CHAOSScast

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CHAOSScast – Episode 133

In this episode we put a formal pause on the CHAOSScast podcast and celebrate our memories of working on this special project.

Before you listen to Georg, Alice, Harmony, and Maryblessing share some of the podcast history and happy moments, we'd like to let you know a bit more about why the podcast is stopping for now.

CHAOSScast will be taking an indefinite break, and we have no current plans to restart it. Producing the podcast has been a rewarding experience, and we’re grateful to everyone who listened, contributed, and joined us in conversation over the years. At this time, however, we have not been able to determine that the podcast is delivering enough value to the community to justify the time and financial resources required to sustain it.

If a clear community need for the podcast emerges in the future, we would be excited to explore bringing it back in a new form. Until then, thank you for being part of the CHAOSS community that created CHAOSScast.

Hit download now to hear more!

[00:00:00] - Welcome Back Panel Intro

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Special Guest: Maryblessing Okolie.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 132

During the break we will be evaluating how CHAOSScast supports the goals of the CHAOSS project. And to help us to do that, we would like to invite you to take a short survey by going to the link:

https://forms.gle/zrvanrRArgzc3wDD9

The survey closes on Friday, May 15th 2026.

In this short recording we go through the survey questions to get you thinking about your answers before you go ahead and take it, and first we share with you the goals of the CHAOSS project so that you have some extra context to help you answer in an informed way.

CHAOSS aims to:

The survey is quite short, but it’s really meaningful to helping us know how the podcast contributes to achieving CHAOSS’s goals.

We are especially interested in honest feedback, even if you rarely listen.

Thanks for helping.

Your CHAOSS community.

00:00 Podcast Break Announcement

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CHAOSScast – Episode 131

In this episode of the CHAOSScast, host Georg Link sits down with guest, Elshad Humbatli, and panelists, Alice Sowerby and Adrian Edwards, to answer the question "How can CHAOSS metrics help you quickly assess the health of an open source project that you might want to use or join?"

Elshad, creator of Repo-Health, explains why he created the tool, and how he used the CHAOSS metrics to produce high-level insights on the health of an open source repo.

The conversation goes further, to discuss breaking down project activity to navigating the rise of AI-generated contributions, and dives deep into the human and technical sides of open source.

Hit download now to hear more!

[00:00:00] – The hosts introduce the episode and welcome the panelists and guest

[00:01:41] – Elshad shares how he discovered CHAOSS metrics and got inspired to build Repo Health.

[00:03:10] – A deep dive into the four pillars: activity, maintenance, community, and documentation.

[00:06:15] – The group debates how different metrics reflect project health and what “community” really means.

[00:10:07] – Elshad explains what Repo Health does and how users can benefit from it.

[00:12:00] – Discussion around the pros and cons of combining metrics into a single health score.

[00:17:01] – Exploring how context and goals shape which metrics matter using the GQM framework.

[00:21:00] – Real-world contributor experiences highlight the importance of documentation and responsiveness.

[00:23:00] – The impact of AI and LLMs on open source contributions and community dynamics.

[00:29:07] – Elshad shares future plans for Repo Health and opportunities for collaboration.

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Special Guests: Adrian Edwards and Elshad Humbatli.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 130

In this CHAOSScast episode, host introduces Rowland Mosbergen, a research software engineer at Australia’s WEHI, and discusses experiences in CHAOSS Asia and open source community connections. Rowland compares research labs to startups and explains that CHAOSS Asia’s regular online meetings help him engage with the broader open source ecosystem despite not traveling to conferences. They mention tools like the OSC DB directory for finding communities and discuss how Chaos Asia helps share events and CFPs. Rowland describes his “practical diversity and inclusion” approach: embedding inclusion into processes by centering marginalized people, sharing power, creating safe spaces, and offering online, non-exploitative open source internships that assess achievement relative to opportunity. He also describes organizing Research Software Asia Australia (RSAA 26) and supporting new Research Software Africa and Latino America conferences through shared documentation and a large, flexible volunteer committee to prevent burnout. They close with personal value-adds: Rowland’s family time and the host’s move to Bangkok.

00:00 Welcome to CHAOSScast

Special Guest: Rowland Mosbergen.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 129

[00:02:00] Introduction to OSPOs

[00:04:41] The Four Impact Areas

[00:06:29] Partner Impact

[00:11:00] Community Impact

[00:15:19] Ecosystem & Supply Chain Impact

[00:23:00] Organizational Impact & Governance

[00:29:31] Metrics Over Time (Not Snapshots)

[00:36:00] Resources & Working Groups

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Special Guest: Johan Linåker.

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CHAOSScast- Episode 128

In this episode of CHAOSScast, we have a special crossover episode with the GR-OSS OUT podcast, hosted by Tabatha DiDomenico from G-Research and featuring special guest Stacey Potter, Community Manager at the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF).

Stacey shares her journey into open source, which started in software license compliance and marketing before she found her passion in community-building through projects like Weaveworks and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) ecosystem. Her experience spans the full project lifecycle from early-stage incubation to graduation, giving her a unique perspective on how healthy, sustainable open source communities grow.

A central theme of the conversation is what makes open source communities truly welcoming. Stacey emphasizes the importance of clear documentation, accessible contribution guidelines, well-labeled “good first issues,” and, above all, kindness. Reducing the fear of “doing it wrong” is critical, especially for newcomers who may feel intimidated by contributing code in public. Creating psychological safety helps transform curiosity into long-term participation, and contributors feel mentored rather than judged. Community health, she notes, is fundamentally about people, not just processes or tooling.

The discussion also explores how marketing skills translate into community leadership. Stacey reflects on the difference between top-down messaging aimed at executives and bottom-up engagement with developers. Understanding your audience, meeting contributors where they are, and fostering authentic relationships are essential to building trust. At OpenSSF, she is helping shift perceptions so contributors understand that participation is open to everyone, not just member organizations. She also believes it's important to support education initiatives and strengthen developer experience across projects.

Finally, Stacey highlights several OpenSSF initiatives and projects that could benefit from broader community involvement, including Scorecard, Minder, and OpenVEX. She also previews upcoming events and a new ambassador program designed to make open source security more accessible, and even fun! The episode closes with encouragement for listeners to get involved, contribute to the projects they rely on, and help build secure, welcoming open source ecosystems.

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Special Guests: Stacey Potter and Tabatha DiDomenico.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 127

In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Alice is joined by Matt Trifiro from the Commercial Open Source Startup Alliance (COSSA) and Daniel Izquierdo, CEO of Bitergia and co-founder of the CHAOSS Community. The discussion delves into the importance of open source community health metrics in shaping successful commercial strategies for startups. Matt shares COSSA's mission to support the growth of venture-funded open source projects by fostering collaboration among founders, investors, and customers. Daniel discusses how community health can influence the sustainability and innovation of projects. They also explore the future goals of COSSA, including establishing a working group to develop standardized metrics for evaluating community contributions and business value. Press download now to hear more!

[00:00:29] Matt and Daniel introduce themselves and their backgrounds.

[00:01:56] Matt explains COSSA’s mission.

[00:02:58] Matt cites evidence that community health can correlate with business outcomes and that investment can improve community indicators, and there’s a discussion on moving beyond vanity metrics like GitHub stars.

[00:05:13] Daniel shares his perspective from the Open Compliance Summit (Tokyo) and the supply chain/corporate lens: organizations want confidence the software will be safe and still maintained years from now, and he talks about measuring health via collaboration networks.

[00:08:34] Matt breaks value into two buckets: Distribution and IP/innovation to explain how open source communities create startup value. Daniel adds that open source and can reduce procurement friction.

[00:12:23] They touch on open source as a path to standards.

[00:14:50] Matt describes how COSSA supports the startups: education, best practices, and measurement and his goal is to “convert community metrics into dollars.” Daniel notes the need for a baseline framework, then customization by industry.

[00:19:38] What’s next for COSSA? Matt shares COSSA is being bootstrapped, received initial Linux Foundation support, and is pursuing seed style funding. His planned membership structure is investors, founders, and customers.

[00:20:36] Daniel and Matt discuss making the metric framework transparent, likely anchored via CHAOSS, and the goal to building a “Rosetta Stone” between investors and community.

[00:25:49] There’s a conversation on rug pulls, incentives, and lack of a shared framework.

[00:30:34] Alice wraps with mentioning COSSA’s direction is clear, and a working group could be on the ramp for broader community participation.

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Special Guest: Matt Trifiro.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 126

On this episode of CHAOSScast, host Alice Sowerby introduces a special episode welcoming Leon Nunes as the new host for the CHAOSS Asia podcast. Leon shares his background in customer success, his work with CNCF, and hardware hacking, along with his role in growing the CHAOSS Asia chapter. Together, Alice and Leon talk about the current state of the Asia community, Leon’s curiosity-driven approach to podcast hosting, the stories he wants to surface from across Asia, and how listeners can get involved or pitch episode ideas. Hit download now to find out more!

[00:00:35] Leon shares his background.

[00:01:24] Leon explains his customer success role, supporting customers running software in production, and his many side interests.

[00:02:48] We learn how Leon started with Raspberry Pi in college, building a motion triggered music stand, being inspired by GitHub badges, and shares a recent side project assembling RGB LED Christmas tree kits and gifting them to people.

[00:05:52] How did Leon find CHAOSS? He traces his path into CHAOSS Asia via a friend doing lots of outreach, and his desire to join open source communities beyond just code contributions. He also helps maintain CHAOSS Asia’s LinkedIn and Twitter.

[00:09:03] Alice asks what drew him to hosting a podcast. Leon shares his love of talking to people and using conversations to understand people.

[00:10:48] Alice connects Leon’s curiosity and his love of talking with podcast hosting, and reviews CHAOSScast episode types.

[00:11:51] What kind of stories does Leon want to tell from Asia? He wants to explore how other communities handle challenges like participation and growth and then apply those learnings to CHAOSS Asia. He suggests inviting active CHAOSS Asia contributors to share their experiences on the podcast.

[00:13:55] Alice agrees on a more exploratory approach, using conversations with active members to both document and strengthen the Asia chapter.

[00:14:48] Find out where you can contact Leon on the internet.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 125

In this final episode of the year from CHAOSScast, hosts Alice Sowerby and Harmony Elendu welcome members of the CHAOSS Board, Sean Goggins, Anita Ihuman, Georg Link, and Elizabeth Barron, for an in-depth discussion on the project's developments and future. They share their reflections on key events and trends in the open-source community over 2025. Topics include the impact of AI on open source, shifts in funding, community engagement, and the importance of psychological safety. The panelists also spotlight various CHAOSS working groups, including education, design, and technical writing, while sharing their wishes for the CHAOSS Project in 2026. Press download now!

[00:00:49] The hosts and guests introduce themselves and their backgrounds.

[00:02:28] Georg announces CHAOSScon in Brussels, Jan 29, 2026, Co-located with FOSDEM.

[00:04:51] The guests talk about factors affecting OSS communities in 2025.

[00:11:39] We hear where CHAOSS grew the most in 2025 such as regional chapters, global reach, CHAOSS Asia, with shout-outs to Divvya Mohan and Rowland Mosbergen, how metrics are being used, Design Working Group, accessibility, Practitioner Guides, and two new working groups.

[00:19:45] The panel shares project and working groups they’re most proud of: Package Management, AI Alignment, Alice and Harmony for keeping CHAOSScast podcast active and alive, Paul and Peachtree Sound for editing the podcast and keeping episodes on track, Education Project, Practitioner Guides, and shared ownership of community growth.

[00:28:55] What is some work that went under the radar in 2025? The guests talk about DEI Working Group, DEI Badging, Harmony and the Technical Writers Working Group, and AI’s impact on maintainers.

[00:35:41] Georg and Sean have additional thoughts on AI identity and bots. Current tooling assumes human contributions, but AI agents and bots break those assumptions and there’s a need for better identity solutions and metrics that distinguish humans, bots, and multi-account actors.

[00:39:33] Elizabeth would love people to give CHAOSS more feedback on engagement for newcomers to make onboarding smoother and encourages people to use the Education Project as a starting point.

[00:42:07] Georg, Sean, and Anita talk about CHAOSS board priorities for 2025-2026.

[00:45:25] Everyone shares their wishes for CHAOSS in 2026.

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CHAOSScast Podcast-Episode 100: Celebrating 100 episodes of CHAOSScast

Special Guest: Anita ihuman.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 124

This episode of CHAOSScast kicks off a new Practitioner Guide series focused on “Building Diverse Leadership” in open source communities. Harmony Elendu hosts with co-host Georg Link and guests Dawn Foster and Peculiar Umeh, exploring why diverse leadership matters, how CHAOSS’ practitioner guides turn “walls of metrics” into practical action, and how three specific metrics: Board/Council Diversity, Sponsorship, and Inclusive Leadership, can help projects become more welcoming, representative, and sustainable. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:00:35] Dawn, Peculiar, Georg, and Harmony share their backgrounds.

[00:02:57] Dawn gives us an overview of the Practitioner Guide series and emphasizes that the guides focus on how to improve projects using metrics, not just on measuring.

[00:05:13] Georg asks Peculiar what inspired her to write the “Getting Started with Building Diverse Leadership” guide. She describes working on CHAOSS metrics templates and wanting to help non-data science people use them.

[00:08:09] Harmony connects the topic to broader industry conversations on diversity and inclusion. Peculiar explains that diverse leadership brings different perspectives, experiences, and voices into decision making and uses CHAOSS as an example.

[00:10:30] Dawn expands on how seeing leaders “who look like you” motivates people to participate and aspire to leadership.

[00:11:28] Georg talks about diversity as social justice and explains benefits for the projects: resilience, innovation, and better products for diverse users.

[00:14:25] Peculiar shares the three metrics and why there were chosen. Dawn adds that guides are designed to change projects, not just describe them.

[00:18:09] Georg notes Board/Council Diversity is the most intuitive to measure and Dawn cautions that many aspects of identity are invisible and the guide recommends surveys to ask community members whether they feel represented and heard.

[00:21:03] Georg explains sponsorship vs. mentorship. Peculiar shares her own experience of being advocated for and supported in open source. Dawn tells the story of Danese Cooper sponsoring her showing how sponsorship accelerates careers.

[00:25:27] Georg explains Inclusive Leadership as the governance scaffolding and Peculiar describes what the guide offers.

[00:27:50] Harmony asks how they can implement the guide and monitor progress. Peculiar highlights some implementation steps and Dawn re-emphasizes using recurring surveys as monitoring tools.

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Special Guest: Peculiar Umeh.

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