Linux Inlaws

This episode - aptly named "Missing link" and part of our foundations series of our highly valued educational sub-Inlaws (a marketing term blatantly borrowed from Reddit when it was still relevant but conveniently always forgotten to give back) - dives deep into the innards of computer systems, networks and distributed applications. Discussing the communication mechanism these components use to be precisely to wrack havoc on innocent users, clients, servers and other shenanigans naively using these. So you've missed that all-important third-year operating and/or distributed systems class back in university, now's the chance to catch up on things. So that the next cocktail conversation doesn't have to be about the shortcomings of certain US presidents, open marriages, the weather and other strange phenomena including vampires turned priests in order to gain the upper hand on vegan blood wholesale empires (blatant teaser for an upcoming DSTS episode perhaps? :-).
Links

IPC (abridged version): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-process_communication

Socket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_socket

Unix Domain Socket (UDS): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_domain_socket

Non-uniform memory access (NUMA): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-uniform_memory_access

Signal: https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/signal.7.html

Message queues: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Message_queue

Remote procedure call (RPC): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_procedure_call

gRPC: https://grpc.io

Protocol buffers (Protobuf): https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf

Interface definition language (IDL): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_description_language

D-Bus: https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/IntroductionToDBus

D-Spy (D-Bus inspection tool): https://github.com/GNOME/d-spy

Component Object Model (COM): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/com/component-object-model--com--portal

Distributed COM (DCOM): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_Component_Object_Model

Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Object_Request_Broker_Architecture

Object Management Group (OMG): https://www.omg.org

Cross Platform Component Object Model (XPCOM): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XPCOM

Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOAP

Representational State Transfer (REST): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REST

Flatbuffers: https://flatbuffers.dev

Model Context Protocol (MCP): https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro

The Copenhagen Test: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31314791

SFSCon: https://www.sfscon.it

This show is host to two clouds, Nextcloud and OpenCloud. A little bit of history: Both clouds go back to some common origin called ownCloud, a FLOSS project devised around sixteen years ago with the aim to allow each and every user of the software to have their own file hosting and synchronisation platform. ownCloud was forked to become NextCloud around 2016 and OpenCloud came into existence in 2025 when ownCloud was forked once again. Curious? Then don't wait but rather hit play to listen to the episode. As we hear this straight from the horse's mouth. As we the founders of both companies on the show speaking about the origins, present state and future. Even if you're not into file synchronisation you don't want to miss this episode as there's both projects have evolved over the years time to become much much more than pure file-hosting platforms (yea, we are talking office functionality similar to the proprietary functionality available from your big hyperscalers, etc.). Interested? Then don't miss this episode.
Links

Nextcloud: https://github.com/nextcloud

OpenCloud: https://github.com/opencloud-eu

Frank's FOSDEM presentation: https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/nextcloud

Nextcloud's Euro-Office view: https://nextcloud.com/blog/euro-office-license-compliance-and-what-open-source-means

Open-Office rebuttal: https://www.onlyoffice.com/blog/2026/03/onlyoffice-flags-license-violations-in-euro-office-project-by-nextcloud-and-ionos

Hacker Ethics: http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/hacker_ethics.html

Digital Indepence Day: https://di.day/en

In this episode Martin and Chris tackle the important subject of digital sovereignty. Something becoming more and more important if you don't want to wake up one morning just to see all of your mails and mailboxes vanished just because some foreign provider decided to cut off your mail server access (same goes for file cloud storage, office software, etc. Many other use cases do apply). But how to tackle this conundrum? Fear not, dear listeners, as usual the inlaws got you covered. So don't miss this episode!
Links

Microsoft's origins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Microsoft

Cloud Act: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-15475/pdf/COMPS-15475.pdf#page=624

Germany's EPA: https://epa.vigo.de/en/epa-simply-explained.html

Nextcloud: https://github.com/nextcloud

Limux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

Aria (UK): https://aria.org.uk

BPI (France): https://www.bpifrance.com/products/tata

Zendis: https://www.zendis.de/en

OpenDesk: https://www.opendesk.eu/en

OpenCode: https://opencode.ai

Nextcloud's forking: https://archive.fosdem.org/2018/schedule/event/nextcloud

OpenCloud's forking: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47655813

Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE): https://fsfe.org

Free Software Foundation (FSF): https://fsf.org

Open Source Initiative (OSI): https://opensource.org

Linux Foundation: https://www.linuxfoundation.org

Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC): https://sfconservancy.org

Glaswing: https://www.anthropic.com/glasswing

Preacher: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5016504

This episode is host to an eclectic panel representing a German project called Freifunk, essentially a free-for-all mesh network providing Internet access to the general public. Originally developed as a local shortcut to a fast Internet hookup in Berlin, this project has become hugely successful in metropolitan areas around Germany and beyond. So if you have ever wondered about these access points with the name freifunk as part of the name, are just plain curious about the technology behind this network or even thought about running an access point yourself, you don't want to miss this show!
Links

Freifunk: https://freifunk.net/en

Second/interference liability shenanigans (aka "Störerhaftung"): https://international.eco.de/news/who-is-liable-interference-liability-in-germany/

Freedom Fighter Box: https://wiki.freifunk.net/Freifunk_freedom_fighter_box

Legal talks on interference liabilibity (in German): https://media.freifunk.net/search/?q=hubrig

Chaos Computer Club: https://www.ccc.de/en

FSFE's Router Freedom campaign: https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/routers.en.html

TV White Space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Space_Internet

Wireless community weekend (part of the Freifunk Wiki, scroll to the bottom): https://wiki.freifunk.net/Kategorie:English

Battle Mesh: https://battlemesh.org

Freifunk Radio (in German): https://radio.freifunk.net

Digital Independence Day: https://di.day/de

Dawarich (That's were I was): https://github.com/Freika/dawarich

Jugend hackt LTS (in German): https://jugendhackt.org/lts

Unitree: https://www.unitree.com

Burn Notice: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810788/?ref_=fn_t_1

Ever wondered what Google really knows about you (this applies to other big tech companies as well) and how to prevent this unsolicited gathering of information (to avoid the nasty term "spying"), this is the episode you want to listen to. And of course the rest of the back catalog of shows you carefully managed to avoid so far as you were of the opinion that other drugs are better suited to put you to sleep in no time. But weren't aware of the side effects. Now for the good news: As Linux Inlaws doesn't have any side effects (apart from furthering your knowledge of course), there's no package insert (hooray! :-).
Links

Edward Snowden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden

Julian Assange: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

1984: https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1168083W/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

Tesla's EULA: https://www.tesla.com/legal/privacy

GoC's episode on electric cars (S2Ep2): https://grumpy-old-coders.org/#episodes

LineageOS: https://lineageos.org

AOSP @ Linux Inlaws (S02E38): https://archive.org/details/LI_S02E38_Android_and_more__7F48

Tor Browser Bundle: https://www.torproject.org/download/tor

The Tor episode (S01E75): https://archive.org/details/LI_S01E75_The_Onion_Router_Network__EE74

Google's Chrome shenanigans: https://www.forrester.com/blogs/google-chrome-settlement-shows-the-power-of-privacy-minded-consumers

Tails: https://tails.net

/e/OS/: https://e.foundation

GrapheneOS: https://grapheneos.org