Keynote

Others

Cathy Malmrose

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