The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source Maintainer week! (Interview)
May 28, 2021
Join Josh Simmons, Ecosystem Strategy Lead at Tidelift and President of the Open Source Initiative, alongside Kara Sowles, Senior Open Source Program Manager at GitHub. They dive into the exciting Maintainer Week, a celebration aimed at honoring open-source maintainers. Discover its origins and the importance of community collaboration. The discussion highlights the challenges maintainers face, the upcoming Global Maintainer Summit, and the crucial balance between innovation and cost in the open-source landscape. Engage in the fun of recognizing and supporting this vital community!
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First Meeting
- Josh Simmons and Kara Sowles first met seven years prior at LinuxFest Northwest.
- Both were attending for the first time, representing O'Reilly and Puppet, respectively.
Connecting for Maintainer Week
- Kara Sowles contacted Josh Simmons about involving the OSI and Tidelift in a maintainer event.
- This turned out to be perfectly timed, as Tidelift had been planning a similar conference the same week.
Defining a Maintainer
- Maintaining open-source software involves various contributions beyond just code.
- These include documentation, community involvement, sponsor wrangling, and sustaining the ecosystem.