supply stanford's
a i'll at the artificial intelligence lab which is really cool
and one of the google founders has robotics lab that we've worked with
but it's easy a system administrator at stanford called and says hey i'm having a
really hard time with my stride a
she wants to talk to the guy who built it
also i found out that the person who built it they're gonna be a lot
more careful in their bill they're gonna tie up records inside the desktop a lot
more neatly they're gonna go for perfection if they know they might get a call
from the person every see that machine
so we decided to build tech support
with the shortest distance possible between accountability
and consequence
between the person who built and the person who uses
between the person who has responsibility for building a machine properly and the person who
imposes the consequence for the quality of that machine
shorter slime possible between accountability and consequences
dataset that's just a guiding principle that we're using as we try to figure out
where to go next in dealing with
the different just rose
berlin i spend today in manhattan before we came here and if any of you
are geeky enough to enjoy visiting you big the coolest places throughout the world the
o'reilly published something called the geek atlas
that was so i don't know about a hundred places throughout the world that have
really geeky cool things have this is well lock museum the john as possible lock
museum in manhattan
it's impossible to find
well it's hard to find and when you get there they said always not open
to the public so you kind of have to hack your way and
social hiking
and so we got in and we got to see locks that have been built
since the beginning of time since they were building blocks out of wood
it's an old musty museum and it was a it was delightful
back when they were making happens
for security they were making these to protect bank vaults
the patent system actually worked
and it worked well for building bank for security and to hear that any kind
of patent law is working well that was the over so my husband i took
a little bit of time to talk about how patents how the patents worked with
walks over time
and the way it worked is that everybody every manufacturer every builder made an incremental
improvement was able to patent that improvement but they didn't whole blood money to the
previous
improvements
so for example if apple is
is patenting the movement of swiping your finger from the left to the right there's
no chance like that that's not how the block industry worked the lock industry
and said that they weren't allowed to patent you have a keen you have a
locking you put one into the other
they were allowed to patent things such as this is the time lock with a
specific type of time device dial and this allowed for refinement of the hardware that
was healthy for example the time locked didn't work it was actually to secure the
bank managers were scared that they wouldn't be able to get into their vaults when
they wanted to but neither could the bad guys but still it didn't do well
so we don't use it
someone has man i sat down at
at it in this little teeny little museum in manhattan and talked about what does
the how could this possibly there's some there were some good things happening in this
field historically how criminals principles guide us and what we do
we realise okay just on a very simplistic level
where the hardware where the where the box with a lock softwares the key
you guys have the code that allows these machines to run in the first place
but at the key the box isn't any good that the box
the key can only scratch your back
keep software hardware separate
but together
one of the things that the software industry is done with their patent says that
they've trying to meld actually unlock so that they're one and the same unit and
they become a break they become unusable we can no longer take them open
and explore them and learn from them
the third principle we've learned my backgrounds in education
and one of the things i've been fascinated by is that there's no correlation or
even causation there's no correlation causation between money and learning
people have this insane idea and i call it insane because we keep making the
same mistake again and again
that the more money you throw it schools the better cancel learn
and it doesn't work that way learning has to come from the inside the money
does not correlate for "'cause" learning so how do we
it so that's just i i'm not gonna do additions education but just that there
is no correlation
money doesn't solve it and as soon as the focus shifts to the money and
all the learning
you lack integrity it goes from learning is the goal to money and learning
you lose focus and your high risk of working against yourself
so those are our three guiding principles accountability in consequence keep software hardware separable working
together never let money make the big decisions
so
in our early days when we first up and shop we had just rose approaching
us saying hey you can you should are destroying your machines and give us a
cut for each machine you should for the just row give us ten bucks or
whatever for each machine you ship with our wonderful destroy
and
it makes complete sense from a business standpoint
but for some reason we felt this is wrong and we couldn't pinpoint and it
wasn't in cell block a museum and a few other things that we realise wait
a minute this soon as you enter into a contractual agreement with the stroll you
lose
some of that integrity you have deadlines
you put an extra layer between accountability in consequence
you're no longer separate
and the money is making the decision
and so we wanted to work with a good know community a more directly but
we couldn't figure out how
i am so grateful they can has taken has a i'm grateful that you've done
what you've done and build such a solid base
because back to the first slide of being well positioned
i would love nothing more
then if you guys did your industry
or if we were to support industry
the reason why the numbers so well position is that you have all of the
puzzle well nearly all of the puzzle pieces but they haven't yet then put together
into one distraught we have people and i showed you some of the people who
love the cold the ease of the you why older people who don't have time
to mess with anything that isn't beautiful and simple in its most basic form
so that's my that's what i would love to see happen
but
nobody and again on community has ever come to us and said hey can you
give us can you give us a cat or can we do a deal and
that's not how they're gonna foundation or any other part of it works from what
i understand
and i appreciate that i have what you and i thank you for that because
that would be the wrong direction to go
so i'm not exactly sure how
it's going to work the one thing that my husband and i came up with
that i'm sure will talk to people about but i tend to be kind of
as open as possible about these things
is that it's a support the gonna foundation are going on developers or whatever maybe
hire if you maybe go ahead and give back to the community based on the
number system sold but do it on a voluntary basis
just do it is donations
that allows separation
that allows
it
one of the reasons why the schools don't the schools don't work
is that sometimes the more money we throw kids we don't give them the option
of failing
we lived in your dell here in austin texas
where the kids were not allowed to fail
they had a hundred percent passing on nearly all of their stay standardised tests if
you're not from the us that probably doesn't make a lot of sense it was
basically forced for success
and there are these for kids on drugs
just wishing they would at least have the choice to either succeed or fail and
i believe that's very important if the just row wants to sign with microsoft and
have a now we still support it would to and fedora and all of the
others were still shipping machines actually going to start number one
D fall selection when you're selecting it's a stronger site
but
unfortunately that's because is the best option currently available for the people that need to
use these machines
i would love to have a different option
a more pure option we also support risk all which is a lot more much
more pure
and so on the on our you know where partying last night so
i like that's all the heavy parts over so every presentation i like to do
something fun at the end
i like to do a quiz
and give away stuff "'cause" it's fun or not so i brought some keyboards another
thing i don't know if you all noticed but on your keyboard if you look
down hopefully some of you guys have stickers over your start key is pretty much
all of these machines except for if you think you are not reason machines
every not back in the late eighties nineties microsoft another brilliant marketing mail
okay so this do we have the stickers
we the mikes have to brilliant marketing move there's a key on every keyboard manufactured
in china and we much only channel
that is called the start key or the home key but their logo on it
because you start with windows is your home they have they their marketing departments brilliant
and i say that in a very negative derogatory way
that's sarcasm
but you can't really see the sarcasm sorry
so what we figured it was time for tax oregon you have their rightful choice
on the keyboard so we had a batch of keyboards manufactured just for us it's
not a sticker but if you don't have if you do have
we could probably going down
later we normally have this the stickers that we give away with talks on and
we need to have word hopefully and the process of getting some with the guinea
one also one if even a foot
and that's a let me ask some questions
so
do any you know with the first programmers were
okay give me one main reason and if you know i saw you what
okay actually i need to ask a more specific question sorry and make any at
it up there so nickname one of the media programmers
no
now she was
she work for the group that was
the what was founded by one of the union developers but she
look at look on weekly you can in finding at gonna ricky page
but anyway go ahead anybody else this is awesome okay so what happen one also
that's actually horrible that's sarcasm again
so what happened was when the news articles came out about the any i
ages ago they thought that's
these women in the picture were be otherwise they thought they were showcasing this beautiful
hardware they didn't understand they were actually the one plug in that is the and
following the specification code but the engineers and written for them
anybody feel free to look it up
in any of you name any of the originally any i coders
i guess and save true okay now i have to the fast researcher
sure
anybody
if you just we key any occupied whatever
so
okay so striking that it and it on their cell phones
so these are for women that are a mini they didn't go out there and
get the they were amazing women we heard one of them is name i will
say
speak and she was brilliant she's now in her eighties
i think
what
just like
i remembered i roll doubles her name i know i'm forced is not one and
she was not one of these for what is one like this is not other
that are when we do a that's program
why
it's not there okay so maybe there is i'm just using any and we keep
age and just this is the how dishes with this question before i pass question
all over the world and so what i usually say is a this picture of
these for women
one you mean one name any names
yes you have
G also
okay so gym or i think i now there's a story about gym or take
if you ever go to silicon valley schedule your visit during that time with the
computer history museum has one of their events where they have a speaker come and
they will have people like timber take who's still alive how man and give a
talk or rubber half one of the guys invented ethernet cable and they are whole
areas because from their perspective they've seen things happen that i can only dream up
one of gene vortex original stories is that when that the there are rich the
first call that they ever programmed was actually i have the speaker a question what
was the original what was the first bit of code now you can guess on
this one because i don't think it's an indian article but i think about it
this is in us
what we program yes right here
yes
thank you
and i can ask you the other three names but they are actually is too
little
so i know no okay macaulay and betty over whole burden excuse me but i've
only heard you marked speak she said and as a as a coder you would
understand is she said that they had back in the these years they didn't do
all lighters or multiple lighters like i'm sure some of you know my husband was
in the game industry for years and my goodness
they worked very late like seven P M nine P M
but they were so nervous "'cause" the next day they were presenting it to the
government officials who funded their research and she said they programmed and everything calculated correctly
except one at all but
when the missile hit the ground going
i
i thought that was cute
why
they built what the missiles to keep on going back then that wasn't really the
goal
i
how big do you have to be before you think you are in a position
where you can demand that you are given a free violence by the manufacturers like
an open source
a first before
influenced by it
i don't know
i well
it's in the hundreds of thousands so you know schools able to
but together corbett for the problem book and
that's about it there's so many steps between the chip manufacturers and the motherboard manufacturers
and the case
builders
that
getting all the way through the chain
is a really difficult ask you look at like
motorola that's been bought by google
the new
motto X phone is not able to have the latest and right on it because
it takes it another part of google now
just kidding
status and
definitions for the low level hardware
takes a lot of time
no
where you know it's very possible
i know this is gonna be a new field and just had a talk with
richard using amazing version about it but have you looked into sort of opening up
your hardware i know it's like there's lot of parts of the modern computer but
it would like say leasing design specifications for your cases or things like that
go back and the manufacturers down give them to us
it and it does not follow copyright
and that got really i email from okay so we didn't we want to have
like we have another one that were going to be launching really see a hopefully
days weeks some like that but we have guidelines and
but the when we order from them quite often they wanna ship they're so they
want to include windows they want to get a test is a bonus because that's
cool and that extra so or with a nine and please do not include windows
we don't wanna we know we're not paying extra for it and we haven't seen
often a just and durable at that please take windows or you can have windows
it's a free software
so it's just different that's a different world that now that they don't answer that
we do with that
okay
sorry
so are you accepting put coins
we support of a hundred percent we can tell you horror stories about works in
the merchant processing system but that's all other top i want you guys so to
use you have been working on the lower levels so it's you know do you
do you use idea
but to will mostly bit with your remote you directors do use realistic in most
of them are still to these before you leave is rickles to people
but to what can we do to so you sliver
i totally don't understand that we can say that clever
it's very well i totally thought in the startup and i have no idea and
idea but the picture in the slide presentation of the guy i think that's kind
of how i pictured what he went through i don't know that i don't know
but it was a very difficult situation
it is a very difficult it what you know the whole look right
see that's another reason why we have to keep the lock in the key separate
if there and that's other is what we don't read the news is we have
to stay healthy we have to stay
viable
and so if a distraught wants to fail let them fail we cry for that
we cry for them for a day and then we get back to building will
heart that god only
so of got long a use for you want three use is not that's two
homes not gonna be building induced room that's okay you can you can be building
miller's
i
good
thank you
what can we do to opening that's resonating we can we do to hope you
what your again
so
the also more specific i'm sure
it
we support you guys are so what we need to do like with stress well
i'll give me that as an example
they can just and they said you know i know you guys are aiming for
free an open there are so many proprietary blobs and the stuff your shipping that's
like we now we know we're doing our best were doing what we can but
we have all the options either build with what's out there were not build it
all and so that's the only choice
and so what they did is they worked on the got good enough we shipped
it out to perform really well on the field and what i'm that the thing
that both my husband are trying to communicate today is and i don't think i
have is the value of the code base you already have in place the puzzle
pieces are there you guys have any idea how amazing it is to ship a
computer to somebody who has never use linux
doesn't know the difference between windows and a map
we had so back it was when we first started in two thousand seven i
was like you know okay we're shipping to
developers and i love these guys and women and guys when whatever and i this
is fantastic but when we gonna ship to people who don't really who are technically
inclined
so i said someday i'm gonna here of a tech support call it indicates that
worshipping to middle america are worshipping to people you don't know what they're doing and
one day i was sitting to two desks away from the tech support person
and i heard and say
well have you tried turning it on
so you know that by
i
and two thousand nine
guide
well i wanted to say that when you do you do your own or else
and
we is a hardware manufacturer want to include the you know we'd like to support
secure but we don't want microsoft to you some our systems
so when you do your own
secure signing without microsoft he's and will support
your work he's been or you your for it's not that big a deal it
really isn't
it takes effort it takes a bit attraction
we support you guys are be
for years i've been wanting to have a different evolved bistro
so
and are there any other questions
i think everybody's done are like my goddess and this how much more
a lot of other places the pieces so just to clarify you're opposed to secure
restricted we would even with things like matthew good shimmer the linux boot loader based
on ideological differences with microsoft holding the keys and only guess so yes we are
we are opposed to a proprietary corporation whose only goal is building is isn't building
better profit margins holding the key a gateway is everything
it everything
do plan for authenticating drivers which you know all of the hardware vendors are using
microsoft ski to sign if you're not gonna of microsoft a quick
not sure all
right now as well as we're building with the distress you have signed
or
right
no much remember that we can have i think you're very
you we have by is good
that is the part that makes all video cards would like video cards and all
the driver modules
you
i don't know i have and i don't what
you're on the question
and that's a room for the volume level would like to see those drivers sign
with the but don't see that's not the whole gentleman softly
but you can sell open source drivers
open source drivers
sorry
my laptop doesn't have any proprietary drivers there's a lot of flexibility liam level
at the driver level
this is the type of thing we might need to open up
and environment where we can chat about it
"'cause" i can tell right now there's three people or at least two people who
are gonna do major research as soon as they get internet connection
go ahead of their of their
and where you what you want and ship hardware with open firmware opened drivers or
anything like that now the way weren't growing is
small lights clean and local shops there usually were applicable there actually kind of set
up like a franchise business model "'cause" the shops themselves
are about some distribution and supply chain and there's a good reason why there aren't
any other hardware manufacturers who are competing but that's
it's hard a there's no profit margin there are a lot of people you don't
want to do and if money is in your motive then you can do it
but if it is then so what we're doing is i would love to have
a hundred of "'em" worldwide right now in all the major cities
if we had investors we would
i've had investors propose doing to run the million it's not
they're the barriers are
surmount able and if i found an investor who
was ethical i would
i can tell you horror stories right
question so what board
thousands
it depends our new zealand shop is at it depends on orders to sometimes we
have a large amount borders sometimes it's down like right before anything to release probably
should use remotes try it example where the millions
i'm not shed and aggressor
sorry so anybody or not to advertising about a lot of people here actually here
and maybe a little bit of a harsh question so what what's the fundamental difference
between you buying laptops from chinese manufacturers want to send you windows with them and
then installing linux on them and me by laptop from a chinese manufacturers want to
be when you can literally that tomorrow it's one way to do it through the
know was web store all the time right i mean what's difference between these two
things a difference is that the differences about that dilated after you can do yourself
i talked a lot if you can do yourself and you can spend a lot
of time and a lot of money figuring out it's becoming more difficult i don't
know if i just sit intelligent machines and to get hard right
or late eighties as you can just go to best buy or antispeaker or stars
of questioning well it just you know i go to learn over dot com of
iowa which means that it but when it's on a
okay
so how it so we stick to different from what you're doing from a point
of you know write a different here is yes that's a very good question so
thanks for asking a if you are a developer type and you can get over
any potential problems fantastic as far as i know though what does learn it doesn't
know about ship it with windows installed or
okay can you order it with your favourite bistro
okay can anybody
like where "'cause" i'd love to know
i have to look into that "'cause" as far as i would be thrilled if
they were not wanna support that and promote it if they were
but as far as i know nobody's doing and the reason why is because you
get pressure from microsoft
okay good
okay now the reason the reason the main reason at the main part of all
sorry go ahead of it the people than here
okay so into the microphone
but also the point you will you will actually should i want to or see
running free builds and usually don't pay extra for it
now the reason i love this question because it is very true and very accurate
yes if you were developer you can
you can find ways around it you always find ways around it we will always
find ways around it unfortunately it's on a one person level in a world that
has billions and billions of people
so what happens and i didn't have it in this presentation but i have it
in others
is that i assume they your building that your coding it not just for tomorrow
or next year or the year after i as you know that in your quieter
moments when you're thinking about your life in general you want some of your code
to be a legacy for who you are and what you contributed you want your
kids or grandkids to actually know what can is in general public speech rather than
reading about in history but
we're building legacy here
and well developers configured out yes that's fantastic we always will be able to figure
it out we need to make
the hardware accessible to the public at large and i have never met a regular
release in america i've never met a regular person he's probably well
they by doubles and apple they
they wanna they wanna simple easy entry point they don't wanna options
so we're trying to reach
the public at large
so i hear your point there's a question okay
sorry not really
but legacy
okay
you had a
not so thinly veiled criticism of capitalism and be american corporation a i said that
i got it what are your ideas are like just overall general theory about how
you compete and are successful against these entities without playing into the game so much
in a with our old really where money and numbers matter so much as of
right now is structures so that we don't have to
we don't like that
but in you do compete when someone's looked by computer but that on their side
if that the competition does enter are doors we can i think it's really easy
to look is just as a fixing compared to them
but we now we can it's a distraction
i don't know if i mean to capitalism i don't know i'm working as hard
as anybody else but i don't
i just all i know is that the foundation i want to be able to
open up my machine i wanna be able the white lot what i want i
don't wanna i that's just i'm just talking about from a very personal level
and how we how we figure out how to shape a dist row
that doesn't have microsoft is the gatekeeper i mean we can
that still come out of philosophical level
although the keys to solve a girl there okay that S okay before you go
please grab a screwdriver we have plenty and we have a bunch of all stickers
are not stickers we have ribbon to sorry and
so i am i can has i'm too tired at a tax
we hope to have the good new
et cetera later or what
you just much thank you