NGI0: Next Generation Internet

NLnet foundation
NGI0: Next Generation Internet

Conversations with the people building the Next Generation Internet (NGI). They’re working on free and open source technologies to make the internet more resilient, secure, trustworthy, accessible and human-centered. NGI Zero is a coalition of non-profit organizations led by NLnet foundation providing financial and practical support to people working on the free and open internet. NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative. The podcast is hosted by Ronny Lam and Tessel Renzenbrink, the jingle created by Yarmo Mackenbach, all from NLnet.

Episodes

  1. Democratizing Chip Design - Naja

    MAY 7

    Democratizing Chip Design - Naja

    “Open source EDA (Electronic Design Automation) can be a game changer when it comes to building a more resilient and accessible chip ecosystem”, says Christophe Alexandre. Together with Noam Cohen he created Naja, an open source EDA tool. The semiconductor industry is highly complex and globally interconnected, which makes it fragile. Open source can contribute to resiliency in what traditionally has been a closed field. Christophe: “Open source EDA tools make it easier for newcomers to get started by providing solid, accessible foundations that don’t require massive initial investment or deep legacy knowledge, and it can bridge chip design with other fast moving fields like machine learning and AI. It can accelerate the creation of a local semiconductor ecosystem by breaking down the traditional barriers and opening up innovation. So trying to grow a new EDA ecosystem in Europe just by using the old closed and behind the gates model just doesn’t seem realistic anymore. If we want to build something resilient, open source needs to be a core part of the strategy.” Links Naja Naja Github Naja Pyhton Naja documentation NGI Zero projects Naja Naja-DNL Learn more about Naja: Christophe at FOSDEM 25 about Naja Python Other projects and topics mentioned Yosys Coriolis OpenROAD Klayout IHP Open source PDK TinyTapeout NGI Zero is a coalition of non-profit organizations lead by NLnet. It provides financial and practical support to people working on the free and open internet. You can find us on @NGIZero@mastodon.xyz & @nlnet@nlnet.nl. NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative. The podcast is hosted by Ronny Lam and Tessel Renzenbrink, the jingle created by Yarmo Mackenbach, all from NLnet. The NGI Zero podcast is shared under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

    32 min
  2. Equitable Internet Access for the Under-served - LibreQoS

    APR 18

    Equitable Internet Access for the Under-served - LibreQoS

    LibreQoS greatly improves the quality of experience of internet connections. It was born out of necessity during the COVID pandemic when massively increased internet usage resulted in intermittent package loss. Robert Chacón, CEO of LibreQoS and operator of a small ISP that provides internet to under-served communities, noticed how it affected his customers’ ability to work from home and do online learning. In response, LibreQoS was created to fight bufferbloat and latency issues by prioritizing interactive sessions like video calls over, say, downloading large files. In this episode we speak to Robert, Herbert Wolverson (Chief Product Officer), and Frantisek Borsik (Chief Operating Officer). They talk about how they open sourced LibreQoS in the hopes of helping other small ISPs who bring internet to the under-served, and their surprise at the rapid rise in popularity with deployments in 58 countries. They provide insight in the world of ISPs, and how stable internet connections aren’t just about good gaming experiences but can actually save lives. In loving memory of Dave Täht Sadly, Dave Täht passed away days after the recording of this episode. Dave was Chief Science Officer at LibreQoS and made fundamental contributions to FQ-CoDel, CAKE, and LibreQoS to improve the internet for everyone. He worked to make real-time communication available everywhere and insisted his code be free and open source so it would truly benefit everyone. He is remembered by many for who he was and the lives he touched with his work on his memorial page. Links LibreQoS LibreQoS website LibreQoS source code LibreQoS documentation NGI Zero projects LibreQoS LibreQoS 2.1 Learn more about LibreQoS: Great explanation of how LibreQoS works by Herbert Wolverson at an APNIC webinar. Interview with Robert Chacón including a demo of LibreQoS’s dashboard by The BrothersWISP at WISPAPALOOZA 2024. Other projects and topics mentioned CTN an ISP in Malawi OpenWRT a Linux distribution for routers and embedded devices. FQ-CoDel: a hybrid packet scheduler and Active Queue Management algorithm. Cake a comprehensive queue management system the bufferbloat project has been working on since 2013. MikroTik Alta Labs Toke Høiland-Jørgensen Karlstad University NGI Zero is a coalition of non-profit organizations lead by NLnet. It provides financial and practical support to people working on the free and open internet. You can find us on @NGIZero@mastodon.xyz & @nlnet@nlnet.nl. NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative. The podcast is hosted by Ronny Lam and Tessel Renzenbrink, the jingle created by Yarmo Mackenbach, all from NLnet. The NGI Zero podcast is shared under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

    47 min
  3. Uncovering the hidden patterns of the consumer electronics industry - DeviceCode

    APR 3

    Uncovering the hidden patterns of the consumer electronics industry - DeviceCode

    “The consumer electronics industry works differently than people actually think”, says Armijn Hemel creator of DeviceCode. Behind the different brands and casings is often the same hardware, created by a single Original Design Manufacturer. But the disclosure of security vulnerabilities is mostly focused on single devices. So when a CVE is published for device A from vendor X it conceals that the security flaw may also exist in a similar device of a different vendor. DeviceCode collects structured technical information about consumer devices to reveal these hidden patterns of the industry in order to improve security. Demystifying the electronics industry can also be a step toward increasing the local production of electronics. Reasons to opt for local manufacturing are the vulnerability of global supply chains, environmental impact, worker rights, software security and preventing backdoors. A better understanding of the industry could inspire a bottom up approach to a more diversified electronics industry. Links DeviceCode repositories: Code Data NGI Zero projects DeviceCode And also mentioned: VulnerableCode If you are interested in Armijn’s knowledge about Open Source Software supply chain management (briefly mentioned at the end of the podcast) watch the NGI Zero webinar with Armijn: Open Source in (Consumer) Electronics Supply Chains (Episode 1 of a 4-part series The Ins and Outs of Open Software Supply Chain) Other projects and talks mentioned The Open Wrt hardware device: OpenWrt One Talks on the hardware supply chain by Andrew “bunnie” Huang Supply Chain Security: “If I were a Nation State…” at BlueHat IL, 2019. An Alternative to the American way of Innovation at TEDxPickeringStreet. NGI Zero webinar about IRIS: (Infra-Red, In-Situ) inspection of silicon. NGI Zero is a coalition of non-profit organizations lead by NLnet. It provides financial and practical support to people working on the free and open internet. You can find us on @NGIZero@mastodon.xyz & @nlnet@nlnet.nl. NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative. The podcast is hosted by Ronny Lam and Tessel Renzenbrink, the jingle created by Yarmo Mackenbach, all from NLnet. The NGI Zero podcast is shared under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

    47 min
  4. "Technology is not neutral" - Libervia

    12/05/2024

    "Technology is not neutral" - Libervia

    It is important to be able to communicate freely, says Jérôme Poisson a.k.a. Goffi. He is the main developer of Libervia, a communication ecosystem based on XMPP. XMPP is mostly associated with chat but Libervia offers many more features such as blogs, fora, calendars and file & photo sharing. It has gateways to other open protocols like ActivityPub and email. Jérôme identifies multiple problems in digital communications such as Big Tech monopolies and public debates taking place on proprietary platforms. Libervia can’t address all of these problems, because many of them are societal. But it does address some of them with a platform that is decentralized, based on Free Software and open standards. The project has strong ethics in its DNA, written down in a social contract. Erratum: The security audit for Libervia was done by NGI Zero partner Radically Open Security not by NLnet. Links: Libervia website repos Libervia explainer video’s Libervia chat channel Libervia project at the NLnet website XMPP software foundation Podcast mentioned by Jérôme with Lwenn from NLnet ActiviyPub: @Goffi@mastodon.social @xmpp@fosstodon.org @NGIZero@mastodon.xyz @nlnet@nlnet.nl NGI Zero is a coalition of non-profit organizations lead by NLnet. It provides financial and practical support to people working on the free and open internet. You can find us on @NGIZero@mastodon.xyz & @nlnet@nlnet.nl. NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative. The podcast is hosted by Ronny Lam and Tessel Renzenbrink, the jingle created by Yarmo Mackenbach, all from NLnet. The NGI Zero podcast is shared under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

    49 min
  5. Let's get rid of all the binary blobs - GNU Mes

    10/17/2024

    Let's get rid of all the binary blobs - GNU Mes

    “Can you really speak of a program being free software if you cannot bootstrap it?”, says our guest Janneke. He is the founder of GNU Mes, a project addressing the security concerns that arise from bootstrapping an operating system using large, unauditable binary blobs. GNU Mes helped to reduce the number and size of binary seeds that were used in the bootstrap of GNU Guix 1.0 by a factor ten from ~250 to ~25 MiB. Janneke talks about working on GNU Mes, its community, NGI Zero funding and calls for a fifth freedom: Freedom Four. The freedom to build a program totally from source. Links: GNU Mes website GNU Mes NGI Zero project page GNU Mes RISC-V NGI Zero project page GNU Lilypond Four freedoms of Free Software Ken Thompson: Reflections on Trusting Trust DOE040 the democratic school in Eindhoven Other projects mentioned: Stage0 Guix Gash live bootstrap with lfs Blog posts on GNU Mes: Janneke and Ludovic Courtès - April 26, 2023 The Full-Source Bootstrap: Building from source all the way down Janneke — June 15, 2020 Guix Further Reduces Bootstrap Seed to 25% Janneke - October 8, 2019 Guix Reduces Bootstrap Seed by 50% NGI Zero is a coalition of non-profit organizations lead by NLnet. It provides financial and practical support to people working on the free and open internet. You can find us on @NGIZero@mastodon.xyz & @nlnet@nlnet.nl. NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative. The podcast is hosted by Ronny Lam and Tessel Renzenbrink, the jingle created by Yarmo Mackenbach, all from NLnet. The NGI Zero podcast is shared under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

    44 min
  6. Joep Meindertsma - Atomic Data

    10/02/2024

    Joep Meindertsma - Atomic Data

    One of the issues with today’s internet is that a lot of data is siloed. Consequently, users are locked into Big Tech ecosystems and its hard to reuse data. Joep Meindertsma, CEO of Ontola.io, talks about how his project Atomic Data addresses this problem with LinkedData. The free and open source project is a modular specification for sharing, modifying and modeling data. It uses links to connect pieces of data which makes it easier to connect datasets - even when these datasets exist on separate machines. Inspired by Tim Berners-Lee, Joep works on an iteration of the semantic web that enforces JSON compatibility and type safety. He also talks about the effect of NGI Zero funding on Atomic Tables and has some advice for people who are considering to apply for an NGI Zero grant. Links mentioned in the episode: Atomic Data Ontola.io W3C Atomic Data Community Group Solid Search (NGI0 link) Atomic Data (NGI0 link) AtomicTables (NGI0 link) NGI Zero support services NGI Zero is a coalition of non-profit organizations lead by NLnet. It provides financial and practical support to people working on the free and open internet. You can find us on @NGIZero@mastodon.xyz & @nlnet@nlnet.nl. NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative. The podcast is hosted by Ronny Lam and Tessel Renzenbrink, the jingle created by Yarmo Mackenbach, all from NLnet. The NGI Zero podcast is shared under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.

    32 min

About

Conversations with the people building the Next Generation Internet (NGI). They’re working on free and open source technologies to make the internet more resilient, secure, trustworthy, accessible and human-centered. NGI Zero is a coalition of non-profit organizations led by NLnet foundation providing financial and practical support to people working on the free and open internet. NGI Zero is made possible with financial support from the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet initiative. The podcast is hosted by Ronny Lam and Tessel Renzenbrink, the jingle created by Yarmo Mackenbach, all from NLnet.

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