CHAOSScast

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSSCast!

CHAOSScast – Episode 123

This episode of the CHAOSScast features hosts Harmony Elendu and Alice Sowerby, along with guests Stefka Dimitrova and Dawn Foster, discussing the process of sunsetting open source projects. Dawn and Stefka share their extensive experiences and the importance of managing the lifecycle of open source projects responsibly. They delve into the specifics of the 'Getting Started with Sunsetting an Open Source Project' guide from Dawn's series of practitioner guides, which aim to help practitioners, not just experts, interpret data and improve their project health. Key topics include identifying inactive projects, the responsible steps for sunsetting, and the crucial role of communication within the community. The episode also touches upon metrics to determine project activity and archive responsibly, highlighting that the process goes beyond simply pressing an 'archive' button. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:00:23] The hosts and guests introduce themselves.

[00:02:09] Dawn explains the purpose of the CHAOSS Practitioner Guides.

[00:04:54] Harmony asks Dawn what inspired her to write the “Getting Started with Sunsetting an Open Source Project” guide. She highlights the problem of inactive, unarchived projects creating security and reputational risks and being inspired by VMware’s internal sunset process let by Stefka when they both worked there.

[00:06:23] Dawn explains why projects shouldn’t remain unarchived and who the guide is intended for.

[00:07:30] Stefka shares her background and how she got started with sunsetting projects while she was at VMware.

[00:10:33] Dawn discusses the three Primary metrics: Change Requests, New Issues, and Technical Forks.

[00:12:10] Harmony asks how to identify a functionally abandoned project and Dawn explains if there’s no updates or security patches it’s likely abandoned.

[00:13:07] Stefka outlines some responsible “sunsetting” steps.

[00:16:16] Harmony asks what to do if an active project decides to wind down and Stefka says it’s better to decide proactively while still active, plan and communicate early, re-evaluate priorities, and prepare alternatives.

[00:17:31] Dawn adds within companies, it must involve PR and customer teams to manage impact and have a transition plan and timeline.

[00:18:20] Alice summarizes the dual responsibility of both OSPOs and maintainers to recognize when it’s time to sunset and Stefka shares an example that was helpful for the teams she worked with.

[00:21:17] Alice reflects that open source is about people as much as technology and managing emotional transitions is vital.

[00:21:58] Final takeaways: Dawn encourages listeners to read the guide and follow its step-by-step approach for responsible project sunsetting and Stefka encourages people to be ready for the sunset form the start of a project and keep the guide handy as a reference for your teams.

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Special Guest: Stefka Dimitrova.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 122

In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Georg and co-host Alice introduce a special feature showcasing the “CHAOTICS of the Month” who are members recognized for their exceptional contributions to the CHAOSS open source community. Today, they chat with David Lippert, Victoria Ottah, and Cali Dolfi.  David Lippert, Director of the Open Source Program Office at George Washington University, discusses his journey into academia and open source with a focus on public interest technology. Victoria Otta, a UX designer and accessibility advocate, shares her experiences and contributions to the CHAOSS community, particularly in accessibility auditing and inclusion of people with disabilities in open source. Cali Dolfi, a senior data scientist at Red Hat, talks about her work in community data analysis and the Data Science Working Group. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:01:42] Georg highlights the purpose of the today’s episode that includes three guests from the “CHAOTICS of the Month” series.

[00:01:56] The first CHAOTIC guest is David Lippert. He shares his background being a former software and data engineer, now in academia, and works under a Sloan Foundation grant supporting university OSPOs.

[00:05:17] Georg addresses the lack of open source awareness among faculty and encourages integration of open source into academic programs.

[00:06:37] David shares his connection to CHAOSS, joining through the CURRIOSS network of academic OSPOs and talks about working with the UN SDG Working Group to measure global impact through open source. He mentions two GWU students won a UN hackathon related to open source data management.

[00:10:56] David talks about how metrics vary based on context ( IT department vs. researcher focus).

[00:12:44] The next CHAOTIC guest is Victoria Ottah. She shares her background and her journey into CHAOSS, which is the first open source community she joined. CHAOSS provided clarity and mentorship since she was initially struggling as a designer and mentions having early support from Ruth and other maintainers.

[00:16:18] Victoria discusses the need to make GitHub and contribution platforms more welcoming to designers and suggests simplified onboarding and linking repositories to Figma or design workspaces.

[00:17:45] Victoria’s career goals and focus for 2026 is being a certified accessibility advocate to CHAOSS web projects and advocates for including people with disabilities early in the open source design and development process.

[00:20:39] Find out where you can connect with Victoria online.

[00:25:26] Cali is really excited about working in the Data Science Working Group, collaborating with researchers to explore methods for analyzing open source communities, and developing Practitioner Guides to help organizations interpret metrics effectively.

[00:28:03] Cali encourages new contributors to start by joining working groups aligned with their interests and notes that groups are small and welcoming, offering mentorship and practical work.

Value Adds (Picks) of the week:

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Special Guests: Cali Dolfi and Victoria Ottah.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 121

In this episode of the CHAOSScast, host Alice Sowerby sits down with Andrew Nesbitt and Damián Vicino to discuss the formation and objectives of the new Package Metadata Working Group within the CHAOSS community. They discuss the complex issues surrounding package manager metadata, its interoperability challenges, and how the working group aims to address these through mapping and standardization efforts. They also touch upon the importance of these efforts for various stakeholders, including developers, researchers, and tool builders. The conversation highlights both the immediate and long-term goals of the group and provides information on how interested individuals can get involved. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:00:26] Introductions from Alice, Andrew, and Damián.

[00:02:36] Damián explains how the Package Metadata Working Group started.

[00:04:33] Andrew shares his experience building mappings across multiple package registries and how differing field names, schema structures, and metadata definitions complicate consistency.

[00:10:21] Alice asks about the group’s short and long term objectives and Andrew outlines some immediate goals.

[00:14:52] Damián elaborates on challenges in semantics and timelines. He emphasizes that even identically names fields may carry different meanings and shares an example.

[00:18:46] Alice summarizes Damián’s point saying the group’s role is to provide guidance and analysis rather than enforce standards, helping maintainers make informed metadata decisions.

[00:19:25] Andrew adds that most package managers evolve independently without referencing past ones. The working group’s documentation aims to prevent repeated mistakes and guide new ecosystems toward interoperable designs.

[00:23:06] Damián notes that modern software projects often depend on multiple ecosystems, making license tracking and dependency management exponentially harder without interoperability.

[00:25:02] Andrew explains how researchers waste time rebuilding metadata mapping from scratch across ecosystems and having unified references would accelerate research and tool development.

[00:27:58] Damián discusses how better metadata could support academic credit and funding by enabling easier citation and recognition of open source contributions tied to research projects.

[00:33:01] Andrew mentions all the places you can join in on the meetings and to share where you are interested in working on.

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Special Guests: Andrew Nesbitt and Damián Vicino.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 120

In this episode of CHAOSScast, Harmony Elendu hosts a discussion with Dawn Foster and Bob Killen to discuss their extensive experience in open source and detail the motivations behind the creation of the CHAOSS Practitioner Guides. These guides aim to help practitioners navigate the overwhelming amount of data related to open source projects and understand how to improve project health and sustainability. The discussion covers strategies for communicating the business value of open source efforts to leadership, framing contributions in a way that resonates with organizational priorities, and prioritizing investments in critical projects. Press download now!

[00:00:31] Dawn and Bob introduce themselves and their backgrounds.

[00:02:24] Dawn explains why CHAOSS created Practitioner Guides: to help navigate the “tsunami of data” from open source metrics. The new guide is different and is focused on demonstrating organizational value.

[00:04:36] Harmony asks about the inspiration for the guide. Dawn credits Bob and how the guide was built largely from his talks at KubeCon and the Linux Foundation Member Summit.

[00:05:22] Bob talks about macroeconomic pressures where open source is often first cut. The guide helps orgs tell compelling stories to leadership about open source ROI.

[00:07:14] Bob shares a case study: maintainers reframed contributions in leadership’s language- revenue impact, bug fix turnaround, and resource efficiency and how this secured leadership support. Dawn adds that every organization values different things and provides an example.

[00:11:36] Bob introduces the formula: Priority = Criticality x Health.

[00:13:36] Dawn emphasizes formula helps orgs prioritize strategically critical but under-resourced projects (example: Kubernetes cluster API at VMware). Bob notes criticality differs by company and even department.

[00:16:51] Harmony ask how to report open source value to leadership. Bob explains the importance of framing in leadership’s language, not just raw contribution counts. Dawn warns against poor framing and explains about being careful about how you talk to leadership about your open source efforts.

Value Adds (Picks) of the week:

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Special Guest: Bob Killen.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 119

In this episode of CHAOSScast, we have a special episode from our friends at Sustain. Host Richard Littauer from Sustain is joined by guests Ben Nickolls and Andrew Nesbitt to discuss the ecosyste.ms project. They explore how ecosyste.ms collects and analyzes metadata from various open-source projects to create a comprehensive database that can help improve funding allocation. The discussion covers the importance of funding the most critical open-source projects, the existing gaps in funding, and the partnership between ecosyste.ms and Open Source Collective to create funding algorithms that support entire ecosystems. They also talk about the challenges of maintaining data, reaching out to project maintainers, and the broader implications for the open-source community. Hit the download button now!

[00:03:16] Andrew and Ben explain ecosyste.ms, what it does, and how it compares to Libraries.io.

[00:06:17] Ecosyste.ms tracks metadata, not the packages themselves, and enriches data via dependency graphs, committers, issues, SBOMs, and more.

[00:08:12] Andrew talks about finding 1,890 Git hosts and how many critical projects live outside GitHub.

[00:09:55] There’s a conversation on metadata uses and SBOM parsing.

[00:14:07] Richard inquires about the ecosystem.ms funds on their website which Andrew explains it’s a collaboration between Open Collective and ecosyste.ms. that algorithmically distributes funds to the most used, not most popular packages.

[00:17:03] Ben shares how this is different from previous projects and brings up a past project, “Back Your Stack” and explains how ecosyste.ms is doing two things differently.

[00:20:17] Ben explains how it supports payouts to other platforms and encourages maintainers to adopt funding YAML files for automation. Andrew touches on efficient outreach, payout management, and API usage (GraphQL).

[00:26:54] Ben elaborates on how companies can fund ecosyste.ms (like Django) instead of curating their own lists and being inspired by Sentry’s work with the Open Source Pledge.

[00:30:50] Andrew speaks about scaling and developer engagement and emphasizes their focus is on high-impact sustainability.

[00:34:06] Richard asks, “Why does it matter?” Ben explains that most current funding goes to popular, not most used projects and ecosyste.ms aims to fix the gap with data backed funding, and he suggests use of open standards like 360Giving and Open Contracting Data.

[00:37:04] Andrew shares his thoughts on funding the right projects by improving 1% of OSS, you uplift the quality of millions of dependent projects with healthier infrastructure, faster security updates, and more resilient software.

[00:39:53] Find out where you can follow ecosyste.ms and the blog on the web.

Quotes:

[00:12:36] “I call them interesting forks. If a fork is referenced by a package, it’ll get indexed.”

[00:23:25] We’ve built a service that now moves like $25 million a year between OSS maintainers on OSC.”

[00:34:41] “We don’t have enough information to make collective decisions about which projects, communities, maintainers, should receive more funding.”

[00:35:41] “The NSF POSE Program has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to open source communities alone.”

[00:37:05] “If you have ten, twenty thousand really critical open source projects, that actually isn’t unachievable to make those projects sustainable.”

Spotlight:

Panelist:

Richard Littauer

Guests:

Ben Nickolls

Andrew Nesbitt

Links:

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project Twitter

CHAOSScast Podcast

[email protected]

Alice Sowerby LinkedIn

SustainOSS

[email protected]

[email protected]

SustainOSS Discourse

SustainOSS Mastodon

SustainOSS Bluesky

SustainOSS LinkedIn

Open Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute)

Richard Littauer Socials

Ben Nickolls LinkedIn

Andrew Nesbitt Website

Andrew Nesbitt Mastodon

Octobox

ecosyste.ms

ecosyste.ms Blog

Open Source Collective

Open Source Collective Updates

Open Source Collective Contributions

Open Source Collective Contributors

Open Collective

24 Pull Requests

Libraries.io

The penumbra of open source (EPJ Data Science)

FOSDEM ’25- Open source funding: you’re doing it wrong (Andrew and Ben)

Vue.js

thanks.dev

StackAid

Back Your Stack

NSF POSE

Django

GitHub Sponsors

Sustain Podcast-Episode 80: Emma Irwin and the Foss Fund Program

Sustain Podcast- 3 Episodes featuring Chad Whitacre

Sustain Podcast- Episode 218: Karthik Ram & James Howison on Research Software Visibility Infrastructure Priorities

Sustain Podcast-Episode 247: Chad Whitacre on the Open Source Pledge

Invest in Open Infrastructure

360Giving

Open Contracting Data Standard

Jellyfin

zizmor

The LaTeX Project

Special Guests: Andrew Nesbitt, Benjamin Nickolls, and Richard Littauer.

Support CHAOSScast

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSSCast!

CHAOSScast – Episode 118

In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Harmony welcomes guests Maryblessing Okolie, Ileriayo Adebiyi, and Joan Njeri, to discuss their experiences and key moments from recent open source community events in Lagos, Nigeria. These events include CHAOSScon Africa, Open Source Community Africa Festival (OSCAFEST), and KCD Nigeria. The guests share their backgrounds and roles within the open source community, their experiences organizing and attending the events, and the importance of building relationships. They also discuss impactful talks and sessions from the events, highlighting topics such as open source program offices (OSPOs), onboarding systems for open source projects, and the role of passion in the tech industry. Hit download now!

[00:00:43] Harmony and our guests introduce themselves and their backgrounds.

[00:02:54] The guests tell us which conferences they attended.

[00:04:22] Maryblessing reflects on her experience organizing CHAOSScon Africa.

[00:08:48] Ileriayo, one of the organizers of KCD Nigeria, shares his experiences with planning the event that took two years.

[00:11:31] Joan shares her point of view as an attendee of OSCAFEST, being inspired by the energy and collaboration at the events and built partnerships with Eclipse Foundation and others for Kenya projects.

[00:13:24] Harmony and our guests discuss their favorite talks they attended.

[00:21:46] Joan and Ileriayo explain the cultural exchanges they experienced at the events (e.g. food, Pidgin language, networking, traffic, and cross-continent collaboration.)

Value Adds (Picks) of the week:

Panelist:

Harmony Elendu

Guests:

Maryblessing Okolie

Ileriayo Adebiyi

Joan Njeri

Links:

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

[email protected]

Harmony Elendu X

Maryblessing Okolie Mastodon

Maryblessing Okolie LinkedIn

Maryblessing Okolie GitHub

Ileriayo Adebiyi Website

Ileriayo Adebiyi X

Ileriayo Adebiyi LinkedIn

Joan Njeri X

CHAOSScon Africa 2025

OSCAFEST 2025

KCD Nigeria 2025

Eclipse Foundation

One Piece (1999 TV series)

Special Guests: Ileriayo Adebiyi, Joan Njeri, and Maryblessing Okolie.

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CHAOSScast – Episode 117

In this episode of CHAOSScast, Georg Link and Sean Goggins welcome guest Vicky Brasseur, author of Business Success with Open Source and Forge Your Future with Open Source. The conversation explores Vicky’s early journey into open source, starting from discovering Project Gutenberg in the early '90s to using Linux for the first time, the challenges companies face when using open source software, and how organizations can better leverage it strategically. The discussion also delves into her book, Forge Your Future with Open Source, which addresses common questions about contributing to open source projects. Vicky highlights the gaps in strategic open source usage within organizations and offers insights on how companies can better utilize open source software to reduce business risks. The conversation wraps up with practical advice for making a compelling business case for open source contributions and the importance of speaking the language of decision-makers. Press download now!

[00:01:05] Vicky introduces herself, shares her journey into open source, and introduces Project Gutenberg, LibriVox, and the value of community contributions to open knowledge and public domain resources.

[00:06:44] Vicky shares how her first book, Forge Your Future with Open Source, helps newcomers start their contribution journey and why she wrote it to be reused across audiences.

[00:10:54] There’s a discussion on how open source opens career path globally, especially in underserved economics.

[00:12:46] Vicky shares some advice from her book for new contributors: Don’t start with Linux and find a project in an area you love (e.g., music, cars, sewing) to maintain long-term motivation.

[00:15:18] Sean and Georg share their personal origin stories in open source.

[00:19:23] Georg introduces Vicky’s second book, Business Success with Open Source, and she discusses the premise of the book and the “Three Part Framework.”

[00:26:08] Vicky argues that even Linux Foundation member companies often don’t understand open source at an organizational level.

[00:29:19] Vicky is available for consulting, following her layoff. She encourages listeners to reach out via her website.

[00:33:55] Why do projects fail? Vicky shares failures come from poor communication and unchecked assumptions across industries, not just tech.

[00:35:36] Vicky criticizes companies for chasing vanity metrics like GitHub stars and praises the CHAOSS Project but notes most companies misuse metrics or don’t tie them to strategic goals. Also, “Script kiddie” is explained.

[00:40:13] Vicky explains how to ethically influence execs by speaking their language, use Power Points and show cost comparisons (e.g., OpenStreetMap vs Google Maps), and she emphasizes to use “TL;DR” (Too Long; Didn’t Read) friendly presentations to connect open source financial and operational outcomes.

[00:44:27] There’s a special discount code for everyone to use on Vicky’s eBooks and audiobooks on The Pragmatic Bookshelf website and the code is VBCHAOSS **for 30% off **through Oct 2025.

[00:45:16] Find out where you can follow Vicky and her work on the internet.

Value Adds (Picks) of the week:

Panelists:

Guest:

VM (Vicky) Brasseur

Links:

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

[email protected]

Georg Link Website

Sean Goggins X

VM (Vicky) Brasseur Website

VM (Vicky) Brasseur Blog

VM (Vicky) Brasseur LinkedIn

VM (Vicky) Brasseur Mastodon

Project Gutenberg

LibriVox

Forge Your Future with Open Source by VM (Vicky) Brasseur (Code: VBCHAOSS)

Business Success with Open Source by VM (Vicky) Brasseur (Code: VBCHAOSS)

Nora McDonald (College of Engineering and Computing)

Zotero

Failure: Why It Happens & How to Benefit from It by VM (Vicky) Brasseur

Script kiddie

Kevin Mitnick

Multiplicity

Spinning wheel

Special Guest: VM (Vicky) Brasseur.

Support CHAOSScast

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CHAOSScast – Episode 116

In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Georg Link is joined by guests Sarina Canelake, Feanil Patel, and Felipe Montoya from the Open edX community, to discuss their experiences with the GrimoireLab tool and the launch and growth of their maintainer program.  The conversation dives into the history and impact of the Open edX project, the evolution of their maintainer program, and the use of metrics to track and improve community health. The guests also share personal stories and provide insights into the challenges and successes they’ve encountered along the way. Press download now!

[00:00:34] Sarina, Feanil, and Felipe introduce themselves and their backgrounds.

[00:02:02] Feanil and Sarina explain the origins of the maintainer program, the mix of Python and JavaScript repositories, and how maintainers influence code direction.

[00:04:02] Feanil explains the history of Open edX, being open sourced in 2013 by edX (MOOC platform) and how Axim Collaborative took over stewardship in 2021.

[00:07:04] We hear Felipe’s journey into the project from student to TA to community contributor and leader since 2012. He details the empowerment and pressure of receiving merge access in the Core Contributor program.

[00:13:09] Sarina Explains why merge rights were initially limited to edX staff, and how the shift to community-led merging happened post 2020.

[00:15:26] Feanil describes how the Maintainer Program now distributes ownership and improves repository health.

[00:17:12] Feanil talks about his incremental metrics philosophy: starts with presence, then track responsiveness.

[00:21:34] Georg asks how maintainers use GrimoireLab dashboards and filters. Sarina explains the use of Backstage ownership metadata for filtering dashboards by maintainers or groups and Feanil emphasizes the need for flexible tooling due to overlapping team memberships.

[00:24:50] Felipe describes using dashboards to monitor his team’s participation and accountability.

[00:25:40] Sarina asks Felipe about dashboards he uses on Bitergia to track team contributions.

[00:28:26] Sarina shares how she tracks Elephant Factor and trends in commit and LOC volume and Georg highlights the value of identity reconciliation in data.

[00:30:45] Felipe talks about monitoring Slack, issues, and commits to ensure ecosystem health post-company transitions and Sarina notes challenges of mapping Slack/Discourse identities in Sorting Hat for deeper engagement metrics.

[00:34:11] There’s a discussion on syncing internal onboarding identity forms with Sorting Hat manually for now.

[00:35:35] Georg raises concerns about metric misuse in performance reviews. Sarina and Feanil stress metrics as guidance, not performance tools, and Felipe shares his team uses metrics as lagging indicators, not for pressure.

[00:39:55] Sarina explains how their impact report uses lines of code, commit trends, and elephant factor to show growth and codebase health.

[00:42:32] Find out where you can go to get involved and contribute to Open edX and edunext.

Value Adds (Picks) of the week:

Panelist:

Guests:

Links:

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

[email protected]

Georg Link Website

Sarina Canelake LinkedIn

Sarina Canelake Website

Feanil Patel LinkedIn

Feanil Patel GitHub

Felipe Montoya LinkedIn

Open edX

Open edX Documentation

Open edX (YouTube)

Open edX dashboard

Open edX GitHub

edunext (YouTube)

edunext

Axim Collaborative

MOOC

Through The Griffin Door (YouTube)

The Best Idea Yet Podcast

Logseq

Waking Up

Special Guests: Feanil Patel, Felipe Montoya, and Sarina Canelake.

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In this double-length CHAOSScast special episode, hosts Harmony Elendu and George Link along with panelists from the CHAOSS community, come together to reflect on their experiences at two major open source events: CHAOSScon North America (co-located with the Open Source Summit) and the United Nations Open Source Week in New York. The episode is packed with personal insights, highlighted key talks, software updates, themes from the events, memorable community interactions, and thoughtful conversations about the future of open source, digital sovereignty, and sustainability. Press download now!

[00:00:19] Harmony and the guests introduce themselves and their roles in CHAOSS and the open source community.

[00:02:36] Everyone shares their CHAOSScon talk highlights.

[00:10:49] Conference moments and experiences are talked about such as Linux Foundation’s puppy therapy booths to reduce stress, knitting as a conversation starter, and spontaneous hallway discussions about software security and SBOMs.

[00:17:10] Software updates: Augur now runs easily via Docker Compose, making it accessible to more users.

[00:18:59] Elizabeth explains behind the scenes of organizing CHAOSScon with Linux Foundation support, and challenges with speaker curation, CFP management, and logistics.

[00:23:17] Harmony invites listeners to CHAOSScon Africa and OSCAFEST’25 happening in August, both in the same week and same location.

[00:23:45] Elizabeth, Laura, and Andrew share their CHAOSS booth experiences.

[00:28:28] The guests talk about meeting longtime online collaborators in person for the first time.

[00:30:16] Cali talks about the Data Science Hackathon, student participation, hands-on project exploration with 8Knot and Auger and the event was hosted by the CHAOSS Data Science Working Group.

[00:36:43] Part 2 starts here as host Georg Link takes over with guests Divya, Ruth, and Daniel, who all attended the United Nations Open Source Week in New York.

[00:39:45] We hear some key moments from the UN Open Source Week 2025: Governments increasingly adopting OSPOs, sessions on humanitarian tech and open source for crisis response, the energy, engagement, and diversity of thought.

[00:50:09] Ruth shares something new she learned going to an Open Source Hardware presentation where they did a demo of DIY microscopes and Georg shares an inspiring story he learned using open hardware.

[00:52:12] After being at this conference, Ruth sees open source headed for digital sovereignty and there’s a discussion on the trend toward collaborative Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and public goods.

[00:55:37] There’s a conversation on sustainability and open source communities.

[01:01:09] Governance and transparency is discussed, Daniel shares an example with Germany’s Sovereign Tech Fund supporting critical infrastructure, and Divya shares going to a session that was focused on payments.

[01:06:05] We end with Georg highlighting to check out some recordings from the UN Open Source Week 2025 website and to check out the UN Open Source Principles.

Value Adds (Picks) of the week:

Panelists:

Harmony Elendu

Guests:

Elizabeth Barron

Andrew Nesbitt

Cali Dolfi

Laura Langdon

Divya Mohan

Ruth Ikegah

Daniel Izquierdo

Links:

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

[email protected]

Georg Link Website

Harmony Elendu X

Elizabeth Barron X

Andrew Nesbitt Mastodon

Andrew Nesbitt Website

Cali Dolfi LinkedIn

Cali Dolfi X

Laura Langdon Website

Laura Langdon Mastodon

Ruth Ikegah X

Ruth Ikegah LinkedIn

Divya Mohan Website

Divya Mohan LinkedIn

Daniel Izquierdo LinkedIn

CHAOSScon Africa 2025

OSCAFEST’25

CHAOSS Data Science Working Group

Timeshifter Apps

Digital Public Goods Registry

Sovereign Tech Agency

United Nations Open Source Week 2025

United Nations Digital Public Goods

United Nations Open Source Principles

OpenFlexure Microscope (open hardware project)

Digital Resilience Forum

Special Guests: Andrew Nesbitt, Cali Dolfi, Divya Mohan, and Laura Langdon.

Support CHAOSScast

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSSCast!

CHAOSScast – Episode 114

In this episode of CHAOSScast, hosts Georg Link and Nicole Huesman engage in a deep discussion with Christian Taylor, Terence (Tex) McCutcheon, and Johnny Kelly about measuring and enhancing open source community health through innovative methods. Christian and his team share their experiences in implementing the 'paid open source model' within the Cardano blockchain community, designed to retain and motivate contributors. The panel discusses a variety of topics, including governance models, the integration of AI for report generation, and the challenges of balancing open source principles with corporate interests. They also explore specific tools and metrics used to evaluate project health and community engagement, providing an illuminating look into the future of open source development. Hit the download button now!

[00:01:40] Our guests give a brief introduction.

[00:04:37] Christian provides a non-technical intro to Cardano, a top blockchain focused on peer reviewed, academic rigor.

[00:06:07] Johnny explains Cardano’s high decentralization via SPOs, DReps, and

community tools like GovTool, and Christian outlines how open source ties in.

[00:09:39] Christian talks about open source governance and Intersect and explains Intersect serves like the Linux Foundation for Cardano, holding code, facilitating contribution ladders, and launching an incubation program.

[00:13:06] Georg gives a summary for those who are new: Cardano’s treasury is funded via blockchain transaction fees. This funding supports open source development, tools, documentation, and maintainers, and Christian elaborates more about this.

[00:15:39] Johnny details governance and funding decisions and Christian emphasizes the transparency and checks and balance system.

[00:17:08] Nicole raises concerns about aligning paid models with open source ethos and Christian discusses Intersect’s neutral, community-owned governance structure and internal checks and Johnny shares a link about the current members and the elective process within Intersect.

[00:20:37] Christian shares using Bitergia and CHAOSS metrics to build out Cardano’s open source health dashboard. Focus areas were response times, geographic contributions, contribution ladders, and project maturity.

[00:26:03] Tex shares their dashboard is public and useful for spotting high-impact projects. He aims to improve documentation standards and repo governance practices.

[00:31:05] Georg gives a brief description of the “jellyfish diagrams” that show how developers connect across projects.

[00:33:26] Christian shares their approach to using AI in metrics reporting and Tex emphasizes AI assists analysis but doesn’t replace human validation.

[00:37:10] Nicole asks if the paid open source model is being shared externally. Christian confirms they presented the model at open source summits, validated it with leading experts, stress-tested with community input, and outlines a six month pilot of the model.

Value Adds (Picks) of the week:

*Panelists: *

Guests:

Links:

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

[email protected]

Georg Link Website

Nicole Huesman X

Christian Taylor X

Christian Taylor LinkedIn

Terence McCutcheon X

Terence McCutcheon LinkedIn

Johnny Kelly X

Johnny Kelly LinkedIn

Open Source Office at Intersect MBO (YouTube)

Cardano

Cardano GovTool

Intersect

Intersect Committees

Open Source Office (OSO)

Bitergia Repo Maturity Reports

Edinburgh Decentralization Index Dashboard

Contribution Ladder Framework

Current Open Source Committee Members list and Term Rotation Schedules

Bitergia Monthly Maturity Reports for 2025

Introductory Article on POSM (Intersect)

Intersecting Open Source and Sustainability: A Paid Open Source Model for Ecosystems Full PDF

Bitergia Dashboard

The Paid Open Source Model Concept (YouTube)

New Calidus Pool-Key for SPOs and Services Interacting with Pools

She Lights the Way

Dr. Laura Kelly

Special Guests: Johnny Kelly, Christian Taylor, and Terence (Tex) McCutheon.

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