
Open at Intel
The Open at Intel podcast is about all things open source, from software to security to artificial intelligence to Linux and beyond. Each episode brings you fresh perspectives with sophisticated, leading-edge, free-ranging conversations from some of the best minds in the open source community.
Latest episodes

Nov 27, 2024 • 21min
AI, Community, and the Future of Generative Applications
In this engaging conversation at the All Things Open conference, Tim Spann, Principal Developer Advocate at Zilliz, discusses the importance of community collaboration in advancing AI technologies. He emphasizes the need for diverse perspectives in solving complex problems and highlights his work with the Milvus open source vector database. Tim also explains the evolving landscape of retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and its applications and shares insights into the future of AI development. The conversation concludes on a lighter note with Tim describing his creative use of Milvus in a fun Halloween project to catalog and identify ghosts.
00:00 Introduction
00:41 Meet Tim Spann: Principal Developer Advocate
01:35 The Importance of Community in AI
02:56 Advanced RAG and Multimodal Models
06:17 The Future of Agentic RAG
09:04 Challenges and Excitement in AI Development
13:35 Building AI the Right Way
17:50 Fun with AI: Capturing Ghosts
19:24 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Guest:
Tim Spann is a Principal Developer Advocate for Zilliz and Milvus. He works with Apache NiFi, Apache Kafka, Apache Pulsar, Apache Flink, Flink SQL, Apache Pinot, Trino, Apache Iceberg, DeltaLake, Apache Spark, Big Data, IoT, Cloud, AI/DL, machine learning, and deep learning. Tim has over ten years of experience with the IoT, big data, distributed computing, messaging, streaming technologies, and Java programming. Previously, he was a Principal Developer Advocate at Cloudera, Developer Advocate at StreamNative, Principal DataFlow Field Engineer at Cloudera, a Senior Solutions Engineer at Hortonworks, a Senior Solutions Architect at AirisData, a Senior Field Engineer at Pivotal and a Team Leader at HPE. He blogs for DZone, where he is the Big Data Zone leader, and runs a popular meetup in Princeton & NYC on Big Data, Cloud, IoT, deep learning, streaming, NiFi, the blockchain, and Spark. Tim is a frequent speaker at conferences such as ApacheCon, DeveloperWeek, Pulsar Summit and many more. He holds a BS and MS in computer science.

Nov 20, 2024 • 23min
Growing the Helm Community
In this episode, Matt Butcher, CEO of Fermyon and a creator of the Helm project, returns to discuss his work with Helm—a nearly ubiquitous project in Kubernetes management. Matt provides insights into Helm's evolution from version 2 to version 3 and shares his vision for Helm 4. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining stability while embracing necessary changes and highlights the role of community contributions in open source projects like Helm. The conversation covers the new features and architectural changes planned for Helm 4, as well as how individuals can get involved in its development. Matt reflects on the significance of fostering a supportive and inclusive community and encourages new contributors to join the effort, noting the current opportune moment to influence Helm's future.
00:00 Introduction
00:37 The Helm Project
01:08 WebAssembly and Spin 3
01:54 Helm's Evolution and Future
04:22 Philosophy Behind Helm 4
11:35 Community Involvement and Contribution
18:46 Encouraging New Contributors
Guest:
Matt Butcher is co-founder and CEO of Fermyon, the serverless WebAssembly in the cloud company. He is one of the original creators of Helm, Brigade, CNAB, OAM, Glide, and Krustlet. He has written or co-written many books, including Learning Helm and Go in Practice. He is a co-creator of the Illustrated Children’s Guide to Kubernetes series. These days, he works mostly on WebAssembly projects such as Spin, Fermyon Cloud and Bartholomew. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy. He lives in Colorado, where he drinks lots of coffee.

Nov 14, 2024 • 23min
Trust, Value, and Open Source: Inside Open Source Databases
In this episode, Ann Schlemmer, CEO of Percona, discusses the company's 18-year journey rooted in open source principles, customer-centric approaches, and performance enhancements. She describes Percona's solutions for major databases like MySQL, MongoDB, Postgres, and their recent venture into the Redis space with the Valkey project. Anne emphasizes the importance of offering open source alternatives to proprietary licenses, maintaining trust and value with customers, and the need for businesses to contribute to and sustain the open source community. She also touches on the future of open source business models, the impact of security considerations, and how the open source ecosystem can adapt and evolve in the coming years.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:14 Overview of Percona
01:33 Importance of Open Source Alternatives
02:45 Challenges in the Open Source Database Landscape
06:43 Percona's Community Contributions
09:01 Sustainability and Governance in Open Source
15:36 Future of Open Source Business Models
19:55 Unexpected Uses and Innovations
Guest:
Ann Schlemmer is the CEO of Percona, a leader in open source database software, support and services. In this role, Schlemmer builds upon Percona’s legacy of open source excellence, leading the company on its mission to help businesses make databases and applications run better through a unique combination of expertise and open source software. Having joined Percona in 2013, Schlemmer has held various leadership positions in the organization, including President, General Manager, Vice President of Customer Success, and Senior Director of Consulting.

Nov 6, 2024 • 29min
Open Source Observability
In this episode, Katherine Druckman interviews Dotan Horvits, a CNCF ambassador involved in the cloud native and open source community. Dotan shares insights on his passion for DevOps, observability, and his podcast 'Open Observability Talks.' He discusses his recent focus on CI/CD observability within the CNCF realm, the value and challenges of standardizing observability in release pipelines, and the role of AI in future observability improvements. The conversation also touches on the importance of developer experience, the evolving landscape of observability, and upcoming advancements in projects like Jaeger and Prometheus. Dotan emphasizes the importance of open source collaboration and invites listeners to get involved in related communities and projects.
00:00 Introduction
00:29 Dotan's Background and Experience
02:49 Current Projects and Passions
03:05 CI/CD Observability and OpenTelemetry
08:06 Developer Experience and Productivity
13:49 The Impact of AI on Observability
20:48 Future of Observability and Industry Trends
Guest:
Dotan Horovits lives at the intersection of technology, product and innovation. With over 20 years in the hi-tech industry as a software developer, a solutions architect and a product manager, he brings a wealth of knowledge in cloud and cloud-native solutions, DevOps practices and more.
Horovits is an international speaker and thought leader, as well as an Ambassador of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). He runs the successful OpenObservability Talks podcast, where he evangelizes on Observability in IT systems using popular open source projects such as Prometheus, OpenSearch, Jaeger and OpenTelemetry.

Oct 31, 2024 • 21min
Democratizing AI: Collaborative AI Development with InstructLab
In this episode, we have an insightful discussion with Carol Chen from Red Hat at the All Things Open conference. Carol, who works in the Open Source Program Office at Red Hat, shares her experiences and insights on her ongoing project, InstructLab, a collaboration with IBM aimed at applying open source methods to building and training large language models. The conversation covers the importance of democratizing AI, reducing the fear and misconceptions surrounding AI technology, and making AI tools and concepts more accessible and understandable for everyone, including those who are not tech-savvy. Carol also discusses the social responsibility associated with AI development, emphasizing the need for transparency and community collaboration.
00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:17 Carol's Background and Role at Red Hat
01:00 AI and Open Source
03:13 Challenges and Opportunities in AI
06:43 InstructLab: Making AI Accessible
12:09 Personal Journey into AI
15:37 AI Ethics and Open Source
Resources:
Applying Open Source Methods to Building and Training Large Language Models - Carol Chen & JJ Asghar
Guest:
Carol Chen is a Community Architect at Red Hat, supporting and promoting various upstream communities such as InstructLab, Ansible and ManageIQ. She has been actively involved in open source communities while working for Jolla and Nokia previously. In addition, she also has experiences in software development/integration in her 12 years in the mobile industry. Carol has spoken at events around the world, including DevConf.CZ in Czech Republic and OpenInfra Summit in China. On a personal note, Carol plays the Timpani in an orchestra in Tampere, Finland, where she now calls home.

Oct 17, 2024 • 26min
Bridging the Gap: Open Source Security and Web Development
In this episode, Dan Applequist of Samsung explores the intersection of open source security and web development. Drawing from his extensive experience with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and initiatives like Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) and C2PA, Dan discusses the challenges and opportunities of uniting the open source security community with web developers. Emphasis is placed on the critical importance of mobile security, considering the sensitive information on mobile devices and industry best practices such as OWASP guidelines. The conversation also highlights the importance of security education, referencing resources like OpenSSF Security 101 and OWASP's global meetups. Additionally, media authenticity through protocols like C2PA and the role of organizations such as the BBC in this domain are discussed. The episode concludes with recommendations for developers to enhance their security practices through continuous learning and community engagement.
00:00 Introduction
00:25 Dan's Role at Samsung and Open Source Contributions
00:45 Web Standards and Privacy Initiatives
04:20 Bridging Web Development and Open Source Security
08:08 Challenges in Web and Mobile Security
09:26 The Importance of Mobile Security
11:40 Threat Models and Security Concerns
12:05 Protecting Yourself and Your Data
12:38 Web Security Best Practices
13:46 Challenges for Web Developers
15:28 Open SSF and W3C Collaboration
17:36 Expanding Security Education
19:44 The Importance of Media Authenticity
22:25 Final Thoughts and Future Discussions
Resources:
W3C SWAG Group: https://www.w3.org/community/swag/ - and GitHub repo https://github.com/w3c-cg/swag with meeting minutes
Last year's W3C / OpenSSF/ OWASP / OpenJS "Secure the Web Forward" workshop: https://www.w3.org/2023/03/secure-the-web-forward/ (includes videos of all talks and workshop report)
W3C Ethical Web Principles https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/
W3C Privacy Principles https://www.w3.org/TR/privacy-principles/
W3C Security & Privacy self-check https://www.w3.org/TR/security-privacy-questionnaire/
Guest:
Dan Appelquist is Open Source Strategist at Samsung Open Source Group. He is a web & mobile industry veteran and long-time participant and leader in open source and open standards. He has been co-chair of the W3C Technical Architecture Group for the last ten years. He was an early web pioneer and "dot-com CTO." He's led efforts at Vodafone, Telefónica, Samsung and the UK Government relating to open standards and the open web. You may find him on the Fediverse at @torgo@mastodon.social.

Oct 2, 2024 • 25min
From Fear to Confidence: Navigating Open Source Security
In this episode, we welcomed back Christopher Robinson, aka CRob, to discuss his extensive work in the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF). We chatted about the importance of open source software security, detailing the various initiatives aimed at improving security standards. CRob shares insights into the working groups and projects within OpenSSF, focusing on their efforts to educate developers and security researchers. We also touched on the upcoming SOSS Fusion event, and its role in fostering community engagement and collaboration in open source security. We encourage listeners to join these endeavors and contribute to solving significant security challenges.
00:00 Welcome Back, CRob!
00:52 Diving into Open Source Security
01:20 Understanding the OpenSSF
04:18 Key Personas in Open Source Security
09:44 Educational Resources for Developers
12:17 Getting Involved with OpenSSF Projects
15:27 Upcoming Event: SOSS Fusion
17:47 The Value of Open Source Events
21:48 Final Thoughts and Future Plans
Resources:
OpenSSF
SOSS Fusion
Guest:
Christopher Robinson (aka CRob) is the Director of Security Communications at Intel Product Assurance and Security. CRob is a 41st level Dungeon Master and a 24th level Securityologist. He has worked at several Fortune 500 companies with experience in the Financial, Medical, Legal, and Manufacturing verticals, and spent 6 years helping lead the Red Hat Product Security team as their Program Architect.
CRob has been a featured speaker at Gartner’s Identity and Access Management Summit, RSA, BlackHat, DefCon, Derbycon, the (ISC)2 World Congress, and was named a "Top Presenter" for the 2017 and 2018 Red Hat Summits. CRob was the President of the Cleveland (ISC)2 Chapter, and is also a children's Cybersecurity Educator with the (ISC)2 Safe-and-Secure program. He holds a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification, Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP) certification, and The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) certification. He is heavily involved in the Forum for Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) PSIRT SIG, collaborating in writing the FIRST PSIRT Services Framework, as well as the PSIRT Maturity Assessment framework. CRob is also the lead/facilitator of the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) Vulnerability Disclosures and OSS Developer Best Practices working groups as well as a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) member.
He enjoys hats, herding cats, and moonlit walks on the beach.

Sep 25, 2024 • 27min
Understanding Milvus: The Power of a Vector Database
In this episode, Steven Batifol, a Developer Advocate at Zilliz, discusses his role in fostering the MLOps community, the significance of vector databases like Milvus, and the importance of open source ecosystems. We covered the excitement of developing creative demos, the challenges facing developers in the AI space, and the rapid advancements in LLMs and AI agents. We even learn some trivia about Germany and fax machines!
00:00 Introduction
00:16 Developer Advocacy
01:02 The MLOps Community in Berlin
01:51 Joining Zilliz and Working with Milvus
04:46 Fun and Creative Demos
10:21 Challenges in the AI/ML Community
13:00 The Importance of Open Source
17:02 Upcoming Open Source Summit Presentation
20:14 Future of AI and LLMs
24:24 Conclusion
Guest:
Stephen Batifol is a Developer Advocate at Zilliz. He previously worked as a Machine Learning Engineer at Wolt, where he created and worked on the ML Platform, and previously as a Data Scientist at Brevo. Stephen studied Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. He is a founding member of the MLOps.community Berlin group, where he organizes Meetups and hackathons. He enjoys boxing and surfing.

Sep 16, 2024 • 23min
What is RAG?
Katherine Druckman talks to fellow Intel Open Source Evangelist Ezequiel Lanza about building and deploying AI applications using Retrieval Augmented Generation. We break down RAG concepts and processes involved in providing additional context to general AI models for specialized use cases.
Guest:
Passionate about helping people discover the exciting world of artificial intelligence, Ezequiel Lanza is a frequent AI conference presenter and the creator of use cases, tutorials, and guides that help developers adopt open source AI tools.

Sep 4, 2024 • 36min
Unlocking Developer Potential
Katherine speaks with Demetris Cheatham, the Chief of Staff to the CEO of GitHub, about her unique perspective on the open source landscape. The discussion covers her experiences in various sectors and the impactful 'All In' project created to elevate developers from underrepresented backgrounds. They highlight the significance of community, the power of relationships, and the pivotal role of natural language and AI in making coding more accessible globally. The talk also addresses critical challenges like the digital divide, funding for diversity programs, and the importance of evolving diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in tech.
00:00 Introduction
00:26 Connecting Through Open Source
02:02 Role and Responsibilities at GitHub
05:06 Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
09:16 Challenges in Computer Science Education
12:51 Equity and Systemic Change
16:21 The Journey to a Billion Developers
24:07 Building Relationships in Open Source
31:37 Final Thoughts and Takeaways
Sitting on GitHub’s Executive Leadership team, Demetris Cheatham is currently the Chief of Staff for the CEO of GitHub, where she acts as the CEO’s trusted partner to move all of software development forward. Demetris is particularly passionate about the evolving nature of open source in the age of AI. Before her time as COS to the CEO, Demetris was Senior Director for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Strategy at GitHub, the Global Diversity and Inclusion at Lead at Red Hat, and was the first woman and youngest Executive Director to lead the National Bar Association, the United States’ oldest and largest international network of over 65,000 predominantly African-American attorneys and judges.
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