Sustain

Qianqian Ye

Richard Littauer

In this episode of Sustain, Richard hosts a conversation with Qianqian “Q” Ye, an artist, creative technologist, and educator who recently led the p5.js project, an open-source JavaScript library designed to prioritize accessibility and diversity in learning to code. Q shares her journey from an architectural background to contributing and eventually leading p5.js, a library created by artists for artists with a strong focus on visual feedback and accessibility. They discuss the importance of decentralizing leadership, setting boundaries to avoid burnout, and empowering contributors to ensure the project's sustainability. Key topics include the role of care work in open source, the community-driven evolution of p5.js, and strategies for maintaining a collaborative and inclusive environment. Q also highlights the significance of providing clear documentation and recognizing all forms of contributions to foster a welcoming community. Press download now to hear more!

[00:001:01] Q explains what p5.js is and how it teaches people to code.

[00:02:11] Q shares her journey from former architect turned creative technologist and highlights her community progression through translation and outreach.

[00:04:19] Why is p5.js different? Q emphasizes the output is art, not code, making it more inclusive and intuitive for beginners.

[00:05:40] Richard inquires about the p5.js community and contributors and Q tells us there are 700-800 contributors officially recognized.

[00:06:33] Q elaborates on the relationship with the Processing Foundation. P5.js operates semi-independently under its support, and she talks about the staff size for p5.js.

[00:07:49] Q believes the traditional open source volunteerism is problematic and the Sovereign Tech Agency provided funding to support mentors and contributors.

[00:09:19] Q’s essay “Care Work in OSS” explores the invisible labor behind software projects and advocates for recognizing emotional labor and decentralized decision making.

[00:10:15] We hear about the rotating leadership and inclusivity and how documentation and mentorship is the key to smooth transitions.

[00:13:18] Q talks about the translation stewardship with a decentralized structure with language-specific stewards and using inclusive onboarding and translations.

[00:15:31] Richard questions preventing burnout in stewards and Q elaborates how p5.js handles this and why access includes joy and inclusivity.

[00:18:05] We hear how decisions about feature acceptance are made through community review and discussions, as well as how some users challenged the access-first policy.

[00:20:15] Balancing art and community is discussed here as Q clarifies that open source and the arts often conflict due to individualism vs. collectivism.

[00:21:48] How does Q help the open source community learn and give credit to other people well all the time? She gives routine shoutouts in release notes, social media, and seeks to credit all contributions, not just code.

[00:24:48] Q shares how she deals with emotional burnout and boundaries and tips for setting boundaries.

[00:28:18] What’s next for Q? She’s returning from maternity leave as Manager of Community and Partnerships for the Processing Foundation, and focus on building relationships and discussing sustainable funding at UN Open Source Week.

[00:29:32] Find out where you can follow Q and p5.js on the web.

[00:08:00] “I strongly believe that the volunteer-based model in open source is very problematic, and I’ve been trying to experiment different ways on doing thing alternatively.”

[00:09:55] “OSS appears faceless, but there are so many people behind OSS.”

[00:11:17] “Creators and maintainers of OSS carry bias of their own when they maintain the software.”

[00:16:20] “Having to say no helped us to clarify the vision for the p5.js project.”

Special Guest: Qianqian Ye.

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Federico Mena Quintero

Richard Littauer

In this special Maintainer Month episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer chats with Federico Mena Quintero, a foundational GNOME hacker and board member. Federico shares his journey from learning image processing in high school, becoming a key contributor to the GIMP project, and founding the GNOME desktop environment. He discusses the historical context, challenges, and achievements of GNOME and open source development. The conversation delves into the importance of maintaining infrastructural software, adapting to new technologies like the Rust programming language, and the socio-economic factors influencing the open source community's demographics. Press download now to hear more!

[00:01:29] Federico describes GNOME as the “surface of your desk”- the visual and interactive layer of the Linux desktop.

[00:02:16] Federico started writing image processing programs in high school and discovered GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) and began contributing plugins. Encouraged by positive feedback, he continued developing filters and building community resources.

[00:10:20] The proprietary Motif GUI toolkit used by GIMP prompted the creation of GTK (GIMP Toolkit), a free alternative. GTK was split from GIMP and became a foundation for GNOME. Miguel de Icaza learned about modular component design from Microsoft and brought those ideas to the GNOME team.

[00:14:48] Federico explains KDE was already launched but used the non-free Qt toolkit and GNOME was created as a fully free alternative using GTK.

[00:17:58] They discuss GNOME’s long-term success which has thousands of contributors and institutional backing from its foundation.

[00:21:06] Federico reflects on his privilege. He never had to apply for his first job because he was recruited and recognizes the barriers to entry for underrepresented communities.

[00:24:32] The conversation turns to global south and diversity. Federico discusses the limitations on who can participate in open source due to time, money, and societal roles, and notes that women and people outside the Global North often face greater barriers.

[00:30:37] Richard inquires what Federico means by “maintaining infrastructure.” He explains that open source today is less about new features and more about keeping infrastructure working.

[00:32:59] Federico talks about a recent project to replace a vital but abandoned infrastructure component and emphasizes the need for sustainable maintenance strategies.

[00:36:25] Federico became maintainer of Librsvg image rendering library from C to Rust.

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

[00:31:10] “Software doesn’t rot, but the environment around it changes.”

Special Guest: Federico Mena Quintero.

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Sarah Rainsberger

Richard Littauer | Abby Mayes | Eriol Fox

In this special Maintainer Month episode of Sustain, hosts Richard, Abby, and Eriol talk with guest, Sarah Rainsberger, a documentation lead at Astro, who shares her journey from teaching high school mathematics to becoming an open source contributor. Sarah elaborates on her approach to documentation, emphasizing the importance of clear, supportive, and inclusive communication to onboard new contributors effectively. She also discusses using low-tech tools like Chromebooks and cloud-based editors for open source contributions. The episode highlights the strategies employed by the Astro Docs team to recognize and value contributions. Press download now to hear more!

[00:02:30] Sarah shares her background, role at Astro, how she got involved in documentation that started by fixing a bad choir website, and why she chose Astro over Gatsby and quickly became a key contributor.

[00:06:49] She reflects on the moment she connected her work with the concept of “open source.”

[00:07:54] Sarah talks about becoming a leader using Chromebook, taking lessons on Scrimba, and using cloud tools like CodeSandbox and Gitpod, the Astro community embracing her methods, and how she built a reputation as someone making meaningful contributions regardless of hardware.

[00:14:24] Sarah explains how docs are “self-serve support” and essential to project success.

[00:16:28] The conversation turns to combatting the stigma that docs are low value and Sarah addresses the false perception that documentation isn’t real development.

[00:18:28] Sarah shares that Astro has over 1,000 docs contributors and details their intentional process of welcoming, crediting, and celebrating new contributors.

[00:24:37] How does Astro handle lower-quality contributions? Astro uses the motto: “Not worse than what we had before.” They edit or mentor rather than reject, to build confidence and retain contributors.

[00:29:12] Astro maintains a separate documentation site (“D Squared”) that outlines its processes for contributing to documentation.

[00:33:25] Sarah shares where to find her work at the Astro Docs and where to find her.

[00:05:26] “If I’m going in, let’s go all in.”

[00:12:50] “I have chosen to maintain low tech.”

[00:12:59] “I am known for my evil devices.”

[00:14:36] “Docs are so important to a project that you want someone else to use or contribute to.”

[00:15:28] “Docs is the most scalable type of support that you can have.”

[00:16:37] “Everyone complains about docs until it’s someone else’s project.”

[00:26:51] “PRs don’t just fall out of the sky; they are effort, and they are work.”

[00:27:05] “There is some motivation behind this PR.”

[00:31:41] “Several of our maintainers started by translating the docs.”

[00:31:49] “If you want to find mistakes in your English docs, you want translators.”

Special Guest: Sarah Rainsberger.

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Kade Morton

Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox

In this Maintainers Month episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer and co-host Eriol Fox talk with cybersecurity expert Kade Morton from Arachne Digital. The conversation dives into how Kade’s unconventional path through criminology and international relations led him into cybersecurity and open source. They explore the unique challenges of sustaining open source security tools, particularly for human rights activists and under-resourced groups, the tension between proprietary and open solutions, and how geopolitical contexts and human motivations influence modern digital threat landscapes. Hit download now to hear more!

[00:01:41] Kade explains his work is split between a day job working security operations and a startup he runs called Arachne Digital.

[00:02:51] Kade tells us about his background, how he got into cybersecurity through self-teaching and open source, and how his criminology and international relations studies informed his interest in cyber threats.

[00:05:17] Kade discusses the open source projects he maintains, specifically ‘Thread.’

[00:06:50] We learn about the difficulty of getting others invested in better tools and Kade discusses challenges explaining open source values to corporate environments.

[00:12:26] Richard asks whether closed-source software is more secure and Kade highlights how most real world exploits target proprietary software.

[00:14:57] Eriol brings up security perceptions in non-tech orgs using digital tools. Kade shares how Arachne Digital offers free services to vetted human rights orgs and he they discuss challenges balancing funding and access in human rights cybersecurity.

[00:19:17] Richard reflects on monetization models for sustaining open source cybersecurity. Kade explains his company avoids fear-based marketing and promotes awareness instead.

[00:22:40] Kade outlines how their threat-informed defense model works.

[00:25:42] Eriol asks what changes could help improve open source sustainability. Kade discusses feeling out of place in both government and open source spaces and emphasizes cross-pollination between sectors to reduce polarity.

[00:28:29] Richard introduces the concept of “digital sovereignty.” Kade warns of the risks of splintering the internet through nationalism and advocates for a balanced middle ground between centralization and fragmentation.

[00:31:41] Kade shares where you can find his work on the web.

[00:13:44] “It’s mostly proprietary software that’s being hacked.”

[00:29:40] “The internet is the world’s largest shared resource.”

Special Guest: Kade Morton.

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Ben Nickolls | Andrew Nesbitt

Richard Littauer

In this episode of Sustain, host Richard 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!

[00:01:58] Andrew and Ben explain ecosyste.ms, what it does, and how it compares to Libraries.io.

[00:04:59] Ecosyste.ms tracks metadata, not the packages themselves, and enriches data via dependency graphs, committers, issues, SBOMs, and more.

[00:06:54] Andrew talks about finding 1,890 Git hosts and how many critical projects live outside GitHub.

[00:08:37] There’s a conversation on metadata uses and SBOM parsing.

[00:12:49] 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.

[00:15:45] 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.

[00:18:59] 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).

[00:25:36] 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.

[00:29:32] Andrew speaks about scaling and developer engagement and emphasizes their focus is on high-impact sustainability.

[00:32:48] 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.

[00:35:46] 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.

[00:38:35] Find out where you can follow ecosyste.ms and the blog on the web.

[00:11:18] “I call them interesting forks. If a fork is referenced by a package, it’ll get indexed.”

[00:22:07] We’ve built a service that now moves like $25 million a year between OSS maintainers on OSC.”

[00:33:23] “We don’t have enough information to make collective decisions about which projects, communities, maintainers, should receive more funding.”

[00:34:23] “The NSF POSE Program has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to open source communities alone.”

[00:35:47] “If you have ten, twenty thousand really critical open source projects, that actually isn’t unachievable to make those projects sustainable.”

Special Guests: Andrew Nesbitt and Benjamin Nickolls.

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Marianne Bellotti | Greg Wilson

Richard Littauer

In this episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer talks with Marianne Bellotti, author of *Kill It with Fire, *and Greg Wilson, co-founder of the Carpentries, about what happens to your code when you leave your job and how to make sure it survives. They discuss their new paper, "10 quick tips for making your software outlive your job," and share practical strategies for protecting, documenting, and sustaining code in open source, research, and civil service environments. Whether you're preparing for a job change or want to future-proof your work, this conversation offers real-world advice for developers and researchers alike. Hit the download button now!

[00:03:04] Greg and Marianne talk about challenges in code sustainability.

[00:05:46] Greg speaks about how scientists often prototype rather than build production quality code.

[00:09:48] We start with Step 1 in the paper: “Consider your threat mode.” Greg explains the different plans needed for individual vs. systematic departures, Marianne speaks about the importance of understanding code lifecycle-some code has a “fruit fly” lifespan others a “tortoise” one, and Richard adds to think about reframe threat modeling around future usefulness.

[00:15:53] There’s a discussion on Step 2: “Get sign-off on releasing it publicly.”

[00:21:30] Greg discusses Step 3: “Choose an open license” and emphasizes to stick to well-known licenses (MIT, BSD), don’t write your own, and he shares a funny story.

[00:25:29] Richard talks about Step 4: “Put your code somewhere safe” and shares to upload code to GitHub, Codeberg, OSF, Zenodo, etc. Greg suggest peer-to-peer methods like torrents could help long-term preservation and Marianne emphasizes the importance of verified identities when sharing.

[00:29:21] Marianne introduces Step 5: “Document your code.” Greg shares that most documentation goes unread and LLMs could help mine useful documentation from conversation records and Marianne emphasizes to focus on “how to run it” first and tests are a part of your documentation.

[00:35:17] Step 6: “Make your code reproducible.” Greg and Marianne discuss using tools like Docker, uv for Python lockfiles, etc., for dependency management.

[00:36:23] Step 7: “Make your code citable” and Step 8: “Encourage community adoption.” Richard mentions to add a CITATION.cff file so others can cite your code and Greg mentions a great book he read that changed the way he viewed this called, Marketing for Scientists, by Marc Kuchner.

[00:38:49] Step 9: “Write a succession or sunsetting plan.” Marianne shares to define success and failure criteria for projects explicitly.

[00:40:36] Step 10: “Talk about what you’re doing.” Greg emphasizes to celebrate and grieve project endings properly and Richard encourages listeners to check out the paper, read it, and if you see something missing you can contribute back.

[00:43:12] Fnal thoughts from Greg and Marianne: Organize collectively to protect science and code sustainability and find your team.

[00:12:10] “Weapons begin as toys.”

[00:14:09] “All code is throwaway code.”

[00:27:34] “Sooner or later every library burns.”

[00:29:44] “Most documentation is never read by anybody because it’s not answering the questions that you actually have.”

[00:41:05] “Take some time to celebrate and to grieve.”

Special Guests: Greg Wilson and Marianne Bellotti.

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Dirkjan Ochtman

Richard Littauer

In this special Maintainer Month episode of Sustain, host Richard speaks with Dirkjan Ochtman, a long-time open source contributor and Rust advocate. They dive deep into what it's like maintaining critical infrastructure libraries, the motivations behind taking over "abandonware," and how funding ecosystems like GitHub Sponsors and thanks.dev help sustain low-level dependencies. Dirkjan also reflects on how Rust’s design lends itself well to long-term maintainability and shares thoughts on the challenges of burnout, context switching, and ensuring project continuity. Hit the download button now!

[00:01:33] Dirkjan explains how he chooses which projects he’s maintaining, being passionate about memory safety via Rust, and maintaining tools like Rustls, Hickory DNS, and Quinn.

[00:03:14] Dirkjan describes his motivation for maintaining abandonware and sees it as providing value to the community.

[00:04:23] ISRG funds Dirkjan’s work on memory-safe DNS and TLS libraires, and they are replacing C-based libraires with Rust equivalents.

[00:05:33] Dirkjan uses thanks.dev to help fund maintainers through the full dependency graph and revenue is limited but promising.

[00:08:06] Richard brings up Tidelift and Dirkjan mentions it’s not yielding results for Rust projects yet because the Rust ecosystem is smaller.

[00:09:30] We hear Dirkjan’s journey into Rust, starting in Python but frustrated by lack of type safety and performance, and creating his own compiler before appreciating Rust’s complexity.

[00:12:20] Dirkjan talks about his transition from Python to Rust.

[00:13:39] Dirkjan uses PyO3 to create Python bindings for Rust libraries.

[00:15:31] Richard wonders why projects become unmaintained and Dirkjan responds that people have life events, job changes, or shifting interests.

[00:17:11] How are unmaintained projects flagged? Dirkjan uses the RustSec Advisory DB to detect projects with no active maintainers.

[00:18:47] Dirkjan avoids burnout as a maintainer by keeping the scope narrow, only responds to PRs, doesn’t overcommit, and focuses on high-efficiency, low-effort maintenance.

[00:19:51] Rust has a strong system, built-in unit tests, great CI support, and Dirkjan encourages atomic commits to simplify code review.

[00:21:28] Dirkjan speaks about languages that are more maintainer safe.

[00:22:18] Richard brings up attack vectors and the ‘left-pad incident.’ Dirkjan shares how he builds trust via his public GitHub record.

[00:24:17] We hear Dirkjan’s offboarding and succession planning as he explains handing off projects like Askama and promoting multiple maintainers to reduce bus factor.

[00:26:08] Dirkjan’s long-term vision for OSS sustainability is he hopes to move higher in the stack and wants to make high-quality software easier to build.

[00:27:38] Dirkjan explains why he prefers to do asynchronous collaboration over pair programming.

[00:28:52] Dirkjan discusses Rust’s long-term ecosystem stability.

[00:31:09] Find out where you can follow Dirkjan on the web.

[00:03:23] “You call it abandonware and I call it a dependency that has a million users.”

[00:19:02] “[When I take on a project], I don’t take on the burden of proactively improving the project.”

[00:19:11] “I will be there when someone submits a PR."

[00:20:37] “I ask folks to make small changes: atomic commits.”

Special Guest: Dirkjan Ochtman.

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Michelle Barker

Richard Littauer

In this episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer welcomes Michelle Barker, Director of the Research Software Alliance (ReSA), for an in-depth conversation about the critical yet often overlooked role of research software in open science. Michelle shares her journey from sociologist to open science advocate, unpacking how ReSA fosters global collaboration to support software developed for research. Together, they explore what it means to build “social infrastructure” in the open source ecosystem, the challenges of aligning international stakeholders, and how ReSA is shaping the future of research through strategy, connection, and community-driven solutions. Press the download button now to hear more!

[00:01:58] Michelle explains how she got involved in open science and open source software.

[00:04:35] Why Research Software? Michelle shares that ReSA was founded to coordinate globally on research software, which lacked unified international representation unlike open data.

[00:07:21] We hear about ReSA’s engagement strategy and the three main strategies: knowledge sharing, stakeholder collaboration, and governance evolution.

[00:09:37] ReSA includes RSEs as one of many stakeholders and works broadly across funders, policymakers, infrastructure providers, and more.

[00:10:26] Research software is defined as software developed within a research context to solve a research problem and most is open source but not all.

[00:13:12] Richard asks about tracking engagement, and Michelle shares it’s hard to quantify outcomes, but standard metrics include newsletter subs, citations, and forum attendance.

[00:15:08] Michelle explains the role of social infrastructure.

[00:17:37] What’s hard about being a social infrastructure? Michelle talks about the challenge of how to motivate groups of people to work together.

[00:19:52] Michelle shares her personal approach to networking: research, targeting key individuals, emotional engagement, and strategic planning for conferences.

[00:24:35] A new strategy plan is rolling out and Michelle shares what’s different.

[00:27:32] ReSA is working to establish research software as its own recognized field.

[00:29:57] Michelle recognizes shared challenges of both open source and research sectors. The keys to success are spotlight wins and demonstrate value through supported infrastructure and recognized contributions.

[00:30:40] Find out where you can find out more about ReSA.

Special Guest: Michelle Barker.

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Eriol Fox | Allen “Gunner” Gunn | Leslie Hawthorn | Abby Cabunoc Mayes

Richard Littauer

In this special episode of Sustain, Richard has a discussion with guests and fellow hosts Eriol Fox, Abby Cabunoc Mayes,

[00:01:45] Gunner shares an event summary starting on the evolution of SustainOSS, and talks about the

[00:03:34] Everyone shares their personal takeaway from the event.

[00:09:57] We hear about the conversations that were missed at the event and what everyone would like to

[00:17:56] Gunner briefs us on the next event with a possibility of another forum focused entirely on AI,

[00:19:39] We end with final thoughts from everyone: Gunner expresses gratitude for the community, Abby is

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Sean Goggins

Richard Littauer

In this episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer chats with guest Sean Goggins, a tenured full Professor of Computer Science at the University of Missouri. Sean discusses his extensive involvement in the open source community, particularly through his work with the CHAOSS Project, a Linux Foundation initiative focused on understanding and improving open-source project sustainability. Their conversation covers Sean's academic background, his role in CHAOSS, the importance of distributed leadership, and how metrics can impact the sustainability of open source projects. Sean also shares insights into his teaching methods, the challenges of maintaining open source software, and the future direction of his work on CHAOSS and Augur. Hit the download button now!

[00:01:25] Sean shares that he’s a professor specializing in software engineering, algorithms, data science, and visualization, and he discusses his tenure status and passion for research and open source work.

[00:02:41] Sean explains how open source leadership is distributed rather than centralized.

[00:04:45] We hear how the CHAOSS Project emerged from studying open source governance and leadership. Sean and Matt Germonprez started working on open source collaboration data and a metrics-focused discussion at a Linux Foundation Summit that led to the founding of the CHAOSS Project in 2017.

[00:08:23] Richard asks Sean how he balances research, teaching, and open source. Sean discusses how he splits time between research (40%), teaching (40%), and service (20%), with CHAOSS being a major part of his research efforts.

[00:13:27] Sean explains that the Augur Project was born out of a need for structured open source data tracking.

[00:15:18] Richard asks Sean if he teaches his students about open source, and he explains that he uses CHAOSS and Auger to teach students about GitHub collaboration, pull requests, and open source workflows.

[00:19:25] Sean shares his insights on research and open source. He emphasizes his involvement in maintaining software and aiding organizations in making sense of CHAOSS metrics through Augur, which has given him a deep understanding of open source development.

[00:20:44] Sean explains why he thinks metrics help make projects more sustainable and how the CHAOSS community has benefitted from fostering a welcoming environment for both technical and non-technical contributors.

[00:25:23] We hear some challenges within CHAOSS where it’s been difficult to build a strong developer community around CHAOSS software tools and maintaining open source software requires significant effort.

[00:28:11] He goes further to explain how to be a better project and that there’s potential for improving project sustainability through structured mentoring and governance.

[00:35:07] Sean shares CHAOSS Project’s future and research goals.

[00:03:46] “Distributed leadership: this exists in most of open source. There’s not often a single individual who drives an entire project.”

[00:09:18] “You have 40% of your time for teaching, 40% of your time for research, and 20% of your time for service.”

[00:12:15] “There’s a challenge of being a university professor. The advantage is you can do what you want, the challenge is that you have to set your own boundaries.”

[00:23:12] “A leading indicator for community health is how many newcomers you have coming in over time.”

[00:28:14] “How can I have a better project? It’s the same as going to a family reunion and saying, ‘How can we be a better family’?”

Special Guest: Sean Goggins.

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