Sustain

Guest Stormy Peters Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Our amazing guest today is Stormy Peters, Director of the Open Source Programs Office at Microsoft and long-time advocate of free and open source software. Stormy tells us how she started her journey into open source and how she got involved with the OSPO at Microsoft. We find out about the impact of Duane O’Brien’s FOSS Fund, what Stormy is doing at Microsoft to help other nonfinancial ways of supporting communities and building great open source ecosystems of communities, and about how they support Outreachy. Also, Stormy fills us in on where she thinks open source is going in the future, her team’s goals, and their focus on cultural change. Download this episode now to find out much more! [00:01:16] We find out how Stormy got into open source. [00:02:40] Stormy tells us how she got involved with the Open Source Program Office at Microsoft, if she ever found herself defending open source more so than today, and if she ever thought Microsoft would be in a position they are now of how much they’ve given back to open source. [00:04:14] Richard is curious how Stormy feels about sustain, how the process has been like for her, how has it been to see the change from just being a licensing issue to being a culture, and if she thinks most people are paid for open source. [00:08:45] Eric wonders what the overall mentality was for Stormy when she got to Microsoft regarding supporting open source and if it’s changed since she’s been there. [00:12:17] Eric asks Stormy if in five years our whole development environment is on Microsoft platform if we’re going to get locked in and is that going to cause the same type of negative frustration as he is with Apple right now. [00:13:40] Richard wonders if tools are owned by Microsoft how will that affect his development and how will affect the open source ecosystem if very large corporations become the main stakeholders in open source and direct the projects in their own ways, and Stormy replies and also explains how the people get paid. [00:16:10] Justin wonders how much impact Duane O’Brien’s program FOSS Fund has made in the way they operate and the rest of the bigger OSPO’s out there. We also learn what she’s doing at Microsoft to help other nonfinancial ways of supporting communities and building great open source ecosystems of communities. [00:18:53] Stormy fills us in on who makes up their team of employees at OSPO Microsoft and where you can go to see what they are doing. [00:20:12] Richard is curious where Stormy sees the role for OSPO’s for universities, governments, cities, and anything that’s not a large corporation. She also tells us about how they support Outreachy. [00:23:08] We learn from Stormy where she thinks open source is going in the future and why she thinks a Copyleft is dropped out of the parlance. [00:25:49] Stormy tells us how she sees Ethical Source progressing and if she sees it being a major player with people or as being a movement that will cause the same tensions that GPL used to cause. [00:27:24] Richard wonders if Microsoft has a mapping of what resources they have used of what code is in their system, what open source packages they depend on, and how they are actively working towards giving back to them as a whole down the stack. [00:29:12] Eric asks Stormy what is on the forefront of her team’s mind right now, and she fills us in on her team’s goals. [00:29:56] Find out where you can follow Stormy on the internet. Quotes [00:01:53] “And this was just about the time that Linux was getting popular and they had not one, but two desktops that were popular, GNOME and KDE, and I thought surely we can collaborate on this like they do.” [00:03:42] “I’d like to joke now that I think Microsoft’s first contribution to open source was being the common enemy.” [00:04:54] “I think it’s still evolving, and I think it always will evolve and so I think it’s important that all of us continue to think about it and figure out what the new models look like.” [00:05:32] “I think a much larger majority than before get paid to work on open source.” [00:06:33] “So, I know when I was at Mozilla we consciously thought about this with Firefox OS, having people full-time on it and even more than full-time, as they worked extra hours to try to get out the door, could you still welcome people that only had two or three hours a week to work on it.” [00:08:56] “So to go back to the question about my career that it looked like it changed with this last move, I don’t think it did. To me, this was the next step in the path.” [00:09:27] “Microsoft, I think, is ideally positioned to make the next big change in open source software.” [00:12:33] “So it’s my job, extended team’s job, to make sure that Microsoft does open source well, and part of us being successful in open source is making sure we have active communities around our projects that are broader than us so that the projects are broader than us that we’re not creating that lock-in.” [00:14:51] “Microsoft uses a program called FOSS Fund that Duane O’Brien at INDEED started, where we let employees pick a project every month to give them $10,000, and the idea’s that’s not going to be enough money to support them forever but we just want to recognize some of the projects that we’re using that aren’t getting a lot of funding in other ways.” [00:15:54] “Those companies started doing contract work for an open source software project and now they work on open source software projects and other projects in general.” [00:16:34] “I think Duane’s a good thinker, like when COVID started, he started an effort to raise money for the events that were impacted, so I hope that’s empowering to a lot of people that one person can have a good idea that is a need and get people involved.” [00:17:44] “So, we’re unofficially giving Azure Credits to a number of open source software projects. I’m trying to launch an official program by which people can apply to get Azure Credits whether it’s just do their builds or whether it’s to make sure that stuff runs on Azure.” [00:18:05] “We have a lot of Microsoft employees who work on projects on GitHub. I think it’s definitely over 30,000 Microsoft employees have linked their Microsoft identity to their GitHub identity.” [00:23:13] “I think if you’d asked me that like twenty years ago, I would not have realized that Copyleft would drop out of importance as much as it has.” [00:23:36] “I don’t know if I would make an accurate prediction, but I hope it’s to continue to make, not only to make more software available to more people, but to make it more possible for people that aren’t in tech careers to write code and make computers do what they need them to do.” [00:24:20] “I think it’s cause the fear has dropped out. In the beginning it was fear that I was going to have to open source something I didn’t want to and fear that somebody was going to take my stuff and take advantage of my stuff.” [00:29:17] “Our goal is to make sure that Microsoft business units can use open source software in their strategy, that they can consume open source, that they can open source things, and that they have all the tools and knowledge they need to do that.” Spotlight [00:30:41] Eric’s spotlight is Kombucha (KeVita). [00:31:29] Justin’s spotlight is Jekyll Admin. [00:32:04] Richard’s spotlight is Carl Boettiger. [00:33:04] Stormy’s spotlight is Educational Software Projects like Khan Academy and Internet-in-a-Box. Links Stormy Peters Twitter Stormy Peters Linkedin Microsoft Open Source Microsoft Open Source Blog FOSS Contributor Fund- Duane O’Brien blog post What is copyleft? By Ben Cotton Outreachy KeVita Kombucha Open Collective Carl Boettiger Internet-in-a-Box Khan Academy Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound Special Guest: Stormy Peters.Support Sustain

Guest Jordan Harband Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! We are all very excited to have as our guest today, Jordan Harband, referred to as “Mr. Perfect” by the panelists! He is a longtime open source enthusiast, maintainer, coder, works at Coinbase, a TC39 Delegate, and heavily involved with Node for years. Today, Jordan gives us his perspective of being a maintainer of repositories and code. We find out how he is so successful at being a maintainer of so many open source projects, how he deals with ethics, how to ethically license your stuff, and how he handles hundreds of repos which he helps maintain. Jordan tells us what he’s doing to help other people out and shares some tips to a path if you’re interested in becoming more experienced. Download this episode now to find out much more and to get some fresh inspiration! [00:01:39] Jordan tells us how he got started with Node. [00:03:42] Justin wonders how Jordan maintains all of his notifications that he has and how does he deal with it. Also, he tells us if sponsorship plays a part of him having that passion and not getting overwhelmed which is why he’s so successful. [00:09:23] Jordan explains how he is nowhere close enough in terms of revenue stream from sponsorships to be able to consider quitting a job and working full-time on open source. [00:11:34] Richard brings up a book called, Drive by Daniel Pink, and wonders how Jordan chooses which open source projects to invest in and how does he feel like they’re actually giving him value because you’re making something that’s meaningful to you. [00:14:06] Justin asks Jordan if IE6 will ever die. [00:16:32] Jordan explains how to deal with ethics and open source, and how to ethically license your stuff. Richard wonders what he thinks the ethical obligations are of the maintainer who has a package. [00:20:29] Richard wonders since Jordan has hundreds of repos which he helps maintain, and how he deals with deciding to take on more work. [00:21:35] We find out what Jordan’s involvement is with the Airbnb JavaScript Style Guide. [00:24:08] Jordan shares advice to somebody who is just starting out in open source looking to build in a sustainable way for themselves and for the code they’re making. [00:27:05] Eric asks Jordan if he ever considered setting up a counselling program for open source maintainers since he seems to have it all figured out. Also, Jordan shares when he had a challenging moment in his life. [00:32:33] Richard wonders if Jordan is doing anything to systematically change open source to make sure that other people also have the opportunities to work on open source if they want to, he shares what he is doing, and mentions one of the programs he’s involved with called Major League Hacking. [00:36:37] Find out where you can follow Jordan along with his “perfectness.” Quotes [00:04:05] “I try to treat those notifications in an asynchronous manner so that I’m not, like I don’t have any push notifications set up for those things, so it’s not bothering me when I’m doing something else, whether that’s doing coding or other work, or whether that’s spending time with family or friends.” [00:06:14] “None of the parts of my career have been specifically for my open source projects.” [00:07:01] “The rise of sponsorship models, Tidelift, Open Collective, GitHub sponsors, etc.., what that does to me is it’s a demonstration of interest and appreciation in a way that is more concrete than someone clicking a GitHub emoji, giving me kinda invisible internet points. It’s something concrete.” [00:08:02] “The ability of someone to contribute even a dollar, five dollars a month is a concrete gesture that for the majority of people is actually really significant.” [00:08:12] “There’s that whole concept of how, when a very wealthy person will donate a large amount of money to a charitable cause and then a number of people point out that in terms of the percentage of their net worth, it’s actually like you giving three dollars, and it’s still meaningful because it’s three hundred million dollars, but it’s much more significant I think when an individual gives sixty dollars a year, which is like my lowest tier on GitHub sponsors is five dollars, so if somebody is paying sixty dollars a year for most people that’s something, that’s significant.” [00:09:53] “It’s not life changing, as I said, in the sense of paying my bills or not, but it would be life changing in a sense that I would be able to consider, well, I love my job, but do I love my job more than I would love working full-time on open source.” [00:13:46] “So there is a trade-off there, but the upside is that ninety-eight of those packages need three minutes of maintenance every five years.” [00:14:30] “But I think there are a lot of engineers that are frustrated supporting old environments, old Node versions, or old browsers, and it sort of violates a sense of aesthetics to have to deal with that messiness.” [00:14:59] “And whenever people talk about dropping browser support they talk about percentages, but .01% of internet users is like the population of this country or something like that, I don’t know, I haven’t done the math. I’m probably off by a factor of ten or a hundred or something, but it’s still a significant number of human beings.” [00:24:27] “One is remember that code is not the only important thing. Even just updating docs and READMEs and tutorials and things on projects is immensely valuable, and you don’t have to have any expertise in programming, necessarily, to be able to do that. So, there’s lots of ways you can get familiar with a project without touching any code at all.” [00:26:50] “And so, in the same way I think that for oneself, knowing your own behavior patterns and what is a good fit for you and what works well for your life and your mental health and so on, is probably the most effective tool to making sure that happens.” Spotlight [00:37:23] Eric’s spotlight is a GitHub project called the README project. [00:37:59] Justin’ spotlight is a funny woman on Twitter called Alexis Gay, who does hilarious Bay area tweets. [00:38:37] Alyssa’s spotlights are acknowledging one year of COVID lockdown, LISTSERV, and watching Coming 2 America. [00:39:20] Richard’s spotlight is a book by Daniel Pink called Drive. [00:39:38] Jordan’s spotlight is Tidelift. Links Jordan Harband Twitter Jordan Harband Linkedin Jordan Harband GitHub Coinbase Tidelift- How Jordan Harband maintains hundreds of npm packages globalThis-ECMAScript Proposal-GitHib MLH-Major League Hacking Airbnb JavaScript Style Guide The ReadME Project-Maintaining kindness and commits by Jordan Harband Alexis Gay-Twitter (video) LISTSERV Coming 2 America Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink Tidelift Sustain Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound Special Guest: Jordan Harband.Support Sustain

Guest Tobie Langel Panelists Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! On today’s episode, we have an amazing guest back for a second time, Tobie Langel, who is an open source strategy consultant and Founder of UnlockOpen. He’s a really great resource for learning about the ins and outs of how open source works, with his common-sense approach to dealing with common issues that we have with open source licenses. One of the reasons he is here is to talk about a wonderful Tweet he sent out about “this” graph of what is and what is not open source. Download this episode now to learn much more as Tobie goes in depth about each quadrant of the graph. [00:02:02] Tobie explains what he meant by “this” that he refers to in the Tweet. [00:04:08] Tobie talks more about licenses and compliance in using open source in corporations. [00:07:06] Richard brings up Tobie’s Tweet about the grid with a Y and X axis and he describes what’s in each quadrant. [00:14:04] We learn what’s in the bottom right quadrant of the graph. [00:17:29] Richard shares his ideas on the early days of open source and Tobie expands on them. [00:24:02] Tobie talks about the role of OSI and how he imagines OSI looking at this going forward. [00:30:16] Richard explains what he thinks about when he thinks of OSI and how the graph is a really useful way of talking with people to figure out where they are. [00:32:24] Find out where you can follow Tobie on the internet. Quotes [00:04:50] “The other thing that corporations really care about are security of the software and the other aspect is community health. Why? And what’s interesting, that security itself has to do really closely to community health.” [00:19:06] “We say that copy left is a hack on copyright, but to some degree open source is a hack on copyright too. It’s a hack on being able to cross sort of corporate borders.” Spotlight [00:33:50] Richard’s spotlights are ICQ, AIM, IRC, and AOL. [00:34:37] Tobie’s spotlight is a book he read called, How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens. Links Tobie Langel Twitter Tobie Langel Linkedin Tobie Langel Graph UnlockOpen Sustain Discourse OSI ICQ New AIM (Software) IRC AOL Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound Special Guest: Tobie Langel.Support Sustain

Guest Deb Nicholson Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Today, we are incredibly privileged to have as our guest, Deb Nicholson, who is Interim General Manager and Interim Executive Director at the Open Source Initiative, as well as a founding organizer of the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference (SeaGL). Deb tells us how she founded SeaGL and what she did in legislature before open source. We learn about a blog post that Elastic wrote, how Deb feels about it, and how OSI is addressing it. Also, we learn how open source is looked at differently by the community and by lawyers, and a talk Deb did about all the different patent clauses in licenses. Find out what Deb is currently doing as the Interim General Manager at OSI and why being kind is so important to her. As well, if you haven’t seen the Seagulls video on YouTube, you have to watch it! Download this episode now to find out more! [00:02:23] Deb tells us the story of how she founded SeaGL, when the next conference will be, and how many people come to it. [00:05:39] Justin brings up a blog post that Elastic wrote recently and asks Deb what her feelings are about it and wonders how OSI is addressing it. Alyssa wonders if there was any direct conversation with somebody from Elastic. [00:09:20] Deb explains the two groups of people, the community and lawyers, and the differences between what they think open source means. [00:11:20] Eric asks Deb if Elastic deserves all the bad press and negative feelings. Deb also tells us what approach Elastic should have taken. [00:14:22] Alyssa asks Deb to speak more about lawyers sit in the community now and what lawyers and people with legal expertise can do to be a part of open source creation and sustainability. [00:16:40] Deb tells us what she did in legislature before open source. [00:17:40] Alyssa asks Deb how she found clarity around all these licenses, was she ever confused about how to navigate, and if she could help people understand and navigate through them. She mentions she did a talk about all the different patent clauses in licenses. [00:20:52] Deb explains how she ended up as the Interim General Manager at the OSI and what she’s currently doing there. [00:22:14] Find out why being kind so important to Deb. [00:25:13] Deb talks about the process of the Cryptographic Autonomous License. [00:26:54] Richard wonders Deb’s thoughts on setting best practices for open source in general, not just licensing, in particular other countries. [00:28:25] Find out where you can follow Deb on the Internet. Quotes [00:06:23] “Basically, we didn’t really think our business model through. We decided we were going to do one thing and then whoops, because we didn’t think it through, now we have to change.” [00:23:24] “It also means that when you go out and you talk to people about your mission you sound like a person that hasn’t had a conversation with someone about anything other than your work five years, because you kind of haven’t.” [00:24:35] “There might be other decisions I could affect, but like you end up sounding really out of touch and it’s not good for your organization and for promoting your mission if you never have perspective.” [00:24:44] “Unfortunately, Deb, you’re one of our guests, and this happens occasionally with our guests who are so eloquent that I can’t even imagine a question ‘cause you just wrapped everything up in such a nice bow that it’s like yes, that’s exactly the problem, that’s a really good point, I totally agree, we should all have more time off!” [00:25:05] “Take a vacation! Never forget! Even if it’s a staycation, because, you know, pandemic.” [00:25:36] “So we don’t draft licenses, that’s the thing we don’t do, but we do look at new licenses, and last year we approved the Cryptographic Autonomous License.” Spotlight [00:29:33] Alyssa’s spotlight is the launch of FundOSS. [00:30:38] Eric’s spotlight is Exercism. [00:31:43] Justin’s spotlights are “The Onion seagull beach interview,” and Katacoda-Interactive Learning and Training Platform we are using for Curiefense. [00:32:33] Richard’s spotlight is WaffleJS. [00:32:49] Deb’s spotlight is a project called Spritely. Links Deb Nicholson Twitter SeaGL.org Opensource.org Elastic- “Doubling Down on Open.” SEAGULLS (Stop it Now) – A Bad Lip Reading of The Empire Strikes Back-YouTube LibrePlanet 2021 Open Source Initiative-The SSPL is Not an Open Source License Social Linux Expo SCaLE19x-March 2022 Mill City Triatholon Podcast-SustainOSS-Episode 62 with Richard Fontana Podcast-SustainOSS -Episode 23 with Josh Simmons Podcast-SustainOSS-Episode 37 with Patrick Masson “Don’t Fear the Patent Clause,” with Deb Nicholson-YouTube Cryptographic Autonomy License-GItHub FundOSS.org Open Collective/Fund OSS Exercism.io The Onion-Seagull beach interview Katacoda Curiefense WaffleJS Spritely Project Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound Special Guest: Deb Nicholson.Support Sustain

Guest Jory Burson Panelists Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode our special guest is Jory Burson, who is celebrating her birthday with us today! She is the Community Director of OpenJS Foundation, which is a non-profit foundation dedicated to serving the open source JavaScript ecosystem. Today, we will learn all about what Jory does as the Community Director at OpenJS, what the OpenJS Foundation is, why it was formed, and what it formed to do. Also, Jory tells us why she couldn’t imagine working on the web without MDN (Mozilla Developer Network) Web Docs and what the future holds for MDN. In addition, find out what Jory is most excited about going forward at OpenJS. Download this episode now to find out more! [00:01:20] Jory tells us about the OpenJS Foundation and what she means by “home.” [00:03:01] We learn why OpenJS was formed and what it formed to do. [00:06:25] Jory gives a brief history of how she got involved into these dynasties, also the kind of work she does at the Community Director at OpenJS. [00:10:37] Richard asks Jory what she is doing to make sure the projects have a longer life cycle and the work that they do is sustainable in the long term. [00:13:46] Jory tells us what her role is with MDN and she talks about how they restructured the organization. [00:17:27] Justin asks Jory about the future of MDN. [00:19:37] Jory talks about what they’re doing right now with working with MDN and other people to build out a shared roadmap of priorities to make MDN more useful and better than it is today. [00:22:40] Alyssa asks Jory what the balance is and most powerful partnership between these centralizing forces, these other entities, other projects, other contributors that are more distributed, and how do we relate with one another in powerful ways in order to sustain open source. [00:25:33] Jory tells us what’s she most excited about going forward at OpenJS. [00:27:19] Find out where you can follow Jory on the internet. Quotes [00:08:24] “It just blew my mind that there was that consensus of that population of people that’s that subgroup of people was going to make a choice that affected everybody.” [00:08:42] “And so at that point, from that point on, I just became very obsessed with understanding how those decisions got made and how people work together in a group to reach technical decisions and sort of how to make the human interoperability component of our technical interoperability discussions more effective.” [00:10:52] “So first, let me say out loud, that I am not convinced that the objective of any project should be to stick around as long as possible.” [00:11:49] “I think the objective is to help the project understand what is its scope, what is its end game, and how can it effectively move through different life cycles of startup phase, of growth phases, of the sustained phases, or maintenance phases.” [00:12:55] “But instead, because it was a part of the foundation, we were able to find and support new maintainers who could and did have the energy to drive that forward and how it’s really thriving.” [00:16:42] “And so, what we decided to do was find a solution and that’s what we did, we found I think a polyfill for MDN.” [00:20:24] “It’s interesting and kind of unfortunate that this process of moving the content off of the Wiki to GitHub has been a multi-year sort of project.” [00:24:51] “To understand JavaScript you have to understand the whole universe is maybe too much, so how can we and at what point is it appropriate to break those layers down so people can like not have to recreate the whole world.” Spotlight [00:28:28] Justin*’*s spotlight is Buffer.com [00:28:47] Alyssa’s spotlights are a shout-out to Jory’s birthday and the move to build things together to support the ecosystems. [00:30:36] Richard’s spotlight is the Boston JavaScript community of 2016, Jim Kang, Aria Stewart, Jory Burson, Boaz Sender, Gregor Martynus, Ashley Williams, and everyone else. [00:31:13] Jory’s spotlight is three people, Chris Mills at MDN, Dom at W3C, and Michal at jQuery. Links Jory Burson's Twitter Jory Burson's Website Jory Burson's Linkedin OpenJS Foundation MDN Web Docs JavaScriptLandia Standards Working Groups Buffer W3C Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound Special Guest: Jory Burson.Support Sustain

Guest Anna Pojawis and Tyler Maran Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! On today’s episode, we have two guests joining us, Tyler Maran and Anna Pojawis, the founders of Rysolv, a crowdfunding platform for open source development. They tell us all about Rysolv and what their motivation was behind starting this company. Find out what types of people respond to bug bounties and what sort of incentives are given to the developers to stick around. We find out if Tyler and Ana are working with companies to help with their program to get more money to build better bounties. Also, find out where to find projects that they are funding, where to find these bounties, and where they want this to go in the future. Download this episode to find out much more! [00:01:08] Tyler and Anna tell us all about Rysolv, how it works, and how they came up with the idea. [00:03:36] Eric wonders what their motivation was behind this company. Tyler shares with us when they began, to where there are now, and the challenges that they face, how they are generating more users, and how they’re advertising and marketing their product. [00:06:40] Tyler talks about what he’s learned around the types of people that respond to bug bounties. [00:08:18] Anna and Tyler explain what they do to incentivize the developers to stick around. [00:10:52] Richard wonders if they are doing anything interesting to look at how to onboard users collectively involving bounties in ways that make sure they stick around, and Justin wonders what their expectations are for the first year. [00:13:27] We learn what qualifies Tyler and Anna and motivates them to be able to run this type of business, and how they are going to solve the financial problems. Tyler makes a reference to a xkcd comic. [00:17:28] Alyssa wonders what an open source community looks like for these projects that are working with bounties and if the people will ever be not paid contributors to the work. Also, she wonders how money is playing within the sustainability of these open source communities. [00:21:08] Richard wonders if Tyler and Anna are working with companies to figure out how to get money shuffled into their program to build better bounties, and how they’re pitching this to people who may have the wallet steep enough to sustain long-term contributions or sustain people to have repeat issues. [00:23:48] In talking about a great moment of getting money into the hands of a developer, Anna tells us about one of the issues that recently got resolved and how they felt after. Tyler and Anna tell us what they each do at Rysolv and Anna tells us what her stack of choice is. [00:26:17] Tyler tells us where you could find projects that he’s funding and where to find these bounties. [00:28:03] Richard asks Tyler to share his hopes and dreams, where he wants this to go in the next six months, and if he wants a unicorn floating in a pool outside of his house.☺ Also, find out where you can get involved and where to follow Tyler, Anna, and Rysolv. Quotes [00:20:13] “We want to build upon the platform so that it can be more like long-term, more sustaining, and have some community building aspect about it.” [00:20:28] “As far as adding financial incentives, we think that open source work should not have to be volunteer work. People should get financial contributions for the amount of work that they put in to sustaining the modern internet.” [00:22:40] “So we’ve got what’s best for the company giving the money, and then you’ve got what’s best for the maintainer.” Spotlight [00:32:52] Justin’s spotlight is Git History Extension for VS Code. [00:33:15] Eric’s spotlight is daily dev, a Daily Chrome Extension. [00:33:57] Alyssa’s spotlight is virtual FOSDEM 2021. [00:34:55] Richard’s spotlight is a tool on npm called License. [00:35:36] Tyler’s spotlight is The Awesome Foundation. [00:36:47] Anna’s spotlight is Discourse. Links Tyler Maran Linkedin Tyler Maran Website Anna Pojawis Linkedin Rysolv Rysolv Twitter Rysolv-GitHub xkcd-A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language Intex Mystic Unicorn Inflatable Spray Pool-Amazon Git History daily.dev FOSDEM 2021 License-npm The Awesome Foundation Discourse-GitHub Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound Special Guests: Anna Pojawis and Tyler Maran.Support Sustain

Guest Eriol Fox Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Today, we welcome regular Sustainer Eriol Fox, the Head of Design at Open Food Network, who is working on a fully funded PhD at Newcastle University, and also one of the hosts of Sustained Open Source Design Podcast. What is a design, and how does design fit into open source? Eriol tells us their thoughts on programming and one important thing you need as a user experience designer. Find out some of Eriol’s favorite toolsets, what Open Food Network is, and all the other things Eriol thinks about as a community-first person. Download this episode now to find out much more! [00:01:26] Eriol tells us what they mean by a Design PR. They also explain what they mean by design, since there are a lot of opinions on what design is. [00:04:36] Alyssa asks Eriol what’s the best way to speak about design and what’s the best way to speak about it without offending anyone. [00:09:47] Eriol tells us their thoughts about programming and if it requires an additional level of talent that just might come natural to some people and not to others. [00:14:33] Having been involved for over ten years in seeing the evolution of technologies come about, Eric asks Eriol if they have any preferences, and if they see the direction of technology leading to a way where everything is going to become modularized components. [00:10:06] Justin wonders what Eriol uses day to day for their tool set and if they only use open source tools. They mention one of their favorites being Penpot. [00:24:46] Alyssa wonders how Eriol applies these design guidelines when they think about map design. They mention checking out a fantastic designer, Justin Scherer. [00:27:57] Eriol tells us all about Open Food Network where they currently work. [00:30:20] Eriol tells us what else they like to do besides what they do now. [00:34:36] Find out all the places you can find Eriol online. Quotes [00:03:07] “And I think it does it a disservice to really talk about it as just a UI uplift ‘cause that really plays into this false narrative that design is just about making things look better. But what it is also doing is improving the experience for these users of a backend system, which is deeply complex.” [00:11:00] “And also I remember I was so fond of one of the backend developers I worked with in my first job, but he routinely would ask me what I was coloring in that day, which is tricky to hear as a designer, especially when you want to engage with a wider community of developers and people that do cool stuff with tech.” [00:12:17] “I really do think, and I know that there are some designers especially that would disagree with me, but I do think that one of the things that you really need, one of the only things you really need as a user experience designer is a curiosity for solving human problems and thinking about why people do the things that they do.” [00:13:03] “So you can operationalize a lot of the empathy process as well, so it’s not something that’s innate skill.” [00:29:15] “I’ve had conversations recently, as recent as this week, with my team about how when lots of PR’s get pushed by contributors or paid members of staff, they actually might be solving Tech Debt, but they might actually be creating user experience debt (UX Debt), and this was a very new term for them.” [00:31:02] “To get a bit mushy for a second, it really gave me the same kind of feelings that I had when I was really involved in my local community development project. So that’s why it felt incredibly natural to be part of the open source community and maybe why it feels like I’ve been around for a long time.” [00:34:11] “Maybe one day we’ll see as many projects that are design related in Outreachy and Google Summer of Code, and maybe even at some point we’ll see a whole scheme which is just for designers in open source.” Spotlight [00:35:47] Eric’s spotlights are the Open Source Design website and his 3D printer. [00:37:08] Justin’s spotlight is a notifier for GitHub browser extension by Sindre Sorhus. [00:37:47] Alyssa’s spotlight is Open Collective Open Web Docs. [00:38:28] Eriol’s spotlight is a piece of open source software called Jamulus. [00:39:45] Richard’s spotlight is one of his best friends, Simon Vansintjan Links Eriol Does Design Eriol Fox Twitter Penpot Justin Scherer Twitter Open Food Network Sustain Open Source Design Podcast Sustain Open Source Design Podcast-Episode 1 FOSS Backstage Open Source 101 Eriol Fox- GitHub Human Rights Centered Design Open Source Design Notifier for GitHub browser extension by Sindre Sorhus Open Collective Open Web Docs Jamulus Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound Special Guest: Eriol Fox.Support Sustain

Guest Hong Phuc Dang Panelists Pia Mancini | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Our guest today is Hong Phuc Dang, an awesome open source contributor and long-term member of Sustain. She is also the Founder of FOSSASIA and works with Zalando, a clothing manufacturer and store in Europe. We will learn all about what Hong Phuc does at Zalando. Also, she tells us more about what FOSSASIA is, how many people are in it, how many countries are represented, tensions to deal with, and so much more. And listen here to find out more information on the FOSSASIA Summit 2021, which is happening soon. Download this episode now to find out much more! [00:01:29] Hong Phuc tells us what she does at Zalando and how she works on open source with them. [00:02:52] We learn what FOSSASIA is. [00:03:55] Hong Phuc explains how she found the early reaction of the companies and the general kind of business ecosystem about false principles. [00:07:12] Pia asks Hong Phuc how internationalization compares with the type of projects she is seeing in Asia and how the relationship is. [00:10:01] Richard brings up FOSSASIA and how it has grown, and Hong Phuc tells us how she got from where she was to where she is now, also how many people are in FOSSASIA and how many countries are represented. [00:13:40] Richard asks Hong Phuc if there any tensions in FOSSASIA and if she has to deal with having people from different countries that may not always like each other, working together under the same umbrella. [00:16:07] Hong Phuc talks about the English spoken as the main communication, but how meetings are different in other countries. [00:16:56] Hong Phuc gives us her opinion on insights on India Stack and what they’re building there. [00:18:52] Richard is curious how FOSSASIA compares to Linux Foundation or Open Forum Europe and if Hong Phuc has any interest in setting policy for open source in governments in Asia or in large organizations. [00:20:53] We learn a little more about the FOSSASIA Summit 2021, when it is, what’s going to happen, and how many speakers. [00:22:30] Find out where you can follow Hong Phuc on the internet. Spotlight [00:23:12] Pia’s spotlight is a project called Pi Guard. [00:23:56] Richard’s spotlight is Open Source Café. [00:24:38] Hong’s spotlight is eventyay. Links Hong Phuc Dang Twitter Hong Phuc Dang Linkedin FOSSASIA FOSSASIA Twitter FOSSASIA Linkedin FOSSASIA Instagram FOSSASIA Summit 2021 Zalando Tech Twitter Pi Guard Open Source Cafe eventyay Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound Special Guest: Hong Phuc Dang.Support Sustain

Guest Avi Press Panelists Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Our guest today is Avi Press, Founder and CEO of Scarf. We learn all about what Scarf is, why it’s called Scarf, and how it works. We also find out how Avi convinced investors to get on board with him and how Scarf is helping open source software developers use data effectively. Find out if there will be any cost for maintainers to join and about the newest product called Scarf Gateway. Download this episode now to find out more! [00:01:00] Avi tells us what Scarf is, what it entails, and how it works. [00:02:41] Avi tells us how the documentation insights work. [00:04:03] Alyssa wants to know why it is called Scarf and Avi tells us how he is dealing with privacy concerns. [00:07:30] Justin asks Avi how he convinced investors to get on board with him. Also, he tells us about the Head of Sales position they are looking for and what this position entails. [00:10:18] Avi talks about how the maintainers have been using the data to date. [00:11:55] Alyssa asks Avi if he can share the differences made to a certain project that he’s seen or if these are still working in a hypothetical space. [00:14:05] Justin saw on GitHub that Avi’s main project, Scarf, is Apache 2.0 and he noticed that is becoming the go-to license when there is a VC involved. He asks Avi if this was chosen before or after the investment. [00:16:23] Since Scarf provides data to open source software developers, Richard asks Avi how he is helping them use that data effectively. [00:18:25] Richard wonders if Avi is going to be batching their clients or is he marketing for them individually. [00:19:54] Richard asks Avi: how do you make that money sustainable to the point where you don’t need to keep going out and asking people, and how do you turn it into a business? [00:22:35] Avi talks about dual licensing. [00:24:44] Richard is curious if Scarf is doing a federated or a decentralized registry and Avi explains about the new product, Scarf Gateway. [00:26:51] Richard asks Avi if this will ever cost maintainers money to join and use his network. [00:28:02] Find out where you can learn more about Scarf and Avi. Spotlight [00:29:21] Justin’s spotlight is CII Best Practices Badge Program. [00:30:07] Alyssa’s spotlight is the Igalia’s Open Prioritization experiment. [00:31:17] Richard’s spotlight is Goal Zero. [00:32:08] Avi’s spotlight is the project Org-roam. Quotes [00:05:02] “And really our thesis here is that currently open source just means sharing code, but we’re trying to say the benefits of that openness can go much beyond the code and actually the data about how that code is used and how that code is interacted with.” [00:07:45] “I want people to be thinking more about how the companies that run open source infrastructure are funded. It’s really important to know, and we’re no exception. So, Scarf is a VC funded company.” [00:10:46] “That’s one really important way is to validate your project by showing real usage of the tool, of the code, etc.” [00:11:07] “By being able to allow maintainers to be proactive rather than reactive there’s just a whole slew of opportunities that are now unlocked for maintainers, instead of having to be reactive to everything.” [00:11:27] “And by being able to let maintainers be more proactive, we’ll have less burnt out maintainers because they’re not constantly feeling like they’re just drowning under the weight of the popularity of their software.” [00:14:38] “And that really, I think is a point that I’d like to underline as well, which is that if you have an open source project and there’s a lot of commercial use and there is a business opportunity there, a lot of developers, they’re not lawyers, they’re not enterprise salespeople, they’re not all the other things that are needed to build a business around an open source project, and that’s what we really want to provide to open source maintainers.” [00:21:42] “And unfortunately right now until Tidelift, if and when they really grow their business out, right now you have a lot of maintainers that are really just competing for that same pie, and the pie is not getting a lot bigger very quickly.” Links Avi Press Website Avi Press Twitter Avi Press Github Avi Press Linkedin Scarf Scarf Twitter Scarf Linkedin CII Best Practices Badge Program Open Collective/Open Prioritization Open Collective/focus-visible in WebKit Goal Zero Org-roam Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound Special Guest: Avi Press.Support Sustain

Guest Michael Nolan Panelists Pia Mancini | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source. On today’s episode, our special guest is Michael Nolan, Director at the Federation of Humanitarian Technologists and the Assistant Director at Open@RIT. We learn all about what the Federation of Human Technologists is and what they do, and find out what Mike is doing at Open@RIT. He also tells us about his current project on GitHub called Coalesce, that he’s working on in London. Also, did you know Mike has a podcast? Download this episode now to find out much more! [00:00:50] Mike tells us about the Federation of Humanitarian Technologists. [00:03:35] There’s a lot of non-governmental organization (NGOs) in the aid sector that need help, and Mike fills us in on what else is out there to do this sort of open source work to help them out. [00:08:12] Pia wonders how Mike is getting funding and if he’s planning on building a membership organization fee. [00:10:51] Pia poses a great question to Mike about why there isn’t a company that is doing this in a way that is profitable. Mike talks about the Digital Impact Alliance as a great example. [00:12:34] Mike is part of the Ethical Source Working Group at Sustain and he tells us about how this plays into what he’s doing. [00:14:43] Mike explains his GitHub project called Coalesce, a Volunteering Platform, and he also tells us why he is spending his time building it and the reasons they chose this project. He talks about South East Rivers Trust as one of the organizations they work with. [00:23:38] Find out where you can get involved in the Federation of Humanitarian Technologists. [00:24:45] Mike tells us about his new position at Open@RIT, what it is, and what he’s doing there. [00:31:25] Richard mentions Mike has a podcast called the Ethics in Open Source Podcast that you should check out. Spotlight [00:28:00] Pia’s spotlight is a productivity app called WorkFlowy. [00:28:44] Richard’s spotlight is a paper that came out called, “Crisis MT: Developing A Cookbook for MT in Crisis Situations.” [00:29:43] Mike’s spotlights are the Ethical Source Working Group and the Open Mind Project. Links Mike Nolan Twitter Mike Nolan Website mike@federationof.tech Federation of Humanitarian Technologists Federation of Humanitarian Technologists YouTube Open@RIT Open Technology Fund Digital Impact Alliance The Ethical Source Movement South East Rivers Trust Coalesce Impactful Open Source OpenMined WorkFlowy “Crisis MT: Developing A Cookbook for MT in Crisis Situations.” Open Mind Project Ethics in Open Source Podcast Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound Special Guest: Michael Nolan.Support Sustain