Sustain

Trent Van Epps

Eriol Fox | Victory Brown

In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown are at the Devconnect Conference in Buenos Aires with Trent Van Epps, an organizer of Protocol Guild and member of the Ethereum Foundation. They discuss the vital role of Protocol Guild in funding core protocol developers, addressing systemic issues of under-compensation in open-source projects. Trent also explores the similarities and differences between funding in the open-source community and the Ethereum ecosystem, emphasizing the importance of collective representation and the unique financial structures of blockchain technology. The conversation highlights the necessity of diversity and inclusion within the Ethereum community and shares insights on the impact of adverse regulatory pressures and funding challenges. Press download now!

[00:00:29] Trent explains Protocol Guild and he connects Guild work to his EF role coordinating network upgrades and ensuring stable funding and continuity.

[00:02:35] Trent tells us why core contributors are under compensated and notes there’s a “hot ball of money” problem.

[00:05:21] Eriol and Trent discuss discomfort around money in open source. the myth of pure altruism, and the reality that “you can’t eat your code.”

[00:06:28] What can open source learn from Ethereum? Trent points to classic charitable giving practices and highlights Ethereum’s difference and stresses that funding can be used as a political lever.

[00:11:07] Trent contrasts different contributor needs and points out diversity/heterogeneity as essential to Ethereum’s robustness and security.

[00:15:40] Trent describes tight social bonds in Ethereum formed by “youth of the ecosystem” and shared regulatory pressures, which push the community to cooperate defensively, and he talks about how Protocol Guild operates like a loose union/syndicate.

[00:20:03] He outlines their funding vehicle called the 1% Pledge.

[00:22:07] Trent acknowledges high-profile scams and speculative excess get media attention, overshadowing serious work, like the technological waves with railroads. He points to Argentina, Kenya, and other places with weak institutions.

[00:24:59] Eriol closes the discussion with a call to widen your bubble.

[00:26:08] Trent’s project spotlight is ZKP2P and a great book by Benjamin Birkinbine. Also, he shares where you can find him on the internet.

Special Guest: Trent Van Epps.

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Nuno Loureiro

Eriol Fox | Victory Brown

In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown are live with Nuno Loureiro, Lead Designer at the Ethereum Foundation, at Devconnect Conference in Buenos Aires. Nuno shares his journey in digital design and discusses his role in focusing on ethereum.org. He highlights the challenges of designing for open source platforms, including the difficulty of onboarding and collaborating with designers. He also touches on UX challenges in the context of blockchain technology, emphasizing the importance of trust and design for mass adoption of open source tools. The discussion further explores how the Ethereum Foundation engages with the community for design feedback and the decentralized nature of project narratives. The episode concludes with Nuno spotlighting Penpot, a tool he believes is changing the landscape design. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:00:34] Nuno shares his background in digital and product design and joining Ethereum Foundation to focus on Ethereum.org as a learning portal.

[00:02:13] He shares the biggest design challenges at the Ethereum Foundation starting out with a major challenge which was opening a design system to open source collaboration.

[00:04:08] Eriol asks how good design and usability relate to sustainable open source. Nuno argues UX is the main blocker for mass adoption of open source tools and uses tools like GIMP as an example.

[00:05:00] Victory asks how Nuno brings more designers into the ecosystem and elevates design conversations. He admits he’s “not doing enough” and notes how hard it is to balance paid work with open source contributions and critiques designers, including himself, as poor collaborators compared with developers.

[00:06:27] Eriol reflects on how both coders and designers get deeply attached to their work, and notes that vulnerability and openness to critique are hard but necessary for sustainability of open source to grow.

[00:07:54] Eriol brings up Vitalik’s talk, Founder of Ethereum, at Funding the Commons, where he emphasized reliability as critical to UX and poses a question to Nuno. He explains what Ethereum Foundation’s current “three mantras” are.

[00:11:49] A question is brought up about how design decisions for new features are made inside Ethereum and what others can learn. Nuno clarifies the Ethereum Foundation does not own the protocol or roadmap and is a community based approach.

[00:13:26] Victory asks how Ethereum gathers UX feedback from users. Nuno says they rely heavily on third party projects that do their own UX research.

[00:14:43] Nuno spotlights Penpot, an open source design tool he uses and believes is changing the design landscape.

Special Guest: Nuno Loureiro.

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Lucas Fada

Eriol Fox | Victory Brown

In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown speak with Lucas Fada, the head of partnerships at Drips Network. Lucas shares insights from his over a decade of experience in early-stage startups, focusing on making open source software projects financially sustainable through strategic partnerships. They discuss the methodologies Lucas employs to secure funding for open source projects, the types of projects that attract funders, and how Drips Network aims to create a 'super app' for funding open source builders. Lucas also provides valuable advice for open source projects on becoming more visible to funders and highlights the essential role of ecosystems like Web3 in supporting open source. Additionally, he emphasizes the importance of moving beyond traditional philanthropy and crisis management in open source funding. Press download to hear more!

[00:00:23] Eriol introduces Lucas, and he explains what doing partnerships for Drips Network entails.

[00:01:50] Before approaching funders, Lucas shares that Drips looks for people or teams that have already funded OSS or spoken publicly about it.

[00:02:56] Victory wonders what kind of projects funders are interested in. Lucas explains funders tend to focus on high-visibility libraries rather than deep dependencies and goes into funder motivations to “give back” vs ecosystem needs.

[00:05:17] How can projects become more fundable? Lucas dives into this in two parts and he announces they are building a ‘super app’ for funding open source builders.

[00:07:49] Lucas elaborates on what package registries could do. One example he mentions is that Drips launched a “Fund Me” button for GitHub repos, like “Buy Me a Coffee” but crypto-based and fee free.

[00:09:19] Eriol notes that many projects associate marketing with proprietary, corporate culture, but marketing is really just communication. Lucas suggests the community could develop a shared marketing team that helps projects share their story.

[00:10:53] What can funders do proactively to support open source and critical digital infrastructure? Lucas’ top advice is: Talk to your own developers.

[00:13:07] Why Web3? It’s one of the most OSS-driven spaces; blockchains are typically open source and modular. Lucas wants OSS funding to move out of philanthropy/emergency rescue mode into something more strategic and ongoing.

[00:15:25] Lucas shares how they are making OSS maintenance a viable elaborating on how Drips is building funding pathways for different stages of an OSS career: Dependency funding, Direct grants, Retroactive grants, and Drips Wave.

[00:17:58] Drips is working with UNICEF to create funding mechanisms for several high use Digital Public Goods and how governments in the global south could encourage youth to join open source bounties. Eriol acknowledges skepticism about bounties and highlights their benefits.

[00:19:54] Find out where you can follow Lucas on the internet and he shares his project spotlight, Ethers.js and its maintainer, Richard “ricmoo” Moore.

Special Guest: Lucas Fada.

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Devansh Mehta

Eriol Fox | Victory Brown

In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown are at Devconnect Conference in Buenos Aires with Devansh Mehta from the Ethereum Foundation, to unpack one of the hardest problems in open source: how to fund the public good infrastructure that everything else depends on fairly, ethically, and at scale. They dig into quadratic funding, “credit assignment,” dependency graphs, Goodhart’s Law, and how AI can help, without taking over. Also, why open networks still struggle to compete with corporations and what new funding mechanisms like Deep Funding are trying to change. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:00:22] Eriol introduces Devansh, and he tells us about the work he does at Ethereum Foundation.

[00:01:32] He explains two core problems: Funding loop and Credit assignment.

[00:03:57] He identifies two failure modes: Popularity contests and lobbying & favoritism and shares why he found quadratic funding very liberating.

[00:05:48] Devansh uses Bitcoin as a simple model: miners get all the credit for a block and the new BTC is the funding loop.

[00:06:51] He defines public goods as value created minus value captured and argues the real challenge is linking revenue centers to cost centers.

[00:09:19] Devansh proposes a 3-step model for connecting revenue and OSS dependencies: Build an accurate dependency graph, weight the edges, capturing “how much value I get from you, and send money into one address and let it flow through the graph by weights.

[00:11:28] Goodhart’s law is explained, and Devansh warns metrics like stars/downloads break once tied directly to money and he gives some solutions to use non-deterministic AI and human judgement.

[00:16:04] Victory wonders how we can make this more ethical. Devansh notes that experts have the biggest conflict of interest, and he introduces cryptographic ideas: Confusion and Diffusion.

[00:18:27] Devansh analogizes funding mechanisms are like recommendation algorithms and critiques the current RFP/grant system common in non-Web3 open source.

[00:21:01] Find out where you can follow Devansh on the internet and he shares the Ethereum Foundation believes in the “policy of subtraction” and highlights some key partners in deep funding: Seer, Pond, and Drips.

Special Guest: Devansh Mehta.

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Nixo Rokish

Eriol Fox | Victory Brown

In this live episode of Sustain from Devconnect in Buenos Aires, host Eriol Fox and

[00:00:38] Nixo explains Ethereum as a rare example of truly decentralized

[00:02:25] Why does this governance model matter for sustainability? Nixo says

[00:04:09] Eriol asks if anyone resists this decentralized, community-led

[00:05:51] Eriol talks about money and influence entering open source projects

[00:08:00] Nixo walks through the Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) process.

[00:11:38] Victory asks how they manage consensus with so many people and

[00:13:36] Eriol reacts to how impressive it is that devs can reach consensus via

[00:16:13] Nixo shares where you can find her on the internet and she spotlights a

Special Guest: Nixo Rokish.

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Shubhranshu Choudhary

Eriol Fox | Victory Brown

In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown speak with Shubhranshu “Shu” Choudhary. They delve into his work with Democratic Media and its connections to open source technology. Shu discusses the aristocratic nature of current media, the importance of democratizing journalism, and the potential role of open source and decentralized technologies like Web3 and blockchain in making media more inclusive and representative. He shares his vision of community-led journalism, the challenges of sustaining independent media, and the importance of technology in addressing these issues. The conversation highlights the need for democratic platforms, the role of AI in reducing costs, and the potential for blockchain to create financially independent media. Shu also touches on the trust and inclusivity required for effective community journalism. Press download to hear more!

[00:00:33] Shu tells us what his work involves and how it connects to open source software.

[00:02:52] Eriol asks why Shu finds open source, Web3, and decentralization critical to the democratic media work that he’s doing. He explains that media should be commons and inclusive, not controlled by media owners.

[00:05:04] Shu details the challenges and solutions in media representation. He envisions a “News Commission” (like an Election Commission) where everyone can submit stories and AI’s role.

[00:09:27] Eriol recalls a Ugandan project she worked on where farmers reclaimed radio to broadcast their issues. Shu admits he previously associated Web3 only with scammers, but DevConnect showed him serious, positive work. Also, he sees potential for AI and Web3 joint platforms and explains designing for the “last person first.”

[00:16:18] Victory asks about trust in tech, given risks to Shu and his family and wider distrust of Web3/open source. Shu’s trust is multi-layered, during conflict, anonymity is crucial, but in calmer times, trust also means community control.

[00:20:02] Eriol and Victory connect Shu’s ideas to open source governance and community driven tool design. Shu points out that voters/reporters must not be paid per story but should be compensated through impact.

[00:22:19] Find out where to follow Shu and his work on the internet and he stresses this is a humanity-wide challenge, not just a journalists’ one.

Special Guest: Shubhranshu Choudhary.

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Mário Havel

Eriol Fox | Victory Brown

In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown are live at Devconnect Conference in Buenos Aires, with Mário Havel, protocol support at the Ethereum Foundation and co-founder of the Bordel Hackerspace in Prague. Mário shares his experience working in protocol support, contributing to the evolution and scalability of Ethereum. He dives into the significance of the Hackerspace 'Bordell' in Prague, discussing its role in fostering a creative and collaborative community focused on free and open source software. Mário also highlights the philosophical underpinnings of free software, emphasizing user freedom and security, and discusses the impact of corporate involvement in open source projects, the complexities of sustaining such initiatives, and the innovative “crowd-loaning” model used to fund their Hackerspace through Ethereum. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:00:40] Mário explains working at the Ethereum Foundation, his role on the protocol support team, the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship, and he introduces Bordel Hackerspace as a community space for hackers, makers, and artists.

[00:04:08] He elaborates on the Hackerspace which is explicitly free and open source software users and contributors and his free and open source software philosophy. Eriol reflects on her own journey learning what “free” really means in this context.

[00:07:54] Mário dives into how scalability, security, and new devs/fellowships link directly to sustainability.

[00:12:48] Mário discusses corporate influence on free/open source. He emphasizes the need for more neutral, community driven structures so projects can accept money without losing independence.

[00:15:25] Eriol contrasts joyful, playful hacker culture with the pressure many projects feel to “look corporate” to survive. Mário shares his personal stance: he avoids proprietary software and doesn’t use banks or KYC, preferring free/open monetary systems like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero.

[00:17:41] Mário details “crowdloaning” smart contracts they built on Ethereum. Eriol suggests many open source projects doing individual donation drives could learn from this crowdloaning model.

[00:21:10] Find out where you can follow Mário and the projects on the internet, and he spotlights the project GrapheneOS, a highly secure, privacy-respecting, easy-to-use mobile operating system.

Special Guest: Mário Havel.

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Rynn Mancuso | Maryblessing Okolie | Mo McElaney

Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox

In this episode of Sustain, Richard and Eriol talk with members of the Organization for Ethical Source (OES), Rynn Mancuso, Maryblessing Okolie, and Mo McElaney, about how ethics, licensing, and codes of conduct intersect in open source. They unpack the origins and challenges of the Hippocratic License, the community driven overhaul of Contributor Covenant 3.0, what it really takes to collaborate across borders and cultures, and how OES is now turning its attention to ethical AI, translations and practical resources for communities to make it a safer and more inclusive space. They also suggest ways for listeners to get involved in these important initiatives. Hit download now!

[00:02:17] Rynn gives the elevator pitch on what the Organization for Ethical (OES) is.

[00:04:57] Mo explains the Hippocratic License is modeled on “do no harm” and it’s an open source license.

[00:06:06] Richard wonders if the Hippocratic License is open source since we’re not using OSI’s definition. Mo explains that OES still uses “open source” in a broader, “big tent” sense focused on work done in the open, and Rynn adds why definitions need to evolve.

[00:09:27] Rynn shares rewriting the Contributor Covenant 3.0, starting from their background, to being a limited scope, and getting feedback from translators that language was too American/Western and 3.0 needed a broader cultural fit.

[00:15:12] Maryblessing was brought in to lead v3.0 from an African, non-US perspective and to make the process community driven. She tells us what’s new in the Contributor Covenant 3.0.

[00:19:43] The discussion covers how they all worked together. It was a highly collaborative, consensus driven process where anyone could propose edits. They talk about how long it took, not work entirely on GitHub, and why not everything was public.

[00:24:59] We hear about some adoption challenges for codes of conduct for small projects and enterprises.

[00:28:53] Rynn, Mo, and Maryblessing touch on how they are approaching ethical AI work, they share options to support OES, how to get involved, and translation needs.

[00:12:32] “It was a very limited scope, and we always designed it to work on the internet and be for open source projects.”

[00:13:23] “I would get these problems that really had to do with caste, but nobody would say anything about caste.”

[00:16:37] “This new version also emphasizes restorative justice, and we’re keen on using inclusive languages.”

[00:17:06] “We’re making progress on bringing in African translation.”

[00:17:38] “One of the things we did with the new website was to include the CC3 builder which was going to help make it easy for people to adapt the code of conduct.”

[00:21:37] “Every bit of feedback we got, we took it seriously, we talked about it.”

[00:22:13] “It took is a year and six months to do the entire thing, to make sure people were available. It took that long because we wanted to make sure we were incorporating every feedback.”

[00:23:14] “We do not do everything in the open on GitHub. One reason is structural. GitHub is not great at document management. Another reason we do that is we’ve received a lot of harassment form groups on the internet that were frankly invested in being able to cause trouble for a lot of people.”

[00:29:14] “We’re in the early stages of considering how we could approach ethical AI.”

Special Guests: Maryblessing Okolie, Maureen Mcelaney, and Rynn Mancuso.

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Dawn Wages | Loren Crary

Richard Littauer

In this episode of Sustain, Richard Littauer talks with Dawn Wages, former Chair of the Python Software Foundation board and Loren Crary, Deputy Executive Director of the PSF, about how the PSF sustains Python and its community, governance, fundraising, and events like PyCon US, and why they ultimately turned down a $1.5M NSF grant rather than accept new anti-DEI conditions. They walk through what the grant was for, how the decision unfolded, the financial and ethical risks involved, and the overwhelming community response in donations and support, ending with a call to participate in the PSF fundraiser and submit talks to PyCon US 2026. Press download now to hear more!

[00:02:41] Dawn explains she just finished her term as Chair at the PSF Board, previously served as Treasurer, and that board seats are elected volunteer toles with three-year terms.

[00:03:40] Loren describes her job as Deputy Executive Director, #2 to ED Deb Nicholson. She leads fundraising and revenue strategy, handles internal operations and strategic planning, and she clarifies that the Python Steering Council steers the language itself and mentions PyCon US will be in Long Beach, CA May 2026.

[00:05:38] Dawn shares a personal story how PSF funding and local Python user group helped her start in Python a decade ago and encourages listeners to donate and use company matching.

[00:06:57] Loren speaks about sponsors and individual donors and plugs the fundraiser and the “cute snake thermometer” on the donate page.

[00:08:00] Richard, as a board member of Python New Zealand, underscores PSF’s support for Python user groups and conferences. He then pivots to ask about strategy where Loren describes how the board leads strategy.

[00:13:34] Dawn reflects on learning to chair the board for the first time, praising staff expertise, and she describes the ‘flywheel’ model where staff and board collaborate closely, with staff often joining board meetings to co-develop strategy.

[00:15:18] Loren highlights the PSF board and representation.

[00:16:59] Richard gives a special shout-out to Phyllis Dobbs as one of the “unsung heroes” of open source, noting her work with OSI and Deb in the past.

[00:17:26] The convo turns to the NSF Safe OSE program and what happened with the large grant the PSF was awarded and then declined. Loren details everything that happened and gives a shout-out to Seth Larson, whom she collaborated with.

[00:29:00] Loren reads the key clause that PSF would need to affirm, and the board ultimately made the call that it was too risky to their mission to accept the terms.

[00:31:42] Dawn explains the board’s decision to withdraw and Loren notes that no one on the board or staff ever floated “dropping DEI to take the money.”

[00:33:55] Dawn points to Python’s reputation as a welcoming, diverse community and DEI is portrayed as “lifeblood,” not an optional extra.

[00:35:03] What happened after they said they weren’t taking the money? Dawn and Loren recount an outpouring of support after the public statement, and we find out how much money the fundraiser has made so far along including an anonymous donation.

[00:38:33] Dawn zooms out to decades of conversations about funding open source, arguing that individual donors and major AI companies profiting from Python should be contributing at scale.

[00:41:20] Richard reinforces the ongoing donation, and Loren plugs the PyCon US Call for Proposals (open through December 19) with new AI and security tracks and invites listeners to submit.

[00:07:09] “If you want to know what a nonprofit does, look at who their funders are and that’s who they’re working for.”

[00:12:07] “The board sets a strategy, but there needs to be a ‘flywheel’ from the staff to keep things like that going.”

[00:18:45] “We dipped our toes into grant funding, and we thought that would be a great way to make our work more sustainable.”

[00:32:40] “The $1.5 million is not net worth putting the future health and safety of the language in the organization in jeopardy.”

[00:32:58] “I am proud that at no point did anyone float: What if we just stopped doing everything DEI and take the money?”

[00:38:09] “I like my boss to be the users.”

[00:38:41] “We’ve been talking about what it means to fund open source for decades…I think this is an interesting arc that we’re experiencing. I’m hoping that the numbers will have two or three commas from individual donations.”

Special Guests: Dawn Wages and Loren Crary.

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Richard J. Acton

Richard Littauer

In this episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer speaks with Richard J. Acton, a research data outputs manager at the Human Developmental Biology Initiative based near Cambridge. He discusses his involvement with open source software through bioinformatics and his development of a comprehensive checklist for researchers producing code. This checklist aims to guide researchers in making their software outputs more citable, reproducible, and user-friendly. The conversation delves into various themes covered by the checklist, such as source control, licensing, documentation, testing, and governance. He also shares his insights on the importance of open science and transparent research practices, the challenges of balancing open source work with academic demands, and the potential role of funders and publishers in supporting these efforts. Press download more to hear more!

[00:00:43] Richard Acton explains his job at the Human Developmental Biology Initiative and how the checklist started.

[00:01:23] He transitioned into open source via bioinformatics and Linux and advocates for open science and reproducibility in software.

[00:02:26] We learn why the checklist was created and the design and structure of the checklist.

[00:05:46] Richard Acton talks about lack and time and incentives prevent open sourcing and the how the checklist makes code more citable and boost academic recognition.

[00:09:17] There’s a discussion on the trade-off between citing a paper vs. citing the code.

[00:12:05] The tier system is mentioned and Richard Acton explains how the checklist encourages progression from bronze to platinum and goes over the key areas in the checklist categories.

[00:14:21] Governance and community is discussed with Richard Acton explaining that governance also includes continuity and community management is addressed especially for reusable pipelines.

[00:16:29] We hear about the three categories for research code: one-off code, web-based services, and reusable packages and how the definitions were tailored for the checklist.

[00:17:23] Richard Acton presented the checklist at the SSI workshop and he’s seeking contributors, reviewers, and testers.

[00:19:18] Richard Action advocates for publishers to enforce code quality and universities and funders can hire staff to ease researcher workload, and he speaks about transparency and quality assurance.

[00:24:59] Implementation and badging is discussed and he shares the grading is currently designed for self-assessment, but open to expert review in the future.

[00:26:33] Richard Acton is open to collaborating with CHAOSS and he aims to grow the project into a broader community standard.

[00:27:23] Find out where you can follow Richard Acton and his work on the web.

[00:02:13] “Software being an integral part of modern research means that it needs to be open in order to be reproducible effectively.”

Special Guest: Richard J. Acton.

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