Sustain

Bob Killen | Navendu Pottekkat

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a special podcast and one of several in this series for GitHub’s Maintainer Month. We’re interviewing maintainers to ask them about what their experience is of maintainership and open source. Today, we’re very excited to have two guests joining us. Our first guest is Bob Killen, who’s a Program Manager at Google, serves the Kubernetes project as a Steering Committee member and chair of the Contributor Experience Special Interest Group. Bob talks about the mentoring cohort approach the Kubernetes community has, the importance of titles, and the value of a defined contributor ladder to recognize and motivate contributors. Our next guest is Navendu Pottekkat, who’s a Maintainer of Apache APISIX, the Cloud Native API Gateway. Navendu tells us about his experience in contributing to building, scaling, and maintaining open source projects, his involvement in mentorship programs, and the importance of people focusing on balancing the code with the community aspect. Download this episode now to hear much more!

Bob:

[00:02:00] Bob’s role at Google encourages him to contribute and to be active in the Kubernetes community and being part of the OSPO, where he’s focused on maintaining the overall health of the project and keeping track of various services.

[00:03:02] He’s been in the open source space since mid-2000s and was already working on Kubernetes before joining Google.

[00:04:16] We hear about the Contributor Experience Special Interest Group, what Bob does there, and the mentoring cohort approach the Kubernetes community has to help grow people into maintainer roles.

[00:07:56] Since Kubernetes avoids private Slack channels, Bob explains how he asks questions in an open place.

[00:08:45] Bob finds it challenging to maintain his role in special interest groups while working full-time, as there is always an endless backlog of issues and prioritizing and triaging can be difficult.

[00:09:45] What keeps Bob working there? Well, he enjoys the people he works with and going to KubeCon events has helped him connect with so many people.

[00:11:45] Something Bob is looking forward to doing is stepping down from some of his leadership roles and mentoring others to replace him.

[00:13:15] Bob shares some advice to his potential replacement, and he discusses the importance of titles in helping people understand the time investment and leadership responsibilities of being a maintainer.

[00:16:12] He explains the value of a defined contributor ladder to recognize and motivate contributors.

[00:16:50] Find out where you can read more about Bob and his work on the web.

Navendu:

[00:19:29] Our next guest is Navendu, and he tells us about APISIX.

[00:21:03] Navendu talks about how he got involved in open source and how he mentors students and new developers who are interested in building stuff in the cloud. Also, he tells us about being a part of the Linux Foundation mentorship program.

[00:23:35] We hear about Navendu’s involvement in mentorship programs like Google Summer of Code and the Linux Foundation mentorship program.

[00:25:30] There’s a discussion on the importance of stipends for students and how mentorship is an important aspect of open source projects.

[00:26:42] Navendu mentions that it’s easy to convince him company and the APISIX community about the importance of mentorship and community in open source.

[00:28:24] What’s hard about open source for Navendu? He mentions that working on open source projects can be overwhelming especially when there are always issues that need to be addressed and pull requests that need to be reviewed.

[00:30:11] We hear some tips for people to step up to take of the community, and Navendu encourages users and community members to get involved.

[00:32:20] Find out where you can learn more about Navendu and APISIX online.

Quote from Bob:

[00:14:23] “That title winds up being a much bigger thing because it’s easier to explain than hey, I’m a lead of this.”

Quotes from Navendu:

[00:23:11] “Being online 24/7 is taking a toll on my health and is not sustainable.”

[00:26:52] “There is always some aspect of mentorship when you’re working on open source projects.”

[00:29:46] “If you have people focus on community it helps.”

[00:30:41] “At some point, some maintainers have to step up and take care of the community.”

Special Guests: Bob Killen and Navendu Pottekkat.

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Nick Vidal | Masae Shida

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is roaming the halls at FOSS Backstage 2023 this week, and you just never know who you’re going to bump into. He grabs Nick Vidal, the new Community Manager for ClearlyDefined, which is an open-source project that aims to bring clarity to licensing information for open-source projects. Nick is trying to reach out to different communities to work together, such as OpenSSF and Open Research Toolkit. Nick and Richard discuss the licensing issues related to AI, particularly regarding chatbot models like ChatGPT. They talk about copyright issues related to gathering data, images, and texts from the internet and feeding them into proprietary models.

His next guest is Masae Shida, a Senior Program Manager at VMware. Masae is in Berlin to talk about why Asian participation in open source is not as significant as it should be. She talks about how Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are important for companies as they lead to higher productivity and innovation. However, in open source, she has noticed that the number of Asian participants is much lower than expected, even though there are large populations in Asian countries like India and China. Masae aims to identify the barriers preventing Asian participation in open source and find ways to overcome them.

Download this episode now!

Special Guests: Masae Shida and Nick Vidal.

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Sarah Boyce | David Blass

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a special podcast and one of several in this series for GitHub’s Maintainer Month. We’re interviewing actual maintainers of open source code to talk about what they do, how they like it, and what they need to keep going. Today, we’re very excited to have two guests joining us. Our first guest is Sarah Boyce, who’s a Backend Developer at CheMondis and member of Django’s review and triage team. She talks about her role, her contributions to Django, her experiences on the review and triage team, and shares advice for those contemplating becoming a maintainer. Our second guest is David Blass, who’s a full-time JavaScript open source developer and Founder of ArkType, which is a TypeScript validation system. David discusses community feedback, improvements in the new release, the potential monetization of the project, and the TypeScript market and potential for growth of ArkType. Press download to hear more!

Sarah:

[00:01:13] Sarah tells us about her work with Django, ways it overlaps with her work at CheMondis, and her journey doing open source work and getting involved in Django.

[00:03:04] Sarah talks about her contributions to Django and the Python ecosystem, as well as her experiences being on the triage and review team.

[00:04:35] We hear about the supportive and friendly community of Django.

[00:07:07] Despite being unpaid, Sarah explains how her open source work has helped her gain personal and professional benefits.

[00:09:54] We learn how Sarah manages her time effectively with all the extra volunteer work, badminton, painting, and work.

[00:11:34] Why Django? Sarah fills us in on why Django was interesting to her.

[00:12:26] Sarah tells us what she’s looking forward to, such as meeting other contributors and maintainers of Django.

[00:13:26] The hardest thing for Sarah was the anxiety around doing the first jump and raising the first PR. Also, dealing with people who disagree and get contentious can be challenging.

[00:15:09] Her advice to someone contemplating becoming a maintainer is to do some research first, double-check that the repository has a code of conduct, and check the vibe of the conversation before jumping in.

[00:16:59] Find out where you can follow Sarah on the web.

David:

[00:19:07] Joining us now is David Blass. He tells us about ArkType, which is a validator for runtime data that mirrors TypeScript’s syntax for defining types.

[00:20:50] David explains TypeScript and how it offers a developer experience.

[00:24:51] We learn about David’s passion with ArkType and his community of contributors.

[00:26:50] David discusses the funding model, how he’s looking for VC funding and is open to other funding models that allow the project to continue as a purely open source project if that’s viable.

[00:27:52] David has another core maintainer that work with him, and he tells us what he does.

[00:29:10] ArkType is still at the alpha stage and has not been broadly adopted in production yet, but David plans to make a push in the next couple of months.

[00:32:26] What is the goal of ArkType?

[00:34:09] Richard and David discuss the TypeScript market and the potential for growth of ArkType.

[00:35:58] David shares some final thoughts about the potential monetization of the project, such as using the validation system for instrumented code that checks code that checks code execution for validity and suggests that investors could contact him if interested.

[00:37:34] Find out where you can follow David on the web.

Sarah:

[00:05:26] “Everything we do is very much in the open and we want to keep it as much in the open as possible, so we don’t have a group of people who have access to information that other people don’t have access to.”

[00:11:39] “Django found me; I didn’t find Django.”

[00:15:25] “Before you make your first PR, double check that they have a Code of Conduct. It’s a good sign if it is there.”

[00:15:46] “[Before contributing], I would look on a couple of the issues or PR’s and check the vibe of the conversation.”

David:

[00:21:37] “The more you scale a project the more important it is to have static types and clean interfaces.”

[00:26:10] “Just to have people who are so deeply engaged with what you’re doing and invested has been such a rewarding thing for me.”

[00:26:23] “It’s one thing to know that something’s theoretically important, but it’s another to just have the day-to-day sustenance and engagement you need to feel like you can give it your all.”

Special Guests: David Blass and Sarah Boyce.

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Chris Baker | Stephen Jacobs

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Abby Cabunoc Mayes

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we are excited to have as our guests, Chris Baker and Stephen Jacobs, who work at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). Chris is the Assistant Director for the Open@RIT Program Office, and Stephen is a Professor at RIT and the Founder of Open@RIT.

Our conversations today focus on how academia is trying to integrate open source into traditional academic practices, and how OSPO’s are creating standards and best practices. Stephen and Chris also discuss how to help students deal with diverse incentives in open source and academia, the importance of role diversity in software development, and Stephen advocates for policy change to recognize the value of open work and to give credit to those who do it. Download this episode to hear more!

[00:01:39] Chris fills us in on Open RIT where they’re working to build open community and foster collaboration in the open space.

[00:03:19] Stephen tells us about RIT having an open source department that teaches open source classes, offers an academic minor, and has an experiential education program.

[00:07:50] Abby wonders if OSPO’s are creating more career pathways, and Stephen explains they hope to create more opportunities in open source work in the future.

[00:10:19] We hear about The Boyer’s model of scholarship, and a classification system of four types of scholarship, and Stephen mentions the classic “Einstein Eureka” model being one of many, and he brings up Open Work Definition that RIT and a couple of other collaborators put out.

[00:15:06] Stephen talks about The Sloan Foundation and why they’re so interested in the research space of open source.

[00:17:37] Open@RIT was founded by Stephen, Chris is the Assistant Director, and Mike Nolan is the Associate Director, and we’ll hear about their responsibilities.

[00:19:03] Chris explains how he’s helping students deal with diverse incentives in open source and academia, and Stephen adds there’s a need for educating on open science practices.

[00:23:45] Stephen believes that policy need to change to recognize the value of open work and to give credit to those who do it. He also discusses the importance of role diversity in software development and how it can lead to more DEIA friendly projects.

[00:27:10] What successful alumni came out of the Open@RIT? How about Justin Flory Jenn Kotler, and our very own Django Skorupa.

[00:29:29] Chris and Stephen talk about other avenues they’re pursuing to help teach open work outside of the university, and the FOSSY conference is mentioned.

[00:33:59] Find out where you can learn more about Open work at RIT and where you can follow Chris and Stephen on the web.

[00:04:25] “We became the second university with an OSPO.”

[00:19:42] “We’re taking students given their backgrounds, whether it be full-stack developers, or graphic design, and using that to produce the structure for open work inside of research.”

Special Guests: Chris Baker and Stephen Jacobs.

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Smera Goel | Dotan Horovits

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2023 that is held in Berlin every year.

Today, Richard has two guests joining him. He meets up with Smera Goel who was featured on Episode 3 of our Sustain Open Source Design Podcast. Richard catches up with her and what has been going on the past year and a half. Smera is a Product Designer and an Outreachy Mentor for Fedora. She is also the Mentor Project Representative for Fedora, in charge of looking after the participation of Fedora in different mentorship programs such as Outreachy and Google Summer of Code. Smera works for a startup in Berlin that has some open-source offerings, and she got her job from an open-source design job board. Richard and Smera discuss mentoring mentors and mentees in the context of software sustainability.

Richard’s next guest is Dotan Horovits, who’s the Principal Developer Advocate at Logz.io. and he tells us about his own podcast called "OpenObservability Talks." He explains the dominance of closed-source vendors in the observability space, which has led to a siloed and vendor-locked situation. They also discuss how observability is important for cloud-based web applications and large production systems and how open-source projects should have an open door to the CNCF and how collaborations between different foundations can be beneficial. Download this episode to hear more!

Special Guests: Dotan Horovits and Smera Goel.

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Dawn Wages

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, Richard is very excited to have as his guest, Dawn Wages, who’s the Python Community Advocate at Microsoft, Core Team Member for Wagtail, DjangoCon Organizer, and Director and Treasurer for the Python Software Foundation. We’ll hear Dawn’s journey into how she got involved with the PSF and as a Python Community Advocate at Microsoft, she explains how to become a PSF member, as well as the benefits, since they’ve made some changes recently. She explains where she falls on the ethical source divide and dives into the AntiRacist Ethical Source License, which is her niche. Also, she shares advice on how communities can be more sustainable at navigating conflict in their communities and reveals that we should lead with empathy. If you’re looking at going to a conference this year, there’s some great DjangoCon’s and a PyCon going on that are worth checking out. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:03:31] We hear how Dawn got involved with the PSF and how she became the Python Community Advocate at Microsoft.

[00:05:23] Dawn shares why foundations in the open source space seem to continually have this community voting way of entering into the board, if she thinks it’s healthy, and if she thought about it when she was working on Django’s new process.

[00:08:27] Both dollars and time are things which are often barriers to entry for DEI, so how does that help diversity, equity, and inclusion versus how it hurts it? Also, we hear about Wagtail and Torchbox and what they do.

[00:11:40] Dawn mentioned that the PSF lowered the dollar amount and Open Collective, so now we hear the benefits it gives to an individual to become a member of the PSF, if that’s something people should think about if they’re working in Python, and if it’s possible to join on behalf of the project and not their company.

[00:13:30] We hear about a tool called, Fiscal Sponsoree, with the PSF.

[00:14:50] Dawn fills us in on DjangoCon 2023, the financing structure for keeping Django going, how they think about sustainability in their community, and DjangoCon Africa 2023.

[00:16:51] What does a sponsored chair do?

[00:19:04] Richard wonders how Dawn thinks about the return on investment for her ultimate strategy, why these conferences, and what’s the ultimate narrative arc for her seventh season open source Bajor story. Also, she explains why she’s the treasurer.

[00:22:56] Richard explains what the Ethical Source Movement is and wonders how Dawn holds the tension and where she falls on the ethical source divide.

[00:24:37] We hear Richard’s opinion on one of the problems with open source requiring a huge layout of upfront investment in hours and time and no guarantee that it will pay off, and the work being detrimental to mental health of people working on it. Dawn talks about the Anti-Racist License and explains the “PIES” check-in.

[00:28:12] Dawn shares advice on how to help communities be more sustainable at navigating trauma and conflict in their communities without it becoming a drain on resources.

[00:31:00] Listen here for a list of conferences you should go to that are Python and Django and where you can follow Dawn on the web.

[00:08:58] “Open source is not accessible for everyone, and it’s not a great method for everyone. It is people who have support elsewhere somehow.”

[00:26:34] “I think there are tools we can use to be able to acknowledge the humanity of the individuals contributing, and being flexible and thoughtful about the goals we are trying to meet as a collective, and the goals the individual is trying to contribute or try to receive.”

Special Guest: Dawn Wages.

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Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2023 that is held in Berlin every year. Today, Richard speaks with Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz, CEO of Kaleidos, and creator of Penpot and Taiga. The episode focuses on open-source design and how open-source products can be successful. They discuss how Kaleidos started as a consultancy company, but eventually became a full open-source products company. They also talk about the benefits and risks of focusing entirely on open-source products, as well as the importance of beauty and art in technology. Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz has been in open source since 1996 and witnessed Spain's huge trend in open source. Download this episode now to hear more!

Special Guest: Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz.

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Paul Berschick | Oleg Nenashev

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain!

We are at FOSS Backstage 2023 this week, and our host Richard is joined by Paul Berschick, who’s the organizer of the conference. Paul has been involved with Foss Backstage from the beginning in 2017, and he talks about the development of the event and how it has grown over the years. He mentions that the pandemic helped to refocus the conference and reach more people online. Paul also talks about his company, Plain Schwarz. Learn about Paul’s story, his views on the future of open source, and the personal growth required to get where he is today.

Richard’s next guest is Oleg Nenashev, TOC chair and community ambassador for the Continuous Delivery Foundation (CDF), and a core maintainer and board member of Jenkins. We hear about Oleg’s talk at FOSS Backstage, the public roadmap initiative in Jenkins. Oleg explains the obstacles he faced, what could have been done better, and how to make open source projects more sustainable and less fragile in general.

Download this episode now to hear more!

Special Guests: Oleg Nenashev and Paul Berschick.

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Thomas Steenbergen | Josep Prat

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2023 that’s held in Berlin every year. On this episode, Richard has two guests joining him. His first guest is Thomas Steenbergen, co-founder and organizer for the TODO Group Europe and Head of the Open Source Program Office at EPAM Systems. Thomas talks about his current workshop, OSS Review Toolkit, his background as a software developer, and the three important aspects of open-source software: consuming, compliance, and contributing back. Richard’s next guest is Josep Prat, who’s the Open Source Engineering Director at Aiven. Aiven provides software as a service including Kafka and Cassandra with around 500 employees, and despite its size, it has an open-source program office that focuses on employing people to work full-time on open-source projects. Josep talks about the importance of hiring people with the right mentality, and they look for people who care deeply about open source and communities and are not just in it for the fame and glory of open source. Also, he talks about the importance of diversity in open-source projects, as well at the Plankton program at Aiven for people who want to do contributions in their free time. Download this episode to hear much more!

Special Guests: Josep Prat and Thomas Steenbergen.

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Hugi Ásgeirsson | Silona Bonewald | Marco Möller

Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome back to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Richard is at the State of Open Con 2023 UK in London, and he’s excited to have his first ever in-person podcasts. Today, he has three guests joining him. His first guest is Hugi Ásgeirsson, who’s the Strategy & Partnerships Director at Open Collective Europe. He talks about the differences and benefits between Open Collective in the US vs Europe. Richard’s next guest is a Sustain favorite, Silona Bonewald, who’s the Executive Director for IEEE SA Open. Silona dives into DE&I at conferences and how IEEE and SA Open help with Sustainability. Finally, Marco Möller joins the podcast. Marco is the Co-Founder and Managing Director at PIONIX. We’ll learn how open source is helping sustain our environment, via EV Charging solutions powered by Open Source. Interested in finding out more? Hit play now and enjoy this episode.

[00:01:12] Hugi explains how Open Collective Europe fits within Open Collective.

[00:03:48] Why does tax structure matter for hosting Open Source projects? Hugi explains the benefits of funding via OCE vs other parts of the world.

[00:07:16] If Hugi works for Open Collective Europe...as in the EU, why is he at a conference in the UK? We learn how 50% of all philanthropic donations in Europe happen in the UK.

[00:08:34] Hugi discusses his favorite discussions heard at State of Open Con 2023 UK and the takeaways. One word… resilience.

[00:13:14] Find out where you can follow Hugi and Open Collective Europe on the web.

[00:16:11] Silona now joins Richard. Silona talks about if the sustainability of the ecosystem still depends upon individual members of large projects and corporation at these conferences. Does it help or hurt?

[00:17:42] We hear about types of diversity and inclusion that's left out of the conferences.

[00:20:40] Silona explains what IEEE and SA Open is, the differences, and her on-going work there.

[00:26:29] Richard ask Silona how their platform lends itself towards a more sustainable, more diverse market or ecosystem of open source.

[00:31:34] If you want to get involved, Silona gives us two sites you can check out (linked below).

[00:32:07] Find out all the places you can follow Silona on the web.

[00:33:45] Richard has on a different and special guest for us as the final interview of the conference, Marco Möller. Marco gives us his background and his links to Open Source.

[00:35:35] Marco explains how EV Charging works, and how his company PIONIX fit in.

[00:36:41] We learn how PIONIX, and their EV charging system is powered by open source and is the main contributor to EVerest.

[00:40:46] Marco goes into LF Energy’s (A Linux Foundation Project) involvement in PIONIX.

[00:43:59] Richard is curious to find out more about PIONIX’s investors.

[00:49:33] Want to learn more about PIONIX, the repository, or Marco himself? He tells us where to find him on the internet.

Special Guests: Hugi Ásgeirsson, Marco Möller, and Silona Bonewald.

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