Sustain

Clare Dillon

Richard Littauer | Leslie Hawthorn | Justin Dorfman

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we are excited to have joining us Clare Dillon, who’s the Executive Director of InnerSource Commons and works with the OSPO++ Network to support the establishment of University and Government Open Source Program Offices globally. In 2021, she Co-founded Open Ireland Network, which is a community of people talking about open source in Ireland. Our discussions today take us through how Clare got into open source and involved with InnerSource Commons, their relationship with the TODO Group, and the importance of the Japanese community in the InnerSource Commons. Also, since Clare Co-founded the Open Ireland Network, she fills us in on what it is, and gives an overview of the research and her findings from a report that was produced with the Irish government on, “Open Source and InnerSource Skills in Ireland: A Call for Action.” There is much more, so download this episode now!

[00:02:07] Clare shares her background story of how she got into open source, how she joined an Irish company called Nearform, and meeting Danese Cooper, who introduced her to open source and the concept of InnerSource.

[00:04:48] We hear how Clare got involved with InnerSource Commons with Danese Cooper.

[00:06:47] When talking about InnerSource Commons, Clare goes in depth on how many people are active members, separate members, and since it’s a 501(c)(3), how big the budget is. She also explains how InnerSource is more about the methods and practices.

[00:11:31] Leslie wonders if Clare has found in her experience that organizations that come to InnerSource who may not have any experience with open source are more disposed to community engagement or doing co-development outside of the firewall after they get that experience with InnerSource.

[00:16:11] Clare tells us her thoughts about the long-term implications for the health of the open source ecosystem.

[00:19:11] On the InnerSource Commons website there is English and Japanese, and we find out how active it is for the people who speak Japanese into InnerSource.

[00:21:01] We hear about the InnerSource Commons relationship to the TODO Group and Anna Jiménez, who’s a community participant at InnerSource Commons as well.

[00:22:34] Since Clare is the Co-founder of Open Ireland Network, she tells us what it is and gives an overview of the research and her findings from a skills report that was just produced with the Irish government.

[00:28:07] We learn is there’s any intent to support the skills agenda in Ireland with more open source work, and if the Irish government plans for economic development in Ireland if that’s something that the Open Ireland Network is encouraging.

[00:31:47] Clare shares some thoughts on the long-term implications of nationalistic approaches towards open source markets.

[00:36:31] Find out where you can read the report and follow Clare on the web.

[00:09:54] “Many of the original founders of InnerSource Commons were motivated by the idea of creating a whole new set of people who were able and willing to collaborate in the open source community so that they had that experience within their jobs, and therefore would be more likely and able to contribute either within their jobs or in their own private time to the open source community.”

[00:26:54] “What was really fascinating to me was there was almost equal emphasis in the folks that responded to the survey about the non-technical skills. So where are the people in sales and marketing who understand this ecosystem? Where are the people in legal professions who understand the legal agreements necessary?”

[00:29:33] “One of the most interesting areas that folks are now beginning to be aware of is that it’s not just the technology that gives you a leapfrog in, but also market access.”

[00:29:54] “When I was talking to some of the industry development agencies in Ireland, the idea that there are industry vertical foundations focusing on innovation in particular areas were a huge interest to them.”

[00:34:32] “If you’re enabling people to do open source in any nation, it enables collaboration across nations.”

Special Guest: Clare Dillon.

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Kailash Nadh

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We’re super excited to have as our guest today, Kailash Nadh. In 2020, he co-founded the FOSS United Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports the FOSS ecosystem in India, where he serves as director. He also has been the CTO of Zerodha, India’s largest stock broking firm for the last decade. Today, our conversations with Kailash will take through the FOSS program at Zerodha, and he’ll explain how they’ve grown to be one of the largest financial tech companies in India. He’ll take us through the journey of starting the FOSS Foundation, Zerodha’s funding for FOSS, and Kailash explains why people getting interested in open source is such a huge valuable concept and philosophy. Download this episode now to learn more!

[00:02:20] Kailash tells us about the FOSS program at Zerodha and being a CTO.

[00:06:46] There’s a FOSS Pledge on the FOSS United website and Kailash explains who it’s for and if anyone can sign it.

[00:08:04] We learn about Zerodha’s yearly budget to the FOSS Foundation.

[00:10:36] A question comes up if there are any documents or resources Kailash has in place to help ensure that their interests at Zerodha don’t erode away the native interests of any open source project.

[00:13:04] Kailash tells us about paperd.ink.

[00:15:04] Justin is curious to know if every part of the product is open source or if there’s some type of proprietary in there and what their focus is for the funds.

[00:16:01] Dwayne O’Brien’s name comes up with the FOSS Contributor Fund, and if Kailash has ever talked to him.

[00:17:32] Since it’s hard to find people to fund right now, Richard wonders what the intake process is for Kailash to get new contributors and maintainers.

[00:18:26] Does Zerodha have Community Managers or social media people to help out the foundation?

[00:20:27] We hear about the different conferences in India.

[00:23:58] Kailash explains what the people were interested in hearing about at the FOSS focused events and how enticing it is for people to go to them.

[00:28:41] We hear Kailash’s views on what he thinks about people getting interested in open source, and he tells us about the social development sector.

[00:34:23] A questions comes up if there are any resources people could reach out to if they are in the NGO sector, or social sector. where they can learn what FOSS tools are best for them.

[00:36:15] Find out where you can follow Kailash and his work online.

[00:04:00] “We have close to zero SaaS subscriptions even as a really large enterprise.”

[00:04:20] “FOSS really is why Zerodha exists today in the form it does.”

[00:04:31] “We’ve grown to be one of the largest financial tech companies in India all on the back of FOSS.”

[00:06:32] “Building everything community first, first principles, is really key.”

[00:08:50] “At Zerodha, we’ve set aside one million dollars a year minimum to fund FOSS.”

[00:20:29] “The conference a few months ago was IndiaFOSS, then a conference that happened in Kochi they named KochiFOSS, then DelhiFOSS, and there’s an upcoming one MumbaiFOSS, which has a nice ring to it. This evolved organically with people in Kochi because they really wanted to call it KochiFOSS to identify with the city.”

[00:32:50] “FOSS is the answer to the massive systematic risk that is the lack of technical capacity in the most dire of needs.”

Special Guest: Kailash Nadh.

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Dudley Carr | Wes Carr

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. On this episode, we have two guests joining us. Today, we’ll be talking with Dudley Carr and Wes Carr, who are brothers and Founders of StackAid, which is a monthly subscription you can use to automatically fund all of your dependencies. We’ll be discussing all things StackAid, learn more about Wes and Dudley’s backgrounds, some long-term goals they have, and exciting things on the horizon for StackAid. Go ahead and download this episode now to learn more!

[00:02:43] Wes tells us what StackAid is and how it’s different. Also, he explains why they chose to only fund first and second order.

[00:05:44] Since StackAid’s goal is to help developers get money for their careers, we find out how many users are using the platform, how many maintainers, and their corporate sponsor.

[00:06:58] In 2006, their start-up got acquired, so we hear about that start-up.

[00:09:17] Dudley worked at Google and then switched to Moz and started working on Node.js stuff, and he explains when he made the decision to start tackling dependency payments, helping maintainers, and how they’re self-funding the work.

[00:13:41] We’ll find about Sentry being the only corporate sponsor currently for StackAid and why the most important base they can rely on is individual developers.

[00:19:14] Richard wonders what Wes and Dudley are going to do to convince developers to donate more of their money besides putting out content and they explain what their focus is right now.

[00:22:23] A question comes up if Wes or Dudley have looked into the minimum viable income that they think has an effect on a project’s health.

[00:24:49] We hear what Wes and Dudley are doing to help diversify the developer stack and how they allocate their funds.

[00:28:59] Dudley explains the reasons why they have zero guides to for people to tell them how they should spend their money in order to make the project more sustainable.

[00:31:44] Wes shares the hardest part about building StackAid so far, and some long- term goals and exciting things coming up for StackAid.

[00:38:08] Find out where you can follow along with Wes and Dudley online.

[00:08:13] “We attended a peer-to-peer conference back in the day where Shawn Fanning was attending this kind of stuff, and then we bumped into some Google people.”

[00:09:30] “Wes and I have been close to open source for a very long time. We’ve consumed it since the late nineties and have benefited from it tremendously.”

[00:10:36] “We wanted to make a concrete contribution back into the open source community in some form.”

[00:17:16] “I think evangelism is super important.”

[00:17:50] “It’s like saying I’m not going to recycle, but I expect the company that I work for to recycle.”

[00:23:50] “There’s an amount of space that we need to be able to buy people and give them that freedom and that cushion so that they can think of new things or reinvest it in things that they’ve done.”

Special Guests: Dudley Carr and Wes Carr.

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Richard Littauer | Pia Mancini | Ben Nickolls

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a short episode today because we are headed to London in early February for a Sustain event. Why are we going to London? Well, it’s the State of Open Con 2023, February 7-8, an event that is all things open source, including legal, governance, technology itself, hardware, and data, put on mainly by Amanda Brock and Open UK, and funded by IEEE SA and many other sponsors. You’ll find out all the details on this event, how to get tickets, and the two-day session Sustain is having that they would love for you to join in on. Download this episode now to learn more!

[00:00:44] Ben gives all the details on what’s going on in London with State of Open Con 2023.

[00:02:29] Find out how you can get your hands on some tickets to the event, and if you need any financial assistance, they are offering it, but it is limited.

[00:04:13] Pia fills us in on why she’s going to this event and the two-day sessions they are having for Sustain about different topics, and they would love for everyone to join them.

[00:05:26] Since FOSDEM 2023 is happening February 4-5 in Brussels, Ben points out there will probably be a lot of people traveling from that event to this one by train, so try to make plans for a rest day before this event kicks off.

[00:06:40] If you’re going to FOSDEM, get in touch with Justin Dorfman or Abigail Mayes because they’re putting on an awesome event there.

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Dustin Ingram

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Joining us today is Dustin Ingram, who’s a Staff Software Engineer on Google’s Open Source Security Team, where he works on improving the security of open source software that Google and the rest of the world relies on. He’s also the director of the Python Software Foundation and maintainer of the Python Package Index. Today, we’ll learn about the Open Source Security Team at Google, what they do, the bill they’ve contributed to for Securing Open Source Software Act of 2022, a rewards program they have to pay maintainers called SOS rewards, and Google’s role in the Sigstore project. Also, Dustin talks about the Python Package Index, he shares his opinion on the difference between security and sustainability, and what he’s most excited about with work going on in the next year or two. Download this episode now to find out more!

[00:01:10] Dustin fills us in on the Open Source Security Team at Google, what they do there, how they prioritize which packages to work on, and which security bugs to work on.

[00:03:25] We hear about the team at Google working on the bill 4913 Securing Open Source Software Act of 2022.

[00:04:18] Justin brings up Dan Lorenc and Sigstore, and we learn Google’s role in this project and making sure it’s adopted more heavily in the supply chain.

[00:06:05] Dustin explains the model on how Google is working to make sure these projects stick together, and he tells us how an open source maintainer can make their code more reliable by going to Sigstore and other sites to talk to people.

[00:09:26] How does Google prioritize and choose which projects are the most important and where they’re going to dedicate developer time to do that work?

[00:11:02] Dustin works on the Python Package Index, and he explains what it is, and with the PSF, how many directors they have, and how much he interfaces with other people there.

[00:12:17] We hear how Dustin dealt with the fallout from the backlash that happened during the mandatory multifactor authentication for the critical projects.

[00:16:52] When it comes to security, Richard wonders if Dustin has put a lot of thought into different grades of where it exists and who it’s for, as well as if there’s a ten to fifty year plan for the maintainers who move on to do other things and people are not going to be developing at all.

[00:19:13] Are there plans around educations for maintainers and communities on how to onboard new maintainers and how to increase security without increasing load time for the maintainers working on their projects?

[00:20:21] We hear what the Securing Open Source Software Act is all about.

[00:22:21] Now that open source is the dominant distribution, Dustin shares his thoughts on if open source will stop working and explains the real strength of open source.

[00:24:09] Richard brings up the US government trying to secure their supply chain, working with future maintainers, code packages, working with foundations to figure out how we secure the ecosystem at a large, and wonders if Dustin sees a way for the government to try and secure open source and not regulate it, but try to figure how to manage it without the help of foundations or package managers.

[00:26:56] Dustin shares his opinion on the difference between security and sustainability and what he thinks about that and what he’s most excited about with work going on in the next year or two.

[00:30:28] Find out where you can follow Dustin and his work on the web.

[00:03:34] “After Log4j, the government got really spooked because they really didn’t know what software they were consuming, and President Biden did an executive order on securing a nation’s cybersecurity, which was about setting a policy for how the government should consume open source.”

[00:08:11] “We also do some other things to make that a little easier for open source maintainers to adopt these technologies.”

[00:08:17] “One thing we have is a rewards program called SOS.dev, and that’s a way that maintainers can get paid for doing what we feel is relevant security work.”

[00:21:01] “The US government consumes a lot of open source software. They have a dependency on a lot more than most large companies that you can think of.”

[00:21:11] “The answer to Log4j is not to stop using open source, it’s to get better practices around determining what you have and just do industry best practices for finding and fixing vulnerabilities.”

Special Guest: Dustin Ingram.

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Naytri Sramek

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we’re super excited to have joining us as our guest, Naytri Sramek, who’s the Senior Director of Strategy at GitHub. Have you heard of the GitHub Accelerator and M12 GitHub Fund? Well, this is a great day to be joining us because Naytri is here to talk about these programs that they’ve been launching to help support and sustain OSS over the long haul. Naytri shares GitHub’s journey which began with the GitHub Sponsors launch in 2019, bringing on enterprise sponsors, and how it led into launching the GitHub Accelerator program and the M12 GitHub Fund. Go ahead and download this episode now to learn more.

[00:01:23] Naytri reveals the two things they’ve been launching which are the GitHub Accelerator and the M12 GitHub Fund. She also tells us about bringing on enterprise sponsors since they’ve benefited from open source.

[00:06:25] Peter Thomas, who worked at Intuit and is creator of Karate Labs, is brought up and Justin wonders if he’s involved in this venture or if there are others.

[00:09:37] A question comes up regarding if the growth of the projects has been tracked with the money that GitHub has given to developers, if they’ve been able to quit their jobs since the money was given to them, and if those projects have improved.

[00:15:35] We hear the focus of the GitHub sponsors, the Accelerator, and the M12 Fund.

[00:19:57] Justin brings up the difficult issue of how to deal with developers that build these critical pieces of software, but they don’t want to deal with the responsibility and wonders how Naytri and her team deal with this issue.

[00:23:18] There’s a 10-week course for the accelerator program and we hear how it works, and if it will be available to everyone in the future on GitHub.

[00:29:28] Naytri explains how the communities are being funded.

[00:32:47] A point is brought up about how long can these strategies and programs live on so maintainers and open source developers can make a good living, and Naytri goes in depth about the need for more sources of funding and funding models.

[00:36:34] Find out where you can learn more about the GitHub Accelerator and the M12 Fund.

[00:17:40] “The M12 GitHub Fund is all about how we do invest in the tools that are built on GitHub’s platform.”

[00:24:33] “I want 20 people making $200,000 a year.”

[00:24:58] “The GitHub Accelerator course itself will be open source.”

[00:28:08] “As we’ve expanded the program into more countries, we’ve doubled the number of countries that sponsors cover right now.”

[00:30:10] “Commits aren’t universal. You shouldn’t just be rewarded for the code.”

[00:33:07] “The way we’re thinking about the accelerator and the fund is we need so many more sources of funding and funding models to be able to support open source creators as well as communities.”

Special Guest: Naytri Sramek.

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Ali Nehzat

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Get ready for an exciting guest today as we welcome, Ali Nehzat, who’s a Software Engineer with a preference for embedded systems and Founder of thanks.dev. Ali’s been around for a while, and he realized that the open source ecosystem needs some help, and his focus is specifically on the OSS funding problem. Today, we’ll learn more about Ali’s story of why he started thanks.dev, what motivated him, people that inspired him through his journey, and he reveals his mission for OSS developers. But it doesn’t stop there! Ali dives into different aspects he’s experimenting for funding, he tells us how payouts are supported so developers get paid, and how he’s planning on making this more sustainable. Download this episode now to find out more!

[00:02:53] We find out the difference between thanks.dev and the other platforms, and Ali tells us his story about being motivated by Brian Carlson from the Node.js community, who’s behind node-postgres.

[00:08:13] Ali talks about thanks.dev’s approach with helping to convince people to give money to open source.

[00:11:20] We hear the tools that thanks.dev offers to its engineers to help them figure out how to sell giving back to open source.

[00:14:07] After having conversations with OSPO companies, Ali explains how everything is a learning experience currently with thanks.dev, and he states the reason for thanks.dev not getting involved with code of conduct right now and what the mission is.

[00:17:51] Licensing landscape is brought up by Ali and the conversations happening around it.

[00:20:51] Ali fills us in on the insightful conversations he had with Joel Wasserman who really helped him in his journey, as well as other people, with thanks.dev, as well as some ideas to solve the funding with open source and make sure thanks.dev is sustainable going forward.

[00:23:05] As far as projects go, Ali tells us who’s he’s worked with to get more funding.

[00:26:06] Justin wonders if there’s any papers Ali’s read dealing with the complexities and edge cases, he explains how he would like to publish blog posts he wrote, and the testing and the experiments he’s been doing, and the impact Duane O’Brien from Indeed has made.

[00:29:28] Richard brings up payment payouts and wonders how Ali is making sure the money actually gets to the developers and that helps the sustainability of those projects.

[00:33:50] Ali is currently not getting a salary for this, but he tells us how fundraising through family and friends helped him, and how he’s planning to make this sustainable for him.

[00:35:37] Find out where you can follow Ali on the web.

[00:03:20] “Currently, thanks.dev is focusing on an experiment if you make it super easy for companies to donate to their dependency trees, what would be the outcome of that?”

[00:04:41] “When I got interested in the funding space and in the challenges that open source maintainers face, it was actually all motivated by Brian Carlson in the Node.js community, who’s the person behind node-postgres.”

[00:06:35] “It’s not just funding, it’s project management and it’s community management. There’s a whole array of other problems that can be attacked.”

[00:09:12] “When I hit that barrier, the approach I took was to add a line item to my invoices for the OSS ecosystem.”

[00:22:02] “The biggest learning is that to solve the funding problem in open source, you have to look at it from the perspective of the marketplace.”

[00:23:50] “Then there’s a whole cohort of donors on GitHub and Open Collective that are engineering managers that are going to their own organizations and getting donations done and figuring out the motivations and actions behind these people.”

[00:26:52] “The input that Duane O'Brien has had on thanks.dev has made such a huge impact.”

Special Guest: Ali Nehzat.

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Jan Ainali

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. On this episode, we have an amazing guest, Jan Ainali, who’s a steward at the Foundation for Public Code, where they develop tools, processes, and collecting best practices for community building. Earlier, he ran a consultancy called Open by Default and he was swept into the ‘open movement’ through Wikipedia editing and leading him to cofound the Swedish Wikimedia chapter and become chairman and later, CEO. Today, we’ll learn all the details about the Foundation for Public Code, the process of becoming a member, what sets them apart from others, and their Standard for Public Code that is for anyone who wants to prepare their code to be collaborated on. Also, Jan shares what’s he looking forward to in the next few months about the standard and the Foundation for Public Code. Download this episode now to learn much more!

[00:02:02] Jan tells us about the Foundation for Public Code, as well as how many member organizations it has.

[00:03:43] With only one member currently, we find out if Jan is trying to get others on to work with the foundation, he explains the process of becoming of member with them, and the team sizes that are directly working with them.

[00:07:02] We learn what sets apart the Foundation for Public Code from the other trans-provincial and trans-governmental organizations that are doing the work of InnerSource Commons but with politics. He also goes into the policies that have gone into code that he’s worked on.

[00:09:46] Wikimedia and Wikipedia have chapters, and Jan reveals how big his was, how many other chapters there are in the world, and the difference between them.

[00:11:15] Find out who Sverker Johansson is and what he did.

[00:13:12] Jan tells us more about the Standard for Public Code, what it is, how it applies, who wrote it, and we hear the 16 criteria for it.

[00:18:13] Jan explains the “must be in plain English” requirement and what the global efforts are for the Foundation for Public Code.

[00:20:13] We learn how Jan is making it beneficial for everyone to join in a way that helps them out as being super awesome and grow the network that way.

[00:21:02] Has Jan gotten any pushback from developers in other places?

[00:22:24] Jan tells us businesses he’s working with to help push this initiative forward.

[00:24:38] We hear if there’s a sign on process for getting people to use this standard, and Jan talks about the accreditation process.

[00:29:14] Richard asks Jan if he knows of other standards that are already in this space and what sets his apart from the others.

[00:30:32] Jan explains their level of standards, as well as what he’s most looking forward to in the next few months about the standard and the foundation.

[00:32:54] Find out where you can follow Jan on the web.

[00:03:19] “We really think if you collaborate with everyone, that’s better than to collaborate with just a few."

[00:07:22] “We only work with code bases with the public purpose where someone tries to put a policy into code. That’s where we’re a little bit narrower than others.”

Special Guest: Jan Ainali.

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Anjana Vakil

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman

On today’s episode, Richard and Justin have joining them as their guest, Anjana Vakil, who’s a Freelance Developer, Software Engineer, and Developer Advocate doing some amazing stuff in the world. Anjana takes us through her journey into tech that started out at the Recurse Center, which led her to Outreachy, the internship she did as a Software Engineer at Mozilla, which was pivotal in shaping her career, and how diversity scholarships she received helped her as well. She explains why sharing what she learned as an educator is so important to people who are trying to learn new skills, and we hear some of the great benefits of why people should sponsor an Outreachy project. Download this episode to learn more!

[00:02:37] Anjana fills us in on the Recurse Center and Outreachy.

[00:06:11] We learn what Anjana studied at the Recurse Center when she was there.

[00:09:25] We hear if licensing ever came up for Anjana as something she was interested in along her journey, and how she interfaced with open source code as she started learning about all these things you could do with computer languages.

[00:14:02] Richard wonders if Anjana thinks support is necessary in order to get involved in open source and keep the fire alive of learning, and she tells us how she feels about equity in open source, getting people into it, and how to make it happen.

[00:21:12] Anjana shares tips for people who are in open source projects that want to help out and why it’s so important to help people.

[00:27:00] We learn how having the internship with Mozilla was so pivotal in shaping Anjana’s career.

[00:31:42] Anjana shares how working at Mozilla was a formative time in her tech career and how sharing what she learned with other people was such a great accountability moment. She also talks about the benefits of sponsoring an Outreachy project.

[00:40:45] Find out where you can follow Anjana online.

[00:17:31] “Programs like Outreachy and Recurse Center show a way to level the playing field and make it more accessible for those who have constraints on their time or finances.”

[00:19:00] “Another great source of help, that I got along the way, was diversity scholarships to attend conferences in the tech space.”

[00:34:55] “It really takes so many different hats to successfully run a sustainable, large open source project.”

[00:39:12] “Coding is a human interaction.”

Special Guest: Anjana Vakil.

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Ashley Williams

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We are super excited to have Ashley Williams joining us. Ashley is the Founder and CEO of Axo. She is also a former member of the Rust Core Team, founder of the Rust Foundation, and served as its first Executive Director. She was the leader of the Node.js Community Committee and founded the NodeTogether educational initiative. Today, Ashley shares her background with us from working at NPM, joining Mozilla, building the Rust Foundation, and she fills us in on Axo, which she explains is the tool company for tool companies. She also has some suggestions on how open source projects can get money to become successful in the long term. Go ahead and download this episode now to learn more!

[00:01:41] Ashley explains what Axo does.

[00:04:07] When Ashley moved from Node to Rust, she tells us what she took to the community there from the lessons she learned from Node, and how she wanted to build great communities in Rust.

[00:09:35] We learn more about the process of building the Rust Foundation and why building it was necessary.

[00:15:02] Justin wonders what it was that made the organizations calm again and why did they stick with Rust.

[00:17:07] Ashley explains what the difference is for her and why one is better for open source software sustainability.

[00:21:24] How do open source projects position themselves in the future to continue to have stake in their own governance and their own sustainability and where does Ashley think they should be investing their time?

[00:23:28] We hear some tips from Ashley about the best way for a project to have a conversation with each other about setting goals and intentions for their project in a way that isn’t alienating.

[00:30:02] Ashley shares a little of her background with us after leaving NPM, joining Mozilla, and she tells us about a tool she built called, wasm-pack.

[00:33:35] We find out where can you learn about Axo, get involved, and if it’s open source.

[00:35:15] Ashley shares some tips on what open source projects can do to get money to help themselves go forward and become financially viable in the long term.

[00:40:11] Find out where you can follow Ashley on the web.

[00:05:57] “I got super burned out of community work and Node and everyone kept throwing it in my face that I wasn’t technical. If I wasn’t so busy doing all this other stuff maybe I would commit some code.”

[00:06:59] “When you build a community in reaction to something, when you stop reacting to that thing it’s hard to figure out what you do next and how you grow it.”

[00:10:18] “It’s way worse to have a foundation too early than having a foundation too late.”

[00:17:49] “I love to say ergonomics is eighty percent familiarity, and it appears to be true for organizations that are doing fundraising,”

[00:18:31] “The goal of that Linux Foundation generation was to get corporations to use open source, which in a way is the opposite of making it sustainable because it adds an incredible burden.”

[00:20:20] “I don’t think charity is the same as sustainability.”

[00:24:23] “Try and get people to itch the same way.”

[00:24:42] “Having really strong communication brand and marketing helps drive that shared collective vision.”

[00:24:50] “I think Rust had really fantastic marketing for a really long time and that helped drive the community to have as much of a shared vision as is possible in a group of software engineers.”

[00:29:00] “I don’t know if open source wants to be sustained.”

[00:32:42] “Pay attention to the types of open source maintainers that are getting hired versus the ones that aren’t, because there are some patterns that no one should be proud of.”

[00:35:57] “Get a company that loves your project and then get them to hire you to work on it.”

[00:39:49] “The era of open source we’re in, there’s need for more safeguards.”

Special Guest: Ashley Williams.

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