Linux Inlaws

This episode features Thunderbird, one of the (if not the most) popular mail clients in the FLOSS ecosystem. Heather Ellsworth, a buddying physicist turned DevRel (better late than never) from the project spills the beans on the history of the project not only in a Mozilla context, explains that TB's hiatus is just another urban myth and what's ahead for the project. In terms of future roadmap, monetisation and world domination. If that sounds familiar, it should! As the Inlaws have been pondering these last few topics for more than six years now. Although in contrast to Thunderbird with limited success (until now, if you want to know more on these topics and more, don't miss the next episode!).

This episode - recorded in an ultra-secret location near a border (any border will do - almost :-) - is witness to our two ageing heroes being in the same location for a change and gives away some giveaways. For the first time in the Inlaws' history, this episode features a glimpse into the future of the show: an overview of what's to come in 2026! Plus the usual banter about Trump, some FLOSS topics and why red wine for breakfast is almost always the better option. And some beans are spilled - for example, Martin's first programming language (hint: in contrast to popular belief, this wasn't IBM mainframe assembler which was all the rage in the sixties). Plus more from Martin's distant past - if he can remember it.

As 'tis the season, we have a combined Xmas and New Year's episode for you. And what a blast this is! The usual suspects will make an appearance - all those characters which you have known for years and probably already taken a shine to. Yes, this does include the Grumpies (the Grumpy Old Coders) for the uninitiated, our beloved countess Vladessa and of course our two hosts Martin and Chris. This time (as it has been a tradition for the last two year by now) impersonated by two lovely large language models (LLMs). Which goes to show that - in contrast to popular belief - LLMs DO have humour and CAN make jokes. If so forced into this...

For a laughter or two and a bit of fun, don't miss this episode. Plus bonus content: The real truth behind the Redis / Valkey split, how to pack a swimming pool, sauna and much more all into one motorcycle and what this has to do with FLOSS. Or not.

In this episode Martin and Chris talk to Klaus Knopper of Knoppix fame. For the few listeners who do not know what Knoppix is: Just listen to the episode (hint: it's one of the oldest life distros on the planet). Plus more on Linux for handicapped users. And the challenges of maintaining a distro and how to overcome them (watch out for the magic contained in this segment!). And an abbreviated history of Linux (esp. in Germany). Never mind Microsoft's dirty secrets involving Unix, Linux and some other things swept under the rug of history.

This episode introduces a somewhat brand-new concept: an off-topic subject. As in: How to excel in the beautiful and ancient art of Origami (the Japanese fine art of paper folding, going back a few centuries if not more). Still reading? Excellent! Jokes aside, in this episode Martin and Chris will shed more light on one of their dark sides of their lives. To be more precise: podcasts the Inlaws (as in: we) listen to. Apart from the most famous one called Linux Inlaws (and if you believe this, you'll believe anything :-)). But stay tuned: If you are longing for more details of the very private life of our two ageing heroes, this is the episode you do not want to miss! Especially if you're into our time-travelling episodes...

The focus of this episode is Long Range WAN (also affectionately known as LoRaWAN. For those few people in the audience that don't have a clue: Just listen to episode - all will be revealed!

Clue: it does have to do with that dreaded thing called the Internet of Things (and much much more). So stay tuned for the details! Plus bonus content: Martin finally sees the light and praises Rust (maybe). And much speculation about Valkey, Redis and other oddities. And - wait for it - Martin again ventures into the strange and wonderful world of agriculture. As in: Getting down and dirty with cows, sheep, pigs and other livestock. Plus bonus content: Martin's views on British politics in general and Keir Starmer in particular. So you DON'T want to miss this episode!

In this scary Halloween episode, Martin and Chris touch on a horrible subject indeed: a 100+ years o life experience. Be prepared for the dreadful details of more than a century of combined wisdom (really?). And, yes, FLOSS maybe involved. Plus: More from another dark side: our beloved Tech Support makes an appearance once again and helps a certain Transylvanian countess with their movie problem. And more bonus content awaits: a primer on floppy disks. Confused? You should be! The answer: Listen to the episode!

The focus of this episode is Gnu Taler, an answer to the questions that Diem, various crypto currency shenanigans and other attempts at world domination via money pose to wider audience. Martin and Chris discuss the ins and outs of this approach with two of the main people behind the project, Christian Grothoff and Leo Wittman. So if you ever wanted to know about a totally legit alternative to any dubious currency monkey businesses, this is the episode you don't want to miss.

Tied up, shackled and then some: In contrast what you may be thinking after this intro, in this episode Martin and Chris take a closer look at an obscure concept known not only in esoteric circles as the software supply chain (chain being the keyword here). Once only appreciated by the inner circle of a small group of level-eight magicians, this concepts has now entered mainstream and is considered instrumental not only in the area creating and maintaining large scale codebases possibly clocking up a few million lines of code. This especially becomes important when a codebase largely relies on FLOSS components commonly downloaded from the internet. Relying on these components may cause a security issue if not handled with caution as not only the recent xz-utils incident (where possibly a nation-state actor) managed to infiltrate a popular compression library virtually used everywhere. So if you're interested in the security of your builds and applications, this is another episode you don't want to miss.

In this episode Martin and Chris are joined by no other than Brian Proffitt. Brian Who? If you ask that question, you belong to the approximate 2% of our listenership who don't know this head of the Open Source Program Office (OSPO) of a tiny start-up called Redhat :-). Then this episode is especially for you. But apart from contributing to Redhat's OSPO Brian wears many other hats as well (hint: chaos and native americans feature on this list as well. Never mind DOGE and Nixon!). Wanna know which other ones? Then enjoy the show!