 So Michael I have known you forever, you know since the open two days and now you are at endless, you know And now we are planning to start a show together So before we kind of start talking about the show and all the things that we are planning to do Can you quickly tell about what are you doing these days? All right? So like you said, I know I met you when I was working at Ubuntu I was originally a web developer there became a community manager and now that's what I'm doing at endless, too But my background is as a developer. I was doing that for years and years and years before I joined Ubuntu web development I did a little bit of desktop development, but you know for fun stuff But that's you know, my my background is making things which is why I'm really excited about this show with you because that is gonna be The topic of it is you know making and building and creating stuff Yeah, and that also reminds me that we discussed on on chair Once you were involved with some electronics makers projects for kids And I also recall because I did a story where you created an operating or distribution For kids. Can you talk about these two projects? Sure So a lot of my creative stuff kind of evolved around my own kids when they were young I got them started using an Ubuntu Custom remix that I made it was originally just Zbuntu that I customized the interface of but Eventually took that as an opportunity to learn how to create a distro Not quite from scratch, but you know customizing it and having a custom ISO So I made one it was called Kimmo is kind of a play on Eskimo. That was our mascot We had a cute little Eskimo mascot, but it was designed for kids. It was easy to use It was a nice clean interface came pre bundled with a bunch of games Was really popular for a while My kids grew out of it. And so once they moved on to just a standard a bunch of distro The development of Kimmo kind of fell by the wayside plus other distros came up and started doing the same thing You know unity came out had a nice simple interface with big icons, which was kind of our main feature for Kimmo And now things like endless have come out which are even simpler to use We've learned things from like Android and Chrome OS to simplify the Linux desktop So I'm not sure that custom distro like Kimmo is needed anymore, but it was a great learning experience for me It was a lot of fun to do and you were talking about the maker thing that I did Again something inspired by my kids. They started tinkering and learning We radio shacks were going out of business around here and they had these super sales where stuff was like 80 90 percent discounted Which was great because you can go in there and spend 20 bucks and get like a bag of electronic parts So they started making stuff and you know, I got to thinking This is really fun kids really enjoy this, but not many of them have the opportunity that my kids are getting so my wife And I came up with this idea to do a pop-up maker space, you know, we obviously couldn't afford to rent a Building or something and set up an actual maker space and there wasn't one in my hometown The nearest one was like 30 miles away Which I didn't want to drive to So we were thinking you know, what could we do for hours our town to to provide this kind of thing for kids? And there was a farmer's market that happened once a week in the evenings and they were Advertising you know space for tables for people to set up So we bought a table space and every week for a couple of weeks We would have a different make activity for kids to do we did like a A spectrograph with CDs and cardboard boxes We did a build your own flashlight with popsicle sticks and button batteries and LEDs And we did a few different things and the kids were always really interested in it The parents loved it because you know, they were dragging these young kids around to the farmers market. They were bored They didn't care about anything else at the farmers market, but they could come to our table They could spend five minutes learning about something building something and it was always something that they could take home with them, too So that was a lot of fun It was a little expensive to rent the table space and we didn't quite get as many kids as we were hoping to so we Don't do that anymore, but it really showed the the potential for something like that Especially for kids. I mean kids these days They're so you know inundated with consumption things, you know play this app Watch this video or TV show. There's very little out there anymore That's just purely you know learn things and build things and create things You know, there's Lego and there's stuff around that But that's really the minority when it comes to what kids are being advertised right now I agree because first of all, I have two kids one is four and one is actually he sorry not four five He actually says he is five and a half not five five and a half. You have to be very clear about that Oh, yeah, that's important thing until you're about 10 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and You were right when he was like the the younger one now He loves playing because you know, I have all these, you know, I'm heavily into electronics and you know I have RC remote control car, which I drive less and I you know repair and you know fix It's like Traxxas three cars one is Traxxas X max, which is a huge giant, you know 40 pound car second is 10 feet and third one is Slash so and then you know the battery I say he was driving it and I said batteries is down So he ran and grab a screwdriver to change the battery He's two years old because he because always, you know, he's twice I always know I have to unscrew everything to change the battery with this car You don't have to unscrew anything but he ran and grab the screwdriver and he knows how to use screwdriver My other one, you know, so I have a 3d printer also at home and he always know every day you see behind me You'll see, you know, everything is 3d printed on open source printers, you know, so he would always, you know, like his on his Valentine's Day, you know, we printed some, you know cards for his friends on Printer and he always wants, you know to Have his own printer. So I bought him a 3d pen. So he was he wanted to build a house with a pen And then I got him a Legos Lego kit where you can build a robot or a dog a cat and a guitar So he he built his that thing and we sent him to to a robotics class because you are right because when I saw them growing up and The I mean we have an old pair. So he gets one to one care But beyond that if you look at that, you know, the TV becomes entertainment iPad and iPhones and once you get sucked into that They don't want to do anything. But at this age they can I mean the as you said, you know, there's so many things when I was a kid I used to have a chemist chemical and electronics lab in my, you know, house where I had all those Chemicals and I used to make multimeters while just putting the wires and I mean I still have a soldier kind and I love doing all those things near Halloween So so I do feel that, you know, this is really important So when you mentioned that and I think we talked on Facebook also that oh, you know, we do this and that and so I was like, this is really interesting because How to get kids, you know, not only excited about it, but at the same time, you know, I don't like to like I like nature. I mean nature everything but I don't like to to kind of cut them off from technology You know, so that you know, you just go and live in a village and no I don't I want them to be fully exposed But in a way that they are not just consumers But also kind of creators and they explain because this is the word they will be living in 20 years from now It's all going to be software-driven word. And if they are not prepared for that, they will be the next Miners, you know, yeah, I'm a big advocate of teaching like computer technology and software development as a Required course in school because you're absolutely right, you know in 10 years Everything's going to be software-driven and if you don't know what it's doing or how to make it do what you want to do Then you're really kind of gonna be at the mercy of all of it Yeah, I Actually, sometimes my wife gets upset because I buy, you know, like I got a little bit skit We just you know at this moment It's too much for him because it connects to the internet and does all those things But you know what my whole idea is that he doesn't look at the app interface at touch screen You know, he he should be able to put things together and build something and and you know and gets excited about it Yeah, it's that that idea that you know You can build the things you want. You don't just have to buy them That's kind of gotten lost and you know, not we've talked a lot about our kids But you know, even as adults, you know, that's something a lot of adults They they still somewhere inside they know that that's you know an option and they want to do that But they've kind of lost They've lost a lot of time and learning that it's not been something that's been pushed for them growing up You know, you and I were about the same age growing up There wasn't a whole lot about you know making stuff this whole maker movement came after you know We had already passed that childhood age, but it's still important for adults And so you know as part of this show it's not just about you know things you can do with your kids It's you know things you can do as an adult too that are you know fun They are challenging intellectually that you're learn something you'll make something And you know, I want to make sure that we We have something for everybody on the show, so it's gonna be a little bit about kids It's gonna be a little bit about adults You know, like I've got a hydroponic setup that I built a light kit for that kind of thing that you know Can get grown-ups back into this idea of building and making things and sharing these ideas too That's an important part of this whole maker movement is not just that you can build it But that you can share what you've done with other people and they can build on that and share You know their additions and their enhancements back to you So that whole open-source mentality the the you know share and share alike You know everything's better when we're building it together kind of thing Is an important part of this whole you know maker movement And that's another common kind of you know threat between you and me is that you know We are both you know super hyperactive in open-source space And do you think that the whole makers movement became you know kind of phenomenal because of the success of open-source I mean open-source has I cover a lot of you know enterprise space not community driven So and that's a tricky area where people you know don't want to give away their IP But now open source has kind of become the default Software development model even in hardware space a lot of work is going on So do you think they know that open source played you know the success of open source played a big role in the success of This makers movement also I think open source has really brought it back you know Years ago, you know if you go back a hundred years There was still this kind of idea that you share knowledge with people You know whether that's you know baking knowledge or You know knitting or you know construction It was all shared stuff. There wasn't this idea that you know if I learned how to make Uh a better bread. I'm going to keep it to myself Right, you know there were these you know people doing this at home doing it for themselves There wasn't this idea that we have to Restrict access to knowledge so that we can make money off of it It was about the thing that you were making and making more of it was a good thing and having other people make more of it was a good thing And that that you know kind of started to fade away and I think the open source movement Built on top of that and brought it back Uh and made it important again Does that make sense? I think it makes perfect but one more thing that you One thing that you touched upon and that was that you know in previous age People you know they were like sharing stuff It was not just to hold that secret so that you can you know make money from it or whatever it is That basically I think mostly started the copyright and all those things in us You know I I don't historically I cannot tell you but that's the contact that I see these days But the funny thing is and when I say open source I enterprise the funny thing is that Uh All these companies they are like billion dollar They are making like red hat is making like three or four billion dollars from a pure open source So open source does not mean No business you know actually Because the process of making bread is different From actually selling the bread or because you can build a very good business model around You know distributing the bread or you know putting you know, how do you cut it? How do you put toppings on it? You know, so that's that's what it is all about So open source just for the viewers We don't by sharing we don't mean that it's it has nothing to with Capitalism or making money. It's two different things. I cook a lot of Indian food right at home I can give you the recipe and you can also make the same you may or may not because like sometimes Okay, let's say that I just you know Fry Onion just three more seconds and that gives the flavor you may do it less than that So there are a lot of other things that make your stuff versus my stuff But how do I distribute it? You know, how do I present it? How do I put five things together? That is what is value add or business add on top of that So open source doesn't mean just for the sake of our because people often confuse open source with you know Free of cost that is not the case and I think makers. I mean look at my printer I mean that guy proves Joseph Prusa from Prague, you know He I mean he is dealing with millions and millions for dollars now It's it's the whole cat is open source the firmware is open source You can build Everything is Arduino and Raspberry Pi based you can build the whole printer in your home without having to pay anything to him It actually will be more expensive, you know But it's there so Yes, it's true But the most exciting thing is to to kind of build that culture, you know of To be when you said, you know that it's less for kids than more adults or not The thing is every time I buy a kid for my son is actually more for me Then for him Sometimes my wife actually has to stop me and she has to tell it is for him Why are you playing with it? Let him build it Yeah, I tend to buy like multiple things so that we can all share But yeah, you it's a great point about red hat, you know that all of what they sell Well, the services all the the products they sell services around our open source Anybody could take the same code build the same software and build a business around that But people still pay red hat for it and that's because there's a value in what red hat is doing That is separate from the secrecy around source code And I think you know that selling soft selling closed source software by By by making access to the software itself the exclusive bit is kind of a really Easy I don't want to say lazy because people you know, that's their job I don't want to call them lazy, but it's the easy way of doing it, right? It's easy to take something that's readily accessible and readily reproducible and artificially limit How much of that there is And sell that you know that that artificial scarcity But but that's not the only way that there is to make money off of Open source software or open source anything You know, there's there's a value in actually taking this open information and doing something with it and putting it together and supporting it That people are always going to be willing to pay for it. So there's always going to be a business model around that and The whole idea of open source is that when we share the information We can all build more and better businesses around that final product Then we could otherwise and so you know the whole rising rising tide lifts all ships You know is Fundamental to that the more information we have out there the more information we share The better we will all be for it. So we don't have to create that artificial scarcity And you made some points and since that I'm a fiction writer one thing that I always think about is that Uh, let's say game of thrones, right? J. R. Martin wrote it or let's say Harry Potter. She wrote it There is no secret that the whole source code is out there, you know The whole storyline is out there, you know other than what is cooking and all that But but you won't see you know, no matter how good a writer is you cannot create the same game of throne You know So so the thing is just because you are releasing the source code Sometimes people get afraid that Richard installment makes this point often again and again that if you're not good at it You should not be in the business at all You know Because you know we have seen you know, but people, you know, I cannot write the same kind of game of throne You know if enough so so that is another point just because the whole open source doesn't mean people will stake it and you know You will be deprived of everything that you have built. No, it won't Uh, you know, you bring your own value. So now let's uh, let's change gears a bit and let's go back to Since it's episode zero. So let's just quickly talk about uh, I mean, we just threw some ideas around, you know That these are the things that we are interested. I mean, we are interested in and these are the things that really matter So so going forward Michael, what do you think is going to be the kind of? Format of the show So one of the things that I want us to do is to have Maybe like a project every week that's related to the thing that we're talking about That people at home watching this show can go and do themselves something that's you know free to do or relatively inexpensive to do They can try it out. They can learn something They can share their creation with other people watching the show and with their friends and family and get them motivated to do it So, you know, we'll take maybe have a theme for every show Something that'll touch on a broader news topic or a bigger development and then tie that in with some kind of You know, create it yourself project or open source open information project that people can do themselves To to learn about it a little bit more in depth And become a part of that movement Yeah, just the way I have made this 3d printed sawtooth from horizon dawn zero Yeah, we can we can I mean the because I think both of us, you know, we make a lot of stuff And we can talk about what we're building and and we can Kind of try to as you said, you know that commentary on what is if something big like space x is happening so we can also kind of Find some thread where we can bind it together So we can talk about those topics as well. I think this is totally an open-ended show for now We will see, you know, how what kind of response we get from our audience's audience And what really, you know keeps us going and keep us because there's so many the fact the last time when we were just discussing the show I had like 30 minutes in my mind and I think we ended up talking like two or two and a half hour And yeah, it went on for a while going on and on on Yeah, so so there's yeah, we're going to try and keep this show kind of short Like we discussed maybe like 30 minutes. I don't know if we're going to do it weekly or monthly or what that's going to depend on You know the audience ideas and the topics that we have to talk about so Again, right? Yeah, give us feedback help us make this show the kind of show that you want If this is an interesting topic to you you can help steer it We're very we're all about open and making so that includes the show itself, right? So people can you know help us create a better show. That's what they want it