Hanson Ho (@bidetofevil) is an Android Architect at Embrace, the mobile-first observability solution built on OpenTelemetry. Embrace began as a proprietary platform but went open-source at the end of 2023. Hanson shares about how the project is still at the beginning of its open-source journey and why his team is committed to collaborative development with the larger community of OpenTelemetry. Contributor is looking for a community manager! If you want to know more, shoot us an email at eric@scalevp.com. Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications! In this episode we discuss: The missing piece in mobile observability tooling How Embrace switched its perspective after going open-source 3 use cases for Embrace Links: Embrace OpenTelemetry Other Episodes: Robust Observability: OpenTelemetry with Austin Parker

Stephan Ewen (@StephanEwen) is the co-founder of Restate, the open-source workflow-as-code engine. Restate is lightweight, simple, and provides durable execution. Before Restate, Stephan co-created Apache Flink, the open-source stream processing framework. Lessons learned from Flink have heavily influenced the development of Restate, although Stephan says they have exact opposite use cases. Contributor is looking for a community manager! If you want to know more, shoot us an email at eric@scalevp.com. Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications! In this episode we discuss: The history of Flink and the impact of the 2016 U.S. election Why tooling for real-time transactional problems has historically had room for improvement What constitutes “modern” workflow engines Can you use Restate for any use case? Moving from a large company to a small startup as an open-source developer Links: Restate Apache Flink People mentioned: Kostas Tzoumas (@kostas_tzoumas) Other episodes: Temporal with Maxim Fateev

Eyal Solomon (@EyalSolomo44643) is the CEO and co-founder of Lunar, an open-source platform which bills itself as the “first reverse API gateway.” Lunar allows engineering teams to monitor, manage, and optimize API consumption. According to Eyal, it’s very easy to integrate with APIs, but difficult to keep them maintained, and there was a clear need for a generic solution to control and scale every API consumed in production.  Contributor is looking for a community manager! If you want to know more, shoot us an email at eric@scalevp.com. Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications! In this episode we discuss: How most companies think their API maintenance is a unique problem The importance of managing API consumption in the face of the AI revolution Why Eyal and his team decided to open-source Lunar Future plans for Lunar, including the development of autonomous optimization and pre-built flows Eyal’s thoughts on how to start conversations with potential enterprise clients Links: Lunar People mentioned: Roy Gabbay (LinkedIn)

Shirshanka Das (@shirshanka) is the CTO of Acryl Data and founder of DataHub, which bills itself as the #1 open-source metadata platform. It enables data discovery, data observability and federated governance to help tame complex data ecosystems. Shirshanka first developed DataHub while at LinkedIn, but has grown it into an independent project with a thriving community. Contributor is looking for a community manager! If you want to know more, shoot us an email at eric@scalevp.com. Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications! In this episode we discuss: How DataHub differs from traditional data catalogs Themes around why community members get involved and stick with the project Partnering with Netflix to develop runtime metadata model extensibility The influence of the pandemic on DataHub’s open-sourcing Dealing with the future of a project with big community and unlimited scope Links: DataHub The History of DataHub

After his first child was born, Matt Wonlaw (@tantaman) imagined giving his son life advice. What kind of life did he want his kid to lead? At the time, he was working for Facebook, and he decided that his own life needed a change in direction. So Matt started vlcn, aka Vulcan Labs, a research company that develops open-source projects like CR-SQLite and Materialite. vlcn has an unusual business model – Matt receives donations and sponsorships from users and clients. It’s all part of his mission to rethink the modern data stack for writing rich and complex applications. Contributor is looking for a community manager! If you want to know more, shoot us an email at eric@scalevp.com. Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications! In this episode we discuss: One reason that software is still too hard to write: Object orientations How CR-SQLite allows databases to be merged together and Materialite provides Incremental View Maintenance for JavaScript Why coding directly to relations can provide a more flexible and efficient approach to building applications Matt’s decision to build vlcn as a research lab rather than as a startup Thoughts for the future on PGLite Links: vlcn (Vulcan Labs) CR-SQLite Materialite fly.io PGLite People mentioned: Johannes Schickling (@schickling)

Amplication is an open-source development platform for scalable and secure Node.js applications. It allows engineers to skip writing boilerplate code and offers the flexibility to customize and add components. Amplification was created by Yuval Hazaz (@Yuvalhazaz1), a veteran developer who determined that low-code platforms save time but restrict freedom. Instead, Amplication uses code generation to reliably and consistently build robust production‑ready backend services. Contributor is looking for a community manager! If you want to know more, shoot us an email at eric@scalevp.com. Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications! In this episode we discuss: Yuval’s “secret sauce” for building an open-source community How platform engineers can use Amplication for company-wide standardization A baseline organic growth rate for open-source projects The role of generative AI in code modernization Links: Amplication

OpenBB is an open-source investment research platform created by Didier Lopes (@didier_lopes). OpenBB grew out of a project called Gamestonk Terminal that Didier began working on shortly before the Gamestop short squeeze in January 2021. Today, OpenBB has evolved into an infrastructure platform that allows users to build extensions and access financial data with automation and customization. Contributor is looking for a community manager! If you want to know more, shoot us an email at eric@scalevp.com. Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications! In this episode we discuss: What Vice Media got wrong about OpenBB Some major contributors to the project and the features or directions that they proposed How a machine learning engineer from Bloomberg reached out about OpenBB Different types of OpenBB users – students, retail investors, and other financial professionals OpenBB’s exciting AI roadmap Links: OpenBB People mentioned: James Maslek (@jmaslek11 Artem Veremey (@artemvv)

Explore the success of OpenTelemetry in the CNCF, the benefits of flexibility and avoiding vendor lock-in, and the secrets to maintaining a balance between maintainers and contributors. Learn about Austin Parker's journey into observability, the merger of OpenTelemetry and OpenCensus, and the importance of foundations in supporting open-source projects.

OPAL is an open-source administration layer for Policy Engines such as Open Policy Agent (OPA). OPAL provides the necessary infrastructure to load policy and data into multiple policy engines, ensuring they have the information they need to make decisions. Today, we’re talking to Or Weis (@OrWeis), co-creator of OPAL and co-founder of Permit, the end-to-end authorization platform that envisions a world where developers never have to build permissions again.  Contributor is looking for a community manager! If you want to know more, shoot us an email at eric@scalevp.com. Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications! In this episode we discuss: History of Permit and OPAL The benefits of an open-foundation model rather than open-core RBAC vs ABAC vs ReBAC Why developers would prefer to not have to deal with authorization Or’s own podcast, Command+Shift+Left Links: OPAL Permit Command+Shift+Left Terraform People mentioned: Asaf Cohen (@asafchn) Filip Grebowski (@developerfilip) Other episodes: Open Policy Agent with Torin Sandall Community Driven IaC: OpenTofu with Kuba Martin

FerretDB enables users to run MongoDB applications on existing Postgres infrastructure. Peter Farkas (@FarkasP), co-founder and CEO of FerretDB, explains the need for an open source interface for document databases. Peter also discusses the licensing change of MongoDB and the uncertainty it created for users. He emphasizes the importance of open standards and collaboration among MongoDB alternatives to provide users with choice and interoperability.  Contributor is looking for a community manager! If you want to know more, shoot us an email at eric@scalevp.com. Subscribe to Contributor on Substack for email notifications! In this episode we discuss: The epic mountain adventure that inspired FerretDB Why commercial open-source can be additive rather than extractive How compatibility and open standards drives innovation and competition PDFs as an example of corporation-supported standards Three tenets for building a successful open source project Links: FerretDB Percona People: Peter Zaitsev (@PeterZaitsev)