Matthew Sanabria, former HashiCorp engineer now at Cockroach Labs, Nithya Ruff, Amazon's Chief Open Source Officer, and Jordan Harband, a key figure in the JavaScript ecosystem, explore the evolving landscape of open source. They discuss HashiCorp's licensing changes, the impact of Amazon's Open Source Program Office, and the complexities of funding for open source projects. Insights on navigating career transitions and fostering community collaboration highlight the ongoing challenges and innovations in this dynamic space.
The Open Source Program Office (OSPO) at Amazon streamlines policies, provides guidance on licensing and compliance, and fosters collaboration to make it easy for developers to work with open source.
The OSPO aims to change the perception of Amazon's involvement in open source through active participation and contribution, donating AWS credits and supporting foundations and projects.
The OSPO facilitates the adoption of open source at Amazon by providing guidelines, simplifying policies, and offering support to developers, helping them navigate the open source landscape and engage with the global community.
Open source maintainers face challenges due to lack of financial resources and time constraints, making it crucial for profitable organizations to allocate funds towards open source infrastructure to sustain and improve software projects.
Deep dives
Enabling Open Source Adoption at Amazon
The Open Source Program Office (OSPO) at Amazon plays a crucial role in making it easy for developers to work with open source. They streamline policies and processes, provide guidance on licensing and compliance, and assist with the release and distribution of open source projects. The OSPO also works to bridge the gap between open source communities and Amazon, fostering collaboration and engagement. Scaling open source adoption across the company and addressing open source security are ongoing challenges. Additionally, the OSPO helps educate businesses on the benefits of open source and the need for dedicated resources and support.
Overcoming Challenges and Changing Perceptions
The OSPO aims to change the perception of Amazon's involvement in open source through active participation and contribution. They donate AWS credits, support foundations and projects, and encourage developers to engage with open source communities. The OSPO also focuses on internal scaling, creating local open source champions and streamlining processes. Open source security and the role of open source in AI are additional challenges the OSPO addresses. The goal is to facilitate collaboration, maintain compliance, and help Amazon be a good open source citizen.
Streamlining Open Source Processes at Amazon
The OSPO facilitates the adoption of open source at Amazon by providing guidelines, simplifying policies, and offering support to developers. They assist in the review and approval process for open sourcing projects, ensuring compliance and security. The OSPO helps teams create Apache 2.0 licensed repositories, prepare README files, and establish code of conduct. They also manage GitHub organizations, adminster external GitHub repositories, and monitor project maintenance. The focus is on helping developers navigate the open source landscape and make it easier for them to contribute and engage with the global open source community.
The Journey to the Director of the OSPO
The Director of the OSPO at Amazon, Nithya Ruff, has been involved in open source for 25 years. Her journey started at Silicon Graphics and led to her role at Amazon. Nithya emphasizes the importance of open source strategy, community building, technology, and legal aspects in her work. The OSPO started at Amazon in 2007-2008 and has been focused on enabling developers to innovate with open source and building bridges between Amazon and the open source community. Challenges include scaling initiatives, addressing open source security, and navigating the intersection of open source and AI.
The Importance of Funding Open Source
The podcast episode discusses the importance of funding open source projects and the challenges faced by open source maintainers. The guest, Jordan Harband, shares his experiences as an open source maintainer and highlights the need for financial support to sustain and improve open source software. He emphasizes the significance of companies and profitable organizations contributing to their open source dependencies and suggests that regulations requiring a percentage of profits to be allocated towards open source funding could be a viable solution.
Limitations in the Current Open Source Funding Models
Jordan Harband discusses the limitations of existing open source funding models such as GitHub Sponsors and Tidelift. He mentions that while these platforms are useful, they require greater adoption and financial support from companies to make a substantial impact. Jordan also expresses the need for larger companies, especially ones that heavily depend on open source software, to contribute more significantly to the open source ecosystem. He highlights that profit-generating organizations should be mandated to allocate a portion of their profits towards open source infrastructure.
The Challenges Faced by Open Source Maintainers
In the podcast, Jordan Harband discusses the challenges faced by open source maintainers, including the lack of financial resources and the time constraints that hinder their ability to address critical issues and make improvements. He shares his personal experience with maintaining popular open source projects like Enzyme and mentions specific instances where companies' reliance on his projects has led to challenges for both Jordan and the companies themselves. Jordan believes that a change in funding dynamics, along with increased support from profitable organizations, can help alleviate these challenges and enable open source maintainers to better support their projects.
This week we’re taking you to the hallway track of All Things Open 2023 in Raleigh, NC. Today’s episode features: Matthew Sanabria (former Engineer at HashiCorp working on Terraform Enterprise), Nithya Ruff (Chief Open Source Officer and Head of the Open Source Program Office at Amazon) & Jordan Harband (Open Source Maintainer-at-large with dependencies in most JavaScript apps out there.
There has been many changes this year in open source, and each of these perspectives lends insight into challenging and changing waters happening right now in open source.
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