Open Source Stories

Measuring community health reveals challenges people experience in contributing. Anita Ihuman explains how to build awareness and leverage existing solutions for greater belonging in open source. What you measure, you can see and change!

What changes when the projects you maintain are cornerstones of security? Filippo Valsodra elaborates on his experience as a cryptographer, his work in Go, and how his approach to maintainership might be a bit different from the average maintainer.

How does one pick up the maintainership baton? Turns out that you can ask for it! Jessica Tegner tells the story of how she went from contributing to pypandoc to being the maintainer of it, and of the pressures that come from maintaining a widely used project.

Open source is people and people are open source. Duane O'Brien talks about what he's learned about supporting, connecting with, and caring for the critical human infrastructure of open source.

If you find yourself curious about what’s running your software, then you’re in good company! Many Makers before you have cultivated our current open hardware opportunities to make it easier to start. Python Software Foundation Fellow Thea Flowers invites us to think beyond open source software to the vibrant community of open hardware. Bodge your way to greatness! In this episode, explore the right to repair, mid-scale manufacturing, and vinyl for video game soundtracks. Join Open Source Stories in finding your people.

Free and open source software is, or can be, a public good. But, VM Brasseur finds that for some, it may have gotten disconnected from its open culture roots. In this open source story, VM talks about motivations behind FOSS, how they have shifted, and how those who work in free and open source software can help recenter principles of openness.

Open source, the public domain, and various freedoms take center stage in the story behind Standard Ebooks. Learn about Standard Ebooks, a project founded by Alex Cabal to solve one particular problem, and how it brought together contributors with diverse sets of talents to make public domain literature works of art.

John Minnihan walks through the creation of Freepository, the first hosted source control service, how it paved the way for lowering the barrier to participation in open source, and evolution of version control systems.

What is open source design? Eriol dives into how designers contribute to open source, resources for designers looking to contribute to open source, and how incorporating design work into open source projects benefits the contributors and community using it.