Open at Intel

Taylor Dolezal from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation discusses his role as the Head of Ecosystem, working closely with end-users implementing CNCF projects. He shares his open source origin story, tracing back to high school programming experiences. We touched on community dynamics, experiences with project forks, and the evolving landscape of AI and its intersection with open source. We also discuss the importance of sustainability in open source communities and the critical role of vendor neutrality. 00:00 Introduction 01:45 Open Source Origin Story 11:04 Project Forks and Community Dynamics 17:20 HashiCorp and OpenTofu: A Fork in the Road 19:46 Navigating the AI Frontier 23:28 The Challenges of AI Standardization 26:17 The Importance of Vendor Neutrality 28:02 Balancing Priorities in Open Source 29:51 Sustaining Open Source Communities   Guest: Taylor Dolezal navigates the cloud native universe with a knack for puns and a keen eye for psychology. Living in the heart of LA, he blends tech innovation with mental insights, one punny cloud at a time. Avid reader, thinker, and cloud whisperer.

In this episode, we chat with Luis Villa, co-founder of Tidelift, about everything from supporting open source maintainers to coding with AI. Luis, a former programmer turned attorney, shares stories from his early days of discovering Linux, to his contributions to various projects and organizations including Mozilla and Wikipedia. We discussed the critical importance of open source software, the challenges faced by maintainers, including burnout, and how Tidelift works toward compensating maintainers. We also explore broader themes about the sustainability of open source projects, the impact of AI on code generation and legal concerns, and the need for a more structured and community-driven approach to long-term project maintenance.   00:00 Introduction 03:20 Challenges in Open Source Sustainability 07:43 Tidelift's Role in Supporting Maintainers 14:18 The Future of Open Source and AI 32:44 Optimism and Human Element in Open Source 35:38 Conclusion and Final Thoughts   Guest: Luis Villa is co-founder and general counsel at Tidelift. Previously he was a top open source lawyer advising clients, from Fortune 50 companies to leading startups, on product development, open source licensing, and other matters.  Luis is also an experienced open source community leader with organizations like the Wikimedia Foundation, where he served as deputy general counsel and then led the Foundation’s community engagement team. Before the Wikimedia Foundation, he was with Greenberg Traurig, where he counseled clients such as Google on open source licenses and technology transactions, and Mozilla, where he led the revision of the Mozilla Public License.  He has served on the boards at the Open Source Initiative and the GNOME Foundation, and been an invited expert on the Patents and Standards Interest Group of the World Wide Web Consortium and the Legal Working Group of OpenStreetMap.  Recent speaking engagements include RedMonk’s Monki Gras developer event, FOSDEM, and as a faculty member at the Practicing Law Institute’s Open Source Software programs. Luis holds a JD from Columbia Law School and studied political science and computer science at Duke University.  

In this episode, Madelyn Olson, a maintainer of the Valkey project and an AWS engineer, joins us to discuss the life of an open source maintainer and the experiences surrounding the launch of the Valkey project. We cover the pivotal moments that led to the creation of Valkey, a Redis fork, following the Redis license change. Madelyn also shares insights on the challenges and pressures of being a maintainer, strategies to manage burnout, and the significance of creating a community-driven, open source project. The episode highlights the technical advancements and future directions for Valkey, working to leverage modern hardware, manage large clusters, and expand the extension ecosystem.   00:00 Introduction 00:48 Redis License Change and Birth of Valkey 06:17 Maintainer Life and Burnout 14:54 Forking a Repository: When and Why 19:30 Community-Driven Open Source Projects 21:32 Future of Valkey and Closing Remarks   Guest: Madelyn Olson is a co-creator and maintainer of Valkey, a high-performance key-value datastore, and Principal Engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS). She focuses on building secure and highly reliable features, with a passion in working with open-source communities.

In this episode, Intel's open source AI evangelist Ezequiel Lanza and Dave Nielsen from IBM join the discussion to talk about the AI Alliance, a collaborative initiative formed by IBM and Meta in December 2023. We discussed the importance of openness in AI, how it fosters innovation, community involvement, and ensures AI remains safe and trustworthy. We also covered the significance of community in technology development, and upcoming events such as the Open Source AI Demo Night showcasing innovative AI applications. The episode emphasizes the role of open models in making technology more accessible globally. 00:00 Introduction 00:43 What is the AI Alliance? 04:48 The Importance of Openness in AI 11:47 AI for Good and Community Involvement 15:28 Upcoming Events and How to Get Involved   Guests: Dave Nielsen represents IBM as the head of community at the AI Alliance, which brings together compute, data, tools, and talent to accelerate and advocate for open innovation in AI. Prior to IBM, Dave led community programs at companies like MongoDB, Harness, Redis and PayPal. Dave is known for creating community events, such as CloudCamp, and for writing the book PayPal Hacks. 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.

In this episode, John Kjell, Director of Open Source at TestifySec, discusses his involvement in various open source projects and the intricacies of maintaining such projects. John sheds light on his work with the CNCF and OpenSSF, and the impact of tools like Witness, Archivista, and SLSA. He outlines the challenges maintainers face, especially around security, and offers insights into balancing professional and personal responsibilities. John also explores the significance of community, inclusivity, and a secure developer identity in open source ecosystems. 00:00 Introduction and Guest Background 01:20 Maintainer Burnout and Security Challenges 04:41 Balancing Multiple Projects and Personal Life 07:15 Security Risks in Smaller Projects 10:13 Developer Identity and Reputation 19:37 Open Source Origin Story and Community Involvement 24:11 Optimism for the Future of Open Source Security Resources: Enhancing Open Source Security: Introducing Siren by OpenSSF – Open Source Security Foundation Security at Every Step: Why Software Supply Chains Are Critical Guest: John Kjell is responsible for open source at TestifySec, a software supply chain security startup. He is a maintainer for the Witness and Archivista sub-projects under in-toto. Additionally, John is an active contributor to CNCF's TAG Security and multiple projects within the OpenSSF. Before TestifySec, John was an engineering leader at VMware, helping to bring supply chain security features to the Tanzu Application Platform.

In this episode, Devin Stein, founder of Dosu, shares his journey from being an active open source user and maintainer to solving maintainer burnout with Dosu, a GitHub app designed to automate and streamline open source project management. He discusses key pain points faced by maintainers, the innovative use of LLMs to enhance task automation, and his partnership with the CNCF to support various projects. Stein reflects on the broader impact of AI in open source maintenance, emphasizing the potential to enhance efficiency and community engagement while preserving the human element in open source development.   00:00 Introduction 02:21 Challenges Faced by Open Source Maintainers 06:53 How Dosu Works 11:39 Partnership with the CNCF 16:39 Future of Open Source and AI   Guest: Devin Stein is the CEO and Founder of Dosu. Prior to Dosu, Devin was an early engineer and leader at various startups. Outside of work, he is an active open source contributor and maintainer.

Sarah Christoff discusses her experiences and challenges as an open source maintainer with a focus on her work with the Porter and Zarf projects. Sarah shares insights into the frustrations and isolation often felt by maintainers, and emphasizes the importance of community and human connections in navigating these roles. We chatted about of Porter and its function in simplifying complex DevOps tool integrations. Additionally, Sarah talks about Zarf, a project recently donated to the OpenSSF aimed at facilitating air-gapped Kubernetes deployments.  00:00 Introduction 01:29 Challenges of Being an Open Source Maintainer 03:12 The Human Element in Software Development 05:45 Advice for Aspiring Maintainers 08:42 The Porter Project 11:10 The Zarf Project 13:09 The Importance of Community in Open Source 15:31 Women in Tech and Role Models 21:45 Animal Rescue and Community Building 26:10 Final Thoughts and Hot Takes on Open Source   Guest: Sarah Christoff is a software engineer at Defense Unicorns who loves making complex code more digestible. She is the self-proclaimed founder of the Leslie Lamport fan club. When she's not bugbusting, she is running her animal rescue and competing in triathlons. She believes code should be like cats: intelligent, fluffy, and easy to take care of.  

Matt Ray, the community manager for the CNCF sandbox project OpenCost, discusses their cloud and Kubernetes cost monitoring technology. He covers the capabilities of OpenCost in tracking cloud expenses and its new feature for monitoring carbon costs. Matt elaborates on the project's origin, its open source community, and the collaborative effort with other companies like Grafana and Microsoft. The conversation covers the community's growth, contribution processes, and OpenCost's goals for becoming more diverse and integrated with other technologies. Matt also reflects on the increasing interest in cost monitoring and his personal journey in the open source community.   00:00 Introduction to Matt Ray and OpenCost 01:09 OpenCost's Origins and CNCF Contribution 02:25 OpenCost vs. KubeCost: Defining the Boundaries 03:35 Adoption and Integration of OpenCost 04:30 Community Contributions and Project Growth 07:00 Flexibility and Use Cases of OpenCost 13:58 Becoming a Committer and Maintainer 14:47 Community Engagement and Participation 15:25 Future Plans and Focus 16:39 Carbon Cost and Plugin Architecture 17:53 Personal Journey in Open Source   Guest: Matt Ray has been active in Open Source and DevOps communities for over two decades and has spoken at and helped organize many conferences and meetups. He is currently the Senior Community Manager at Kubecost for the CNCF Sandbox Project OpenCost. He has worked in and with enterprises and startups across a wide variety of industries including banking, retail, and government. He currently resides in Sydney, Australia after relocating from Austin, Texas. He co-hosts the Software Defined Talk podcast and is active on Mastodon, GitHub, and too many Slacks.

Andres Aguiar joins us to discuss OpenFGA, an open source project for managing fine-grained authorization. Andres covers the challenges in implementing authorization and the importance of using precise access controls to enhance security. He outlines the project's journey, use cases, and how it can be integrated into different software environments. The conversation highlights the community's contributions, the roadmap for OpenFGA, and the potential of AI in improving security through centralized logging and anomaly detection. 00:13 Meet Andres and OpenFGA 01:48 Project Maturity and Community 02:55 Adoption and Use Cases 04:43 Contributions and Integrations 05:59 Understanding Relationship-Based Access Control 16:13 Future Roadmap and AI Potential Guest: Andres Aguiar has spent his 20+ year career building tools for developers, wearing different hats. He’s been working on the identity space for the last 6 years, and is currently the Product Manager for OpenFGA.

We spoke with Edoardo Dusi from Sparkfabrik about Edoardo's career path from a backend software engineer specializing in Drupal to his current role in Developer Relations (DevRel). He shared his experiences and the importance of community involvement when working with open source software. He highlighted the supportive nature of open source communities and provided advice for newcomers. We also covered the work of the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) and the significance of security in open source projects. 00:00 Welcome and Introduction 01:03 Sparkfabrik and Drupal 02:01 Exploring KubeCon 02:56 Getting Involved in Open Source 06:10 Challenges in Modern Open Source 08:37 Joining OpenSSF 11:21 Importance of Security in Open Source 13:01 European Perspectives on Security 14:14 The Role of Big Tech in Open Source 14:36 Community Contributions and Impact 16:34 Navigating the Contribution Process 21:24 Advice for New Open Source Contributors 25:47 The Human Side of Software Development Guest: Edoardo Dusi is a Developer Relations Engineer at SparkFabrik, a company that helps organisations build digital products with open source technologies. He has a strong software developer and team leader background, working on various projects and platforms. He is passionate about creating and sharing content that educates and inspires other developers, such as tech talks, videos, podcasts, conferences, and more. He enjoys connecting with the developer community and promoting the benefits of open source software.