[00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.000]   [Music]
[00:00:07.000 --> 00:00:11.000]   Hello and welcome to Fos and Crafts.
[00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:15.000]   A podcast about free software, free culture, and making things together.
[00:00:15.000 --> 00:00:18.000]   With my co-host, Morgan.
[00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.000]   And my co-host, Christine.
[00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:23.000]   Well, what are we talking about today?
[00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:29.000]   Today we are talking about afteroid, and we have two guests with us today,
[00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:37.000]   and I realize we did not talk in our planning session about how you guys want to be introduced on this podcast.
[00:00:37.000 --> 00:00:42.000]   Well, I guess I'll just start off the introductions because actually in a certain sense,
[00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:49.000]   Morgan is also a guest on this episode since all three of you have the expertise here,
[00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:54.000]   and I'm just a community user of your fine software.
[00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:59.000]   So we start off since Morgan's usually co-host and this time is kind of interviewee.
[00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:02.000]   Why don't we start off with Morgan and then we'll get to our two other guests.
[00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:05.000]   Morgan, why are you an interviewee on this episode?
[00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:16.000]   Well, part of the reason we're doing this episode right now is because we just finished setting up an organization behind the F-Droid project,
[00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:22.000]   including a board, and I am now officially the chair of the F-Droid board.
[00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:24.000]   Awesome, congratulations.
[00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:28.000]   And let's introduce our two guests. Let's start with Sylvia.
[00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:30.000]   Sylvia, would you like to introduce yourself?
[00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:34.000]   Yeah, hi, I'm Sylvia Fonos. I use she/her.
[00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:41.000]   I'm a Linux sysadmin by trade, and in my spare time I like to help in the open source communities.
[00:01:41.000 --> 00:01:44.000]   I develop a few apps of my own as a hobby.
[00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:49.000]   I basically joined afteroid because I really care about what it stands for,
[00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:51.000]   and I think it's an extremely important project.
[00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:55.000]   Very good. And Hans, would you like to introduce yourself?
[00:01:55.000 --> 00:01:58.000]   Yeah, sure. I'm Hans Kristoff Steiner.
[00:01:58.000 --> 00:02:02.000]   I think fundamentally I'm here because I am a free software activist,
[00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:12.000]   and what that has meant is that I have worked for a long time to try and spend all my time working on free software,
[00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:17.000]   and try to help as many people work on free software as well.
[00:02:17.000 --> 00:02:25.000]   And I came to F-Droid because I was working with the Guardian Project on privacy and free software and mobile.
[00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:30.000]   We saw, actually I think it was actually Nathan, one of the founder of Guardian Project who first said,
[00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:34.000]   "Hey, I found this thing F-Droid." It's like, you know, free software for Android.
[00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:41.000]   And to me it was just at that point, just a given that I would maybe, you would be somehow get involved.
[00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:47.000]   On that note, we've mentioned F-Droid several times, but we have not explained to our audience what F-Droid is.
[00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:56.000]   I'm gonna point, Silvia, would you like to explain what F-Droid is to the listener of our show who may be interested, but not familiar?
[00:02:56.000 --> 00:03:04.000]   In its simplest form, F-Droid is a repository of free software apps, think of on a Linux system,
[00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:11.000]   or what many people call an App Store nowadays, but it's actually also a lot more than that.
[00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:16.000]   It's also a whole distribution system. It's an app to interact with those repositories.
[00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:28.000]   But I think for the person, for someone who's completely new to F-Droid, the thing I would tell them is that F-Droid is a way to get free software applications on your Android phone.
[00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:33.000]   You mentioned that there's a lot more components to it, and of course there's always a lot of components that people don't see under the hood.
[00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:37.000]   For example, I installed one thing called F-Droid on my computer.
[00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:43.000]   There is a whole build system to be able to get each one of those packages so that I'm able to download it.
[00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:52.000]   If I remember correctly, you don't just accept whatever binary upload that people give you, you actually make sure that you can compile it.
[00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:54.000]   Yeah, that's true.
[00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:10.000]   After it builds pretty much everything straight from source code, and there are a lot of scripts to ensure that every part of an app is actually free software to ensure it doesn't drag in close source or proprietary dependencies.
[00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:22.000]   It's all just done to make sure that what users get is actually completely free software, as people would expect, and making sure we're building everything from source.
[00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:42.000]   In some cases, with a recent introduction of reproducible builds, which kind of always existed in Afteroid, but we're rolling out more and more now, we're even able to now a days create a bit for bit identical versions of apps that the developer publishes
[00:04:42.000 --> 00:04:50.000]   to give extra trust that developer publishes and what is the actual source code that matches as well.
[00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:52.000]   There's a lot of cool stuff happening there.
[00:04:52.000 --> 00:05:01.000]   Yeah, so I'm involved in Geeks, which is G-U-I-X, which is along with, I think Debian and Geeks, and I hadn't really thought about Afteroid.
[00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:11.000]   I guess they're all pushing hard on the reproducibility side of things that we should care about being able to make sure that the software that we are getting in terms of its binary output is really the software.
[00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:15.000]   As it is in source code form, that there's a one-on-one correspondence.
[00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:20.000]   I actually didn't know that Afteroid was very active in doing that. I think that's really awesome.
[00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:23.000]   What problem does Afteroid solve?
[00:05:23.000 --> 00:05:38.000]   Well, increasingly, as technology has become more and more prevalent in everyone's lives, access to be able to change and modify that technology has become increasingly more difficult to do.
[00:05:38.000 --> 00:06:01.000]   So Afteroid solves the problem of how do we have all of the benefits of these mobile devices, which are tiny computers that we can carry everywhere, but still be able to use them ethically with free software options on them in a way that you don't necessarily have to be a free software developer in order to make it happen.
[00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:21.000]   And actually, for the last 10 years, I think, about every time we've gotten a new Android-y type device, the first thing we do if we're not reflashing the device itself, and certainly if we are afterwards, is either we install something that already has Afteroid on it or we install Afteroid on it so that we can start installing software from there.
[00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:23.000]   It's always our preference to use.
[00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:28.000]   That's something that we can get from via Afteroid within our own household. So yeah, that's pretty exciting.
[00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:33.000]   And I've been using Afteroid longer than I've been a free software advocate even.
[00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:43.000]   That's true. I think that the first machine we installed Afteroid on was your tablet that you got over a decade ago. Is that right?
[00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:45.000]   So yeah, then probably my first tablet.
[00:06:45.000 --> 00:06:52.000]   So tell me about the history of Afteroid. How did this project start and how did it grow into what it is today?
[00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:56.000]   I wasn't there at the very beginning, but I followed it for a long time.
[00:06:56.000 --> 00:07:07.000]   The project was founded by Kieran Goodnicks, and hopefully I'm saying his name, doing his name justice, in 2010.
[00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:18.000]   I think a lot of people then were, especially people who use free software, were excited by Android because it was open source.
[00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:25.000]   Back then the mobile ecosystem was so closed and so locked down. It was hard to even just to develop your own apps.
[00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:27.000]   It came out of that.
[00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:38.000]   It was really, I think, Kieran's just started by himself because it was something he wanted, and it struck a chord.
[00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:45.000]   And for me it was quite interesting to see, because he quite quickly laid out some ideas that weren't around it,
[00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.000]   that I at least was not familiar with in other free software distributions.
[00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:58.000]   And that is that software should also be reviewed for things that are not necessarily related to free software.
[00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:08.000]   It is known as anti-features. So for example, if an app tracks you, so it can be entirely free software and include tracking or advertising.
[00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:16.000]   These are things that are not necessarily in the user's interest, but under the standard of free software, say,
[00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:24.000]   laid out by the Free Software Foundation for user freedoms, it does count as free software.
[00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:29.000]   From that, it was something on the internet. Some people got involved.
[00:08:29.000 --> 00:08:36.000]   There was, I don't know if I thought Falcon, or maybe it was his name, it was somewhat an early contributor.
[00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:40.000]   And then Daniel Marti was very involved for many years.
[00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:54.000]   And there really isn't anything else like this on mobile phones, where someone's saying taking a free software distro like Debian
[00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:59.000]   and applying these core principles of operation to mobile apps.
[00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:06.000]   You could try to do something like run a pine phone or a Libram 5 or something like that.
[00:09:06.000 --> 00:09:16.000]   It is possible to run some kind of more, let's say, GNU/Linux-y flavors of operating systems with some mobile stuff.
[00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:23.000]   But I've tried doing that many times. And since the N900 have been tried to return to that.
[00:09:23.000 --> 00:09:30.000]   I guess the N900 was the only device I ever had where I feel like that actually felt somewhat good.
[00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:41.000]   And since then, for whatever reason, the world of operating systems on kind of what we think of as mobile devices has really been.
[00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:49.000]   If you want what kind of feels like a polished experience, it's really only been either iOS, which is completely proprietary.
[00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:56.000]   Or either Android or some community build of Android. And that's kind of it.
[00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:04.000]   Yeah, I mean to go on that point, I was a user of MAMO, which is like, and I forget, any 10 I think it was called.
[00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:11.000]   But the same idea, these were modeled, actually really built on top of kind of Debian tooling.
[00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:22.000]   But as much as I like the Nokia MAMO devices and all that, they never set any kind of core principles like this is only free software.
[00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:26.000]   It was just like, "Oh, look, we're using Debian and we'll throw in."
[00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:32.000]   A lot of it was proprietary. There was no borders between what was proprietary and what was free software.
[00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:42.000]   Not only that, years later, it turned out that the web browser that shipped on the N900 was actually man in the middling all TLS traffic.
[00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:44.000]   Okay, I didn't know that.
[00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:48.000]   Yeah, I was a little bit scared when I read that one.
[00:10:48.000 --> 00:10:51.000]   Anyway, sorry, that's the digression.
[00:10:51.000 --> 00:11:07.000]   But yes, you're right, that even having a Ganyu Linux-y type baseline doesn't mean that the system is actually kind of really pushing for or aiming for kind of freedom-oriented principles at the core, which after it certainly is.
[00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:17.000]   And I think you're right that it's very interesting to highlight that in after it when I'm going to install something, you might not like this set of things is actually often highlighted.
[00:11:17.000 --> 00:11:30.000]   And that can be interesting because I think the place where I most often see that is if I've been installing something like, I don't know if Telegram's still on it, but at one point, I installed Telegram back in the day and it was like, "Oh, this is using a centralized service."
[00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:33.000]   So if you're not a fan of that, you might not be a fan of this.
[00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:38.000]   Right, so yeah, I think it's good to kind of push the direction of user freedom.
[00:11:38.000 --> 00:11:49.000]   And it also allows you to set your comfort level for what you want it to be, right? Because you might be okay with using a centralized service, that might not be your primary concern, but it tells you just in case you're not.
[00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:51.000]   So tell me about some of the features of after it.
[00:11:51.000 --> 00:12:00.000]   Well, okay, so one of the main features of after it, I kind of touched on that like earlier already, is the repositories model.
[00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:08.000]   By default, after it has like the after it.org repository pre-configured, but you can also add other repositories.
[00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:22.000]   For example, there are third party repositories like the is-here repository that contains a lot of almost completely leaver software, just some proprietary dependencies here and there that are like not fit for the main after it repository.
[00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:31.000]   Several developers host their own repository so you can get earlier updates for their app like test versions and stuff like that.
[00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:42.000]   And it also kind of helps to prevent afterwards from being like the sole arbiter, because if we ever end up doing something that people don't like, people could just like run their own repositories.
[00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:44.000]   They're not dependent on us.
[00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:55.000]   And I think that's a really important thing to preserve the freedom of free software to like try to limit the dependencies on certain people as much as possible.
[00:12:55.000 --> 00:13:10.000]   I think, yeah, and adding to that, I think one of the things that we've also become known and known for is a focus on privacy, which is not necessarily, you know, is also one of these things that you know, you're allowed to track people
[00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:17.000]   and invade people's privacy under the principles of free software, but users don't want that.
[00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:21.000]   And so we want to provide that because we are also all users of it.
[00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:22.000]   That makes sense.
[00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:29.000]   So the after-ed project recently also has developed the after-ed organization.
[00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:30.000]   Right.
[00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:36.000]   We talked about that at the beginning of this episode in that by mentioning that Morgan is, you know, chair of the after-ed board.
[00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:42.000]   So tell me more about that. What is the after-ed organization?
[00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:50.000]   Why would you, I mean, if the project has been running running for quite a long time without, you know, this kind of organization in place, what's the motivation to do it now?
[00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:53.000]   What are the goals of having that organization?
[00:13:53.000 --> 00:13:56.000]   And, yeah, what kind of things are it tackling?
[00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:58.000]   So there are some things.
[00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:06.000]   It's just easier to have a set structure in place to do things like trademark registration.
[00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:18.000]   Since after-ed has a very broad community of contributors, there's not a single per- well, previously there wasn't a single person or entity that could register trademark.
[00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:31.000]   And that has led to, you know, some offshoots of things that are not actually after-ed but are using after-ed the name and the branding to give different products.
[00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:40.000]   One of the things is to have an entity that we can do those things under, including a board that was appointed by the community.
[00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:57.000]   And I think all of us on the board are viewing this as a service role where we are here to serve the community and help kind of guide decisions in a way that we don't necessarily need the long bike shedding community discussions for every single decision.
[00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:02.000]   But we can still take community input on those things.
[00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:09.000]   For the longest time after-ed ran, it was technical people who say, "I want this and it should exist."
[00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:13.000]   And they're, you know, if not me, then who?
[00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:19.000]   So people have just stepped up and worked on it.
[00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:30.000]   And, you know, as it got bigger and bigger, I think all along people who contributed thought,
[00:15:30.000 --> 00:15:33.000]   "Okay, this would be great if, you know, this is something for everyone."
[00:15:33.000 --> 00:15:41.000]   You know, it's like, "Well, making something for everyone involves a lot of hard things that we don't know anything about."
[00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:43.000]   What's an example of that?
[00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:49.000]   Like, well, so like the legal process of getting a trademark, you know, or managing donations.
[00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:54.000]   Like, we started to get donations, you know, not really even asking for them.
[00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:58.000]   And we're like, "Oh, cool. People want to support the project. This is great."
[00:15:58.000 --> 00:16:04.000]   But like, none of us know how to run a campaign, how to do accounting, how to handle, you know,
[00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:12.000]   this kind of stuff. So it's like, "Oh, you know, now we actually have money in the bank and we don't really know how to spend it in a way that we're comfortable with.
[00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:17.000]   We need, you know, there needs to be people who do know this or who do want to tackle this."
[00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:27.000]   And, you know, it just seems also part of the progression of as a free software community project like this kind of becomes like a
[00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:32.000]   infrastructure for so many people, then it needs to have its own entity.
[00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:40.000]   To me, that's where it started with. I know here at one point started a UK-based company called Efdroid Limited,
[00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:46.000]   and as donations were coming in, you have to have a legal home for them, and that's where it was run for there.
[00:16:46.000 --> 00:16:52.000]   But then I think he just ultimately found it to be too much and not something he felt comfortable dealing with.
[00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:57.000]   And so then something like Commons Conservancy, which is how we're incorporated,
[00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:00.000]   it seems to really fit how the after community was working.
[00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:05.000]   So just to be clear, the Commons Conservancy is an umbrella organization.
[00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:09.000]   It exists out of, I think it's based in the EU, is that right?
[00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:10.000]   The Netherlands.
[00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:11.000]   And the Netherlands, yeah.
[00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:13.000]   I mean, so there are a few different of these kind of umbrella organizations.
[00:17:13.000 --> 00:17:19.000]   There's, you know, software freedom conservancy, there's Commons Conservancy, not the same, even if they have similar names.
[00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:24.000]   And there's, to some degree, you could say the FSS being in the fiscal sponsor of Ganyu.
[00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:29.000]   It's kind of like that, and there's also software in the public interest and a few other things like that.
[00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:36.000]   So basically, you all made the decision to go with a fiscal sponsor type model to be under an umbrella organization.
[00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:40.000]   Can you actually tell me, was there, what was the thinking behind that?
[00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:42.000]   Why do that instead of start your own organization?
[00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:47.000]   Well, part of that decision is that it's a lot harder to just start our own organization.
[00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:56.000]   This way, we have some of that background admin stuff is just already taken care of that we don't have to worry about.
[00:17:56.000 --> 00:17:58.000]   So that puts less stress on the board.
[00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:11.000]   Based on just a number of private conversations with a number of contributors, like, I think a lot of us have been involved in startup and kind of business and felt a little bit abused by the kind of business side of things.
[00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:17.000]   And you decided to not start a venture capitalist based version of after it?
[00:18:17.000 --> 00:18:19.000]   That's for sure.
[00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:24.000]   But also, so these kind of legal structures kind of felt very similar.
[00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:34.000]   And so a lot of us, I don't know if I, you know, I can speak for myself for sure and other people that, you know, they're private conversations, so it won't need names.
[00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:50.000]   But felt like very wary about doing some kind of legal thing like this, and we wanted to make sure that this was like, that there's some principles here that cannot be violated, like these free software principles, that someone can't buy it out and then turn
[00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:52.000]   after it into something else.
[00:18:52.000 --> 00:19:00.000]   And to me, that's what commons conservacy is basically this extra layer of like, yes, it's, we have an entity, we have our own board of after it.
[00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:14.000]   But then we have this extra layer in commons conservancy that like, you're not only at the convinced the board, but you also have to convince the common conservancy and their structures, if you're ever going to try to force it away from the core founding principles.
[00:19:14.000 --> 00:19:19.000]   And so that to me was a big attractive point of how we set up.
[00:19:19.000 --> 00:19:32.000]   That's an interesting point that I think isn't really mentioned very often when talking about umbrella organizations that they can provide that kind of layer of kind of already pre baked values, in some ways, right?
[00:19:32.000 --> 00:19:37.000]   You can do that yourself, you know, so, it's brightly has its own nonprofit.
[00:19:37.000 --> 00:19:39.000]   We decided to go the route of creating our own nonprofit.
[00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:48.000]   And we had to do a lot of that work of, you know, like, what are the values of this organization? How do we encode that in our founding documents and so on and so forth.
[00:19:48.000 --> 00:20:06.000]   But it can be really helpful if somebody's already done that work, you know, it's kind of like, I guess it's not quite the same, but, you know, maybe kind of similar to, well, we don't have to write our own license, you know, we've got somebody's already done the work ahead of us as in terms of thinking through what the implications of this are.
[00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:11.000]   Yes, that's interesting. So, and who else is on the board?
[00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:17.000]   So we've got a pretty solid board of heavy hitters in the free and open source software communities.
[00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:26.000]   I myself am the chair. We have John Sullivan as the vice chair, Michael Downey as the treasurer, Andrew Luman at clerk.
[00:20:26.000 --> 00:20:35.000]   And then we've also got Matthias Kirschner and Max male who don't have official roles on the board, but our board members.
[00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:47.000]   So I feel like we've got a really solid group of people with a lot of really in depth background in the free and open source software communities on our team.
[00:20:47.000 --> 00:21:02.000]   So earlier when talking about the board is serving a role as in terms of setting policies, I'm just, I'm just kind of curious. Are there are there interesting examples of policies that are already being considered for the role to be involved, the board to be involved in?
[00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:06.000]   Or is that kind of something to be fleshed out later as the board kind of grows and evolves?
[00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:28.000]   So we're still pretty early on in having this board set up, but our first really in depth project as a board, or actually before we were technically a board was to put together a really in depth set of statutes and roles and regulations that establish kind of the baseline policies that the board will have moving forward.
[00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:39.000]   But I think it's important to again say that most of the actual direction of the afteroid project is still going to be continued through the afteroid community.
[00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:43.000]   So I'm going to hand this off to Sylvia.
[00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:53.000]   So one common thing with policy is that there are also things where legal issues get involved, and that's pretty much when a board can be extremely helpful.
[00:21:53.000 --> 00:22:02.000]   For example, we're kind of still struggling a bit with like a good policy on dealing with NSFW content.
[00:22:02.000 --> 00:22:15.000]   There are some people who kind of don't want it associated with after it at all. There are some others who think that it's good to have like free software apps for these things.
[00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:22.000]   But that's also just the whole legal issues regarding like who can access it to different laws in different countries.
[00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:35.000]   Just think of adult material or gambling related things, and it's the kind of thing that gets extremely complex. And those are the kind of legal issues where a board with legal expertise would be a great asset to have.
[00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:49.000]   And also having a board that is an entity that can hire a lawyer as opposed to a free software project where you would have to have an individual member of the team probably contact a lawyer.
[00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:52.000]   It's full to have that as well.
[00:22:52.000 --> 00:23:01.000]   Exactly. So being a kind of facilitating thing, I think in some ways a lot of interesting pieces of software end up being about facilitation.
[00:23:01.000 --> 00:23:09.000]   So we have facilitation being on kind of the organizational level, but in some ways software can encode facilitation itself.
[00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:21.000]   So in a sense, after it is kind of a piece of facilitation software for me because when I install it, there's just a lot of things that I have to think about less.
[00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:26.000]   I don't have to figure out how to compile all these things. I don't have to assess each one of these things.
[00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:31.000]   I can kind of rely on those skills and governance.
[00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:44.000]   So this came up as a topic of conversation in last night's community event, which if I'm going to mention it might as well, blog that Boston Crafts hosts twice monthly community events called Hack and Craft.
[00:23:44.000 --> 00:24:03.000]   So at our Hack and Craft last night, we were discussing the increasing difficulty in actually setting up free software on your devices, even if you are getting a device that is, that is, you know, open hardware or intended to be FOS compatible.
[00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:18.000]   Right. I'm actually last night, I was trying to do a little bit of an unusual setup with the way that I was installing geek some I knew computer, and I was getting kind of frustrated and disappointed with myself for having difficulty setting things up in the way that I wanted.
[00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:37.000]   And thankfully they do have an installer that was able to help me out because it used to be very easy. I used to know the whole process for doing like a manual installation of all these things when it was the old school master boot record installation of things, but now that we have like the EFI based installation things, I kind of always forget how to do that right.
[00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:49.000]   And so I got frustrated and I gave up on my own kind of customization thing and was kind of disparaging myself in. And I kind of led you to jump in with some some comments and kind of kicked off some conversation internally.
[00:24:49.000 --> 00:25:00.000]   Yeah, especially since Christine might not appreciate me saying this on the podcast, but I think by most people's standards, Christine is pretty clearly an expert on free and open source software.
[00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:15.000]   If he's been working in free and open source software for over a decade, she has installed GNU Linux distributions on dozens of like personal computers and laptops and hundreds of servers.
[00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:27.000]   So the fact that Christine as an expert is having trouble with these things doesn't like it says something for how people who are not experts.
[00:25:27.000 --> 00:25:45.000]   Yeah, so it's been it's been helpful every time we've had a computer where we want to run an Android like thing we can just install after it. And, you know, I know that there was some discussion by Soviet in terms of, you know, we what are the policies that should exist in there and you know how do we deal with these
[00:25:45.000 --> 00:26:02.000]   types of things but having an organization that's kind of done some of that work up front, it allows me to kind of worry and stress less. And I think that that's, it's great that we have that on an Android like system, because I feel like that's been a real value and that
[00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:16.000]   I've, I've felt like, you know, GNU Linux distributions conventionally have played for a really long time. So it's good to see it here. But I think actually that might tie in with something that's kind of interesting as in terms of a difference with
[00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:31.000]   an Android from other systems is that, well, after it is a package manager, it does not supply the underlying operating system, right? You know, like if you're installing Debian, it's doing both, right? And you can run stuff like Nix and Geeks's uses
[00:26:31.000 --> 00:26:49.000]   and package managers. But in general, a lot of what they're doing is really providing kind of the whole system for you. So, so I was wondering if any of you had comments about kind of not providing the whole thing, you know, providing this layer of abstraction on top of a system that's kind of already prebuilt
[00:26:49.000 --> 00:27:12.000]   Well, personally, I would, I personally don't think it's actually that much different from, from like a GNU Linux distro, because even there, like the team that's working on the tooling for apps, for example, isn't necessarily the same team that's working on some of the other tooling
[00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:37.000]   And we've kind of just found like a team that can work well on the tooling for the package management part. And there are other people who make like custom Android froms, for example, who are really good at the operating system part. So I think in that way, it's all just parts that get combined, just like all the GNU stuff got combined with the Linux kernel into a functional system
[00:27:37.000 --> 00:28:06.000]   Yeah, totally like so like lineage is the base system and, and you know, for one example, or KLEX OS, another one we were we were closely with. And then after it is the app is the package manager. But there is the one, I think what you're seeing kind of what you're getting on is what's weird about the Android ecosystem is that Android OS is this, you know, free open source operating system, but it's really, I mean, clearly
[00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:35.000]   controlled by Google because and yes, it is the, you know, the source code is all there. But it's like, you know, Google puts a lot of work into it and it is hard even to maintain a for, you know, something like a fork like like lineage. It still takes quite a bit of work to keep up. And especially the way that the Android developed the Google structures
[00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:51.000]   are Android development. They don't develop in public. They basically every release they kind of say, Oh, here's the release. They just throw the source code over the wall. And then they go back and, and to operating largely in, you know, largely in secret.
[00:28:51.000 --> 00:29:05.000]   If you install something like KLEX OS or lineage from equity, you have the glue Linux distro experience, you know, after it's built in and it just works and it's all integrated.
[00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:23.000]   If you bought a phone that is a typical, you know, Google Android phone, then you're installing after it separately. And then it has this weird dynamic of feeling kind of, you know, separate and not very not integrated.
[00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:49.000]   Yeah. And then, fortunately, for most non technical users, that's their user experience. But that does give us the benefit of having a meet them where they are situation, because it would be really hard to convince someone who is not a free and open source software user in general to just flash their phone and start with a completely free software operating system on their phone.
[00:29:49.000 --> 00:30:04.000]   But saying, Hey, if you download afteroid, then you can, you know, just get specific apps that are free and open source software, but you don't necessarily have to give up all of the apps that you're used to.
[00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:22.000]   And in fact, on our latest phones, Morgan, I specifically got some phones that we believe we would be able to reinstall the entire operating system. And we did not realize they are locked such that and there's no current jail breaking process so that, you know, we just can't replace the entire underlying operating system.
[00:30:22.000 --> 00:30:33.000]   And then we kind of side and threw up our hands and, you know, put after it on them and, and we're at least able to have free software from that layer on up. But it was, you know, it was disappointing that we couldn't replace the base operating system.
[00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:40.000]   It felt at least like, you know, well, at least we can, for the main things we're using day to day, we're able to use free software from this layer on up.
[00:30:40.000 --> 00:31:07.000]   So I think in general, the device manufacturers, so the hardware of cell phones, we tend to be working either Android from the kind of like official, mostly produced by Google sense or iOS with iPhones, and the device manufacturers in general do not care about whether or not you can modify your operating system.
[00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:23.000]   And in fact, a lot of times those manufacturers are somewhat hostile towards changing your operating systems because the phones that we purchased were even unlocked phones, which historically have been, you know, devices that you can change the operating systems on.
[00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:34.000]   But there are procedures in place to make that not always possible. Yeah, they were unlocked us in terms of the carrier, but not us in terms of the operating system, which was pretty frustrating.
[00:31:34.000 --> 00:31:42.000]   Well, I think that that highlights the kind of the most important avenue, which is also one that takes time and it's not very visible.
[00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:53.000]   And that is that working with hardware providers that do care, and there are starting to be some, a fair phone, another one space one.
[00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:00.000]   I think they only really sell in Europe. Did chip a version for a while with afteroid in it? They are also a small.
[00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:06.000]   I think they didn't have the resources going after a while, but we still continue to talk to them.
[00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:15.000]   And then there's another company, a small company called Shift, Shift Phones. There's also, you know, we're working with them to ship a phone.
[00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:24.000]   The idea is that you go to a store and buy the phone and it comes, you know, free software, Google free with afteroid built in.
[00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:35.000]   And from these prices, these are talking these manufacturers we've also learned about, you know, the hoops that Google makes these manufacturers jump through.
[00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:46.000]   And that's part of actually what was blocking people, blocking companies from shipping free software ROMs as an option even.
[00:32:46.000 --> 00:32:55.000]   So it's been exciting to see this new EU law called the Digital Markets Act, which is going to, is aims to regulate exactly this.
[00:32:55.000 --> 00:33:10.000]   And I somehow found my way in the European Commission's event with, you know, Google and Apple, like VPs and all sorts of government regulators.
[00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:18.000]   And it was interesting to be able to offer the free software perspective on this that it made me optimistic.
[00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:26.000]   But actually, it's, I think, coming pretty soon that we will be able to buy, you know, phones and you've missed this.
[00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:34.000]   Hans, earlier you mentioned that the way that you got involved was the Guardian Project.
[00:33:34.000 --> 00:33:46.000]   Could you mention and explain a little bit more what the Guardian Project is and the ways in which that, you know, plays into afteroid and maybe the ways in which it's maybe over assumed to play into afteroid?
[00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:57.000]   Yeah, sure. Guardian Project did not start or found afteroid, which is sometimes reported. Yeah, so what Guardian Project is, we started a, it was founded by Nathan Freitas.
[00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:06.000]   So in 2008, he's worked in mobile technologies since, I mean, since the 90s.
[00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:18.000]   And he wanted to do something, you know, based on private phones and also was inspired by the open source nature of Android.
[00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:35.000]   We met through a mutual fund and there's some other, others involved in, and actually, ironically, we started in 2009, kind of with the idea that we would be a startup because we were not really assuming that startups would want to fund and uncompromising.
[00:34:35.000 --> 00:34:40.000]   And we were investing a free software smartphone that did not compromise in privacy.
[00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:45.000]   I mean, this was pre Snowden leak. So all we did actually talk to VCs even in.
[00:34:45.000 --> 00:34:52.000]   And all they, they were like, oh, you're going to get very valuable data that you can sell. And we're like, that's exactly what we don't want to do.
[00:34:52.000 --> 00:35:04.000]   But we started, we were in the right place at the right time and the US State Department had started this new effort that they call Internet Freedom and they started funding lots of development focused on privacy.
[00:35:04.000 --> 00:35:15.000]   So, you know, Tor is a famous example. And we got to make a living focusing on, you know, uncompromising privacy in mobile apps.
[00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:28.000]   And it's kind of run since then. And for us, you know, with our free software base and in Guardian, you know, after it's been natural place to be.
[00:35:28.000 --> 00:35:40.000]   Guardian project has this kind of structure of getting, you know, we've been since 2008, we've been getting grants to write free software focused on privacy and run these grants and things like that.
[00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:51.000]   And so we've done that also for effort projects. And so when we can make a case to funders to say, you know, usually funding has come from this Internet freedom perspective.
[00:35:51.000 --> 00:36:00.000]   So that means like making sure that it can't be censored, making sure that it's strong privacy protections, things like that.
[00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:07.000]   We've tried to, you know, to get big chunks of development funding that can apply in support.
[00:36:07.000 --> 00:36:19.000]   After it, when possible. And it's been, I guess, the tricky part is the, you know, I think it's very important that after it remain a community control project.
[00:36:19.000 --> 00:36:30.000]   And so, you know, money can work that. But money also means that people can make a living, you know, spend years of time working on things.
[00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:39.000]   And so that's actually, we were talking about the board. To me, that's something I think a board will pay key role in in saying the board controls what can be called after it and whatnot.
[00:36:39.000 --> 00:36:47.000]   And that gives oversight over, you know, when someone says, look, I just got some someone just gave me a million bucks to do this with afteroid.
[00:36:47.000 --> 00:36:55.000]   That is a big counterweight to say like, okay, but this has to actually improve afteroid, not just your grant goals.
[00:36:55.000 --> 00:37:10.000]   Right. Right. Good. One of the other things that I think is really important about having afteroid is that earlier, I think, Sylvia was talking about how it's important that there's, you know, not just one sole arbiter of things.
[00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:24.000]   But one example of an app store that does have a sole app provider is Google with Google's Play, you know, Google Play, and which is usually how if somebody is getting kind of stock Android or manufacturer modified Android from the company,
[00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:30.000]   whatever their devices is that they're buying, they're usually installing things in the Google Play Store.
[00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:41.000]   And there is a pretty well known example a couple years ago where the Google Play Store ended up banning matrix, their application element.
[00:37:41.000 --> 00:37:47.000]   Does anybody want to talk about that? And, you know, maybe how that type of stuff plays in?
[00:37:47.000 --> 00:38:05.000]   Yeah. So the thing with matrix, I believe that was because there was like one person spreading some messy messages over the app and Google taking down the entire app instead of properly contacting the matrix team.
[00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:17.000]   I mean, that kind of shows like two issues. At first it shows the issue with like the sole arbiter thing again, because like Google has so much power.
[00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:27.000]   They can like pretty much shut down your entire business or community. If you do anything they don't like, or if something goes wrong.
[00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:39.000]   And I think after it picks at the issue a bit less of an issue because we have like the ability to add like third party repositories.
[00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:48.000]   However, we do also have like after it was org as a main repository included by default, which means we do have to watch this a bit.
[00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:55.000]   And while we do have policies, I guess hateful content.
[00:38:55.000 --> 00:39:01.000]   One thing I also noticed is that our review process is a lot different.
[00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:17.000]   For example, I have personally had cases where I have had app updates for my own app rejected on Google Play for not providing login info, despite my app being fully offline.
[00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:37.000]   And on the other hand, I see in the afterwards side, I see our contributors just sometimes like grabbing tooling like net cards to check network connections to make sure the apps don't track, sometimes even looking at bits of code.
[00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:45.000]   I think the free software nature of the app's own after it also allow for much more thorough and meaningful app reviews.
[00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:50.000]   And we sometimes actually see people do this.
[00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:54.000]   And I think our community is really strong in that.
[00:39:54.000 --> 00:40:01.000]   And I'm really proud of how everyone looks through stuff to make sure it's well-refined.
[00:40:01.000 --> 00:40:08.000]   And if they want to become a contributor to F-Droid, as in terms of the software itself, how would they go about doing that?
[00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:12.000]   Well, so there's a lot of different ways to get involved.
[00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:17.000]   And more and more even ways for not less technical people to get involved.
[00:40:17.000 --> 00:40:30.000]   If you find the source code of an app that you want to see in F-Droid, we have our RFP, the Request for Packaging issue tracker, and you just need to post the link to the source code in the issue tracker.
[00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.000]   And then we ask as much information as you can figure out.
[00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:36.000]   But most importantly is the link to the source code.
[00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:43.000]   And that starts the process of being, of the app being reviewed and getting included into F-Droid.
[00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:49.000]   So just finding good apps and finding their, finding that link to their source code is a key contribution.
[00:40:49.000 --> 00:40:50.000]   It starts the process.
[00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:52.000]   You can also review those.
[00:40:52.000 --> 00:41:02.000]   So we have something called IssueBot that just tries to automatically detect some things and post it as a comment in the issue.
[00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:05.000]   And you kind of just skim those.
[00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:10.000]   That probably, if you're non-technical, would probably look pretty intimidating.
[00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:17.000]   But if you're any kind of, if you've worked with software, any kind of software, I imagine it should be pretty easy to look at it.
[00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:19.000]   You don't necessarily have that V-android experience.
[00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:28.000]   Then one thing that's, dear to me, some of these policies are really important and often require research.
[00:41:28.000 --> 00:41:33.000]   For example, this long NSFW, not safe for work discussion.
[00:41:33.000 --> 00:41:41.000]   Just having like the research of like, how do laws apply to internet community that spread all over the world?
[00:41:41.000 --> 00:41:45.000]   Like, where we didn't really know that.
[00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:47.000]   I don't think we still have a good sense of that.
[00:41:47.000 --> 00:41:57.000]   That would be a super valuable conversation because the laws around things like images of naked adults, very really widely around the world.
[00:41:57.000 --> 00:42:04.000]   And even, you know, the countries that our core contributors are based on, there's some pretty big differences.
[00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:08.000]   Then the last, of course, is the classic, we're a free software project and all of its free software.
[00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:11.000]   And we want developers to contribute as well.
[00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:14.000]   And there are lots of issues that are tagged, help-wanted.
[00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:17.000]   That's probably the best place to start.
[00:42:17.000 --> 00:42:19.000]   Do you have anything to add to that?
[00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:27.000]   Yeah, I do want to add that with getting your app on Afteroid, while the process may seem intimidating at first,
[00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:33.000]   I've seen the community be extremely helpful in guiding developers through it.
[00:42:33.000 --> 00:42:37.000]   Or core data contributors are pretty much always like right there.
[00:42:37.000 --> 00:42:48.000]   And also help work with people to figure out what's proprietary type dependencies they may have accidentally included in their app to help free that up.
[00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:55.000]   And often they'll also work with you to try to make your app build reproducibly, if possible.
[00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:01.000]   So that way people could even update your app from outside of Afteroid.
[00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:12.000]   For example, if you want to send someone an update just for a test version or whatever, they should be able to update right to your test version of the app.
[00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:16.000]   Because if an app is built reproducibly, we can use that signature.
[00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:22.000]   So there's a lot of possibilities, a lot of them working together.
[00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:31.000]   And while it seems very intimidating and complex at first, some of you may know that I have written a few apps in the past,
[00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:37.000]   I found getting them on Afteroid actually in some cases easier than publishing them to Google Play.
[00:43:37.000 --> 00:43:40.000]   So it's really not as bad as it seems.
[00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.000]   It's scary at first, but it's a nice helpful community.
[00:43:44.000 --> 00:43:49.000]   And in general, I don't think most people should have much trouble with it.
[00:43:49.000 --> 00:43:52.000]   I think this is really great. As said, I'm a user of Afteroid.
[00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:59.000]   I'm not really involved in any of the development or any of that, but I do occasionally go through and read kind of the forum of issues.
[00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:04.000]   And one of the things that really does impress me is just how many people are involved there.
[00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:11.000]   But I'm really grateful that we have, well, three representatives of that community here on the call,
[00:44:11.000 --> 00:44:16.000]   with Morgan and Tons and Sylvia all talking here.
[00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:22.000]   So now I'm going to ask all three of you the usual question that we asked guests, including Morgan this time.
[00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:30.000]   What are you crafting? And that can include kind of like handmade projects or artwork or anything,
[00:44:30.000 --> 00:44:33.000]   or even, you know, hobby coding projects.
[00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:39.000]   Well, my main project currently is Katima, which stands for Cart and Ticket Manager,
[00:44:39.000 --> 00:44:46.000]   which is a loyalty card, other ticket app for Android, which is also available on Afteroid.
[00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:54.000]   I started it because I was looking around, like, for apps to store all this kind of stuff in.
[00:44:54.000 --> 00:44:59.000]   And the ones I used to find were just all extremely proprietary and so much tracking,
[00:44:59.000 --> 00:45:02.000]   and I just didn't want to deal with that.
[00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:07.000]   I found a small project on Afteroid called Loyalty Card Keychain by Brandon Archer,
[00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:12.000]   who sadly, at a certain point, he stopped developing this.
[00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:17.000]   And I decided to fork the app after talking with the developer.
[00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:26.000]   And yes, since then I'm accidentally an app developer now, so life works in mysterious ways.
[00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:29.000]   But for those interested, you can find Katima in Afteroid.
[00:45:29.000 --> 00:45:32.000]   So yeah, otherwise I just look wherever else.
[00:45:32.000 --> 00:45:35.000]   I can help with cool open source stuff when I have the time.
[00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:38.000]   Great cool. All right, what about you, Hans?
[00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:46.000]   So, my thing, I live in a big city, other than Vienna, and at least where I live,
[00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:48.000]   it has a lot of street trees.
[00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:52.000]   And I don't know what the official word of it.
[00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:55.000]   In German it's "bomb shypet".
[00:45:55.000 --> 00:46:03.000]   And I think it's "tree pit" in English, and basically you have this area of dirt underneath a tree in the city.
[00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:13.000]   And in my neighborhood, for whatever reason, the city, there just seems to be a wall on anything living in them.
[00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:16.000]   And I'm trying to reverse that.
[00:46:16.000 --> 00:46:21.000]   Because there's just like wonderful pieces of dirt that could be beautiful plants and flowers.
[00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:24.000]   So the fun part of it is like actually getting down there digging.
[00:46:24.000 --> 00:46:27.000]   I actually go hiking into all this golf into the woods or something,
[00:46:27.000 --> 00:46:32.000]   and I see an interesting plant, and I'll dig it out and move it to some of the tree pits.
[00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:33.000]   Awesome.
[00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:34.000]   Yeah.
[00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:38.000]   And so my goal, maybe it's a little different than most gardeners.
[00:46:38.000 --> 00:46:42.000]   I want a little piece of woods right outside my door.
[00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:47.000]   So that's why I go to find the native plants and stick them in.
[00:46:47.000 --> 00:46:51.000]   Also good for biodiversity in an urban environment too.
[00:46:51.000 --> 00:46:59.000]   Yeah, yeah, I actually built also window boxes and all, because I live on like upper floor.
[00:46:59.000 --> 00:47:08.000]   And it's been fascinating to see now, and also there's little classic little things of holes drilled in them per insect houses.
[00:47:08.000 --> 00:47:17.000]   And now we have like a whole little like bee and ladybug ecosystem where we've been able to,
[00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:25.000]   like so with my kids, like we've seen like a couple generations, because you can see like the little holes fill up with mud and then something comes out.
[00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:28.000]   And then you see the different bees and ladybugs.
[00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:33.000]   And my sister in law is a, what do you call it, the bug.
[00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:34.000]   Entomologist?
[00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:35.000]   Yes, thank you.
[00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:46.000]   I was going to joke, well I'm guessing you're not taking, you're not, you're not also like making spaces for the animals directly and stuff like that, but then you jumped in directly with the way that you actually are.
[00:47:46.000 --> 00:47:48.000]   Yeah, for bugs, yeah.
[00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:49.000]   Yeah.
[00:47:49.000 --> 00:47:54.000]   So we did actually, we were able to identify, where I learned what a baby ladybug looks like.
[00:47:54.000 --> 00:48:00.000]   So I was like, what is this weird looking black thing? And my sister and I was like that's a ladybug.
[00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:03.000]   I forget the term, but baby.
[00:48:03.000 --> 00:48:05.000]   And then we had ladybugs.
[00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:12.000]   And so it's, that's been quite cool to see, yeah, actually a little ecosystem starting to form.
[00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:13.000]   Very cool.
[00:48:13.000 --> 00:48:16.000]   All right, and Morgan, what are you crafting?
[00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:25.000]   Anyone who's gone to hack and craft recently already knows this, but my big project since December has been making socks.
[00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:37.000]   So I, within the last few years have developed an allergy to all synthetic fabrics, which is terrible because finding clothes with no synthetic fabrics in it is really difficult.
[00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:52.000]   And I've been able to find things that can work for most of my wardrobe, but like finding commercially available socks that have no spandex or polyester or anything of that type in it is almost impossible.
[00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:56.000]   So in December, I taught myself how to make socks.
[00:48:56.000 --> 00:49:01.000]   I just finished my 12th pair of socks last week.
[00:49:01.000 --> 00:49:02.000]   Wow.
[00:49:02.000 --> 00:49:07.000]   Yeah.
[00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:12.000]   Once I get started on a new craft thing, I tend to hyper fixate.
[00:49:12.000 --> 00:49:25.000]   So I've now gotten to the point where I have enough socks that I've made that I can just wear socks that I won't have an allergic reaction to and I don't have to do a hand wash load of socks every couple of days.
[00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:26.000]   So that's exciting.
[00:49:26.000 --> 00:49:27.000]   I definitely appreciate that.
[00:49:27.000 --> 00:49:31.000]   I have a lover of wool socks, like the classic old.
[00:49:31.000 --> 00:49:33.000]   This is like next level then.
[00:49:33.000 --> 00:49:35.000]   It's a lot easier than I thought it would be.
[00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:40.000]   I've pretty much been afraid of making socks for most of my life.
[00:49:40.000 --> 00:49:55.000]   Like I think there was an American girl book where one of the plot lines is that they all started making socks for the troops and then realized that making socks is hard so they gave up and they just all sewed their little patches of unfinished socks together into blankets instead.
[00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:59.000]   And I'm like, well, I'm never making socks because the American girls can't do it.
[00:49:59.000 --> 00:50:04.000]   So I guess I can't tire and my mom also made it sound really hard.
[00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:09.000]   So getting over that mental block has actually been really good.
[00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:10.000]   Very good.
[00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:12.000]   Well, I think that's it.
[00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:14.000]   Thank you all for being on this show.
[00:50:14.000 --> 00:50:15.000]   It was wonderful having you all.
[00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:16.000]   Yeah.
[00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:17.000]   Thanks for having us.
[00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:18.000]   Yeah.
[00:50:18.000 --> 00:50:19.000]   It's was nice to be here.
[00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:20.000]   Thanks.
[00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:21.000]   Yeah.
[00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:22.000]   I appreciate both of you being here and Christine.
[00:50:22.000 --> 00:50:27.000]   Thank you for being the interviewer on your own this time.
[00:50:27.000 --> 00:50:28.000]   You know what?
[00:50:28.000 --> 00:50:29.000]   It was a lot of fun.
[00:50:29.000 --> 00:50:30.000]   All right.
[00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:31.000]   All right.
[00:50:31.000 --> 00:50:32.000]   Thanks, everybody.
[00:50:32.000 --> 00:50:33.000]   Bye.
[00:50:33.000 --> 00:50:34.000]   Bye.
[00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:35.000]   Bye.
[00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:36.000]   Bye.
[00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:44.000]   Fos and Crafts is released under the Creative Commons attribution chair alike 4.0 international license.
[00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:48.000]   It's hosted by Morgan Lemmerweber and Christine Lemmerweber.
[00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:55.000]   The intro music is composed by Christine Lemmerweber, meaning myself, in Moki Tracker and is released under the same license as the show.
[00:50:55.000 --> 00:51:06.000]   The outro music is Enchanted Teakee 86, composed by Alex Smith of the Cinec project and is waved into the public domain under CC01.0.
[00:51:06.000 --> 00:51:10.000]   See CinecMusic.com for more information.
[00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:23.000]   You can get in contact with us on the Fediverse, Fos and Crafts @ Octodont.Social on Twitter as @fos and Crafts, or you can email us, podcast@fos and Crafts.org.
[00:51:23.000 --> 00:51:25.000]   We also have a chat room.
[00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:31.000]   Join our community on #fos and Crafts on irc.libara.chat.
[00:51:31.000 --> 00:51:37.000]   If you'd like to support the show, you can donate at patreon.com/fos and Crafts.
[00:51:37.000 --> 00:51:39.000]   That's it for this week.
[00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:41.000]   Until next time, stay free.
[00:51:41.000 --> 00:51:42.000]   And stay crafty.
[00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:55.000]   [Music]
[00:51:55.000 --> 00:51:56.000]   Very good.
[00:51:56.000 --> 00:51:58.000]   And not very good.
[00:51:58.000 --> 00:51:59.000]   Very good.
[00:51:59.000 --> 00:52:03.00