The Craft Of Open Source
Ben Rometsch, CEO, Flagsmith
Welcome to The Craft of Open Source, hosted by Ben Rometsch, Co-Founder and CEO of Flagsmith. This bi-weekly show is focused on the ins and outs of the Open Source Software Community. Join Ben as he speaks with the brightest minds that have brought us some of the most adopted technologies on earth. Each episode is an interview with creators, maintainers, entrepreneurs, and key contributors to the open source community. We will cover critical topics for open source developers, contributors and entrepreneurs such as: Which open source licenses are best if you want to start a business at some point? How did people start their projects? What was the first commit? Did people start their projects for business or a different reason? How can you build an organic community around new projects? How can you create a business and still be open source? Where is open source headed? The technologies that we plan to profile will range from huge projects like React.js, Ansible, Git, PHP, Kafka, GitHub, Java, Python, Javascript, Redis, Kubernetes, VisualStudio, TensorFlow, Android, Apache, Spinnaker, Azure, and many more. The types of licenses that we plan to profile will include: GNU General Public License (GPL), The Apache License, Microsoft Public License (Ms-Pl), Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), Eclipse Public License (EPL), and MIT License.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Aug 27, 2024 • 43min
Chuck Carpenter: Founder, Shepherd Pro & Host, Whiskey Web and Whatnot
Buckle up for a journey into Shepherd! In this episode, Chuck Carpenter, the founder of Shepherd Pro and host of Whiskey Web and Whatnot, joins Ben Rometsch to delve into Shepherd and Shepherd JS, an influential open-source library for creating interactive guides in JavaScript. Chuck shares his deep involvement over seven years as a maintainer, highlighting Shepherd’s evolution from its origins at HubSpot to becoming a robust tool with broad community adoption. Don’t miss Chuck’s insights on Shepherd’s edge in the user experience space, its business potential, and his vision for leading the developer community forward.
Aug 13, 2024 • 54min
Julius Volz, CoFounder of Prometheus
Managing a modern application landscape can be a balancing act. Enter Prometheus, an open-source champion for monitoring and alerting. In this episode, Julius Volz, co-founder of Prometheus and founder of PromLabs, joins Ben Rometsch to discuss the origins and evolution of Prometheus. Julius traces its inception to his early days at Google and SoundCloud, where the need for a robust monitoring system inspired Prometheus. He explains how Prometheus revolutionized monitoring with its pull-based approach, powerful PromQL query language, and flexible data model, enabling effective monitoring, alerting, and automation. Discover how Prometheus continues to shape the future of monitoring!
Jul 30, 2024 • 43min
Jonathan Schneider: Co-Founder, Moderne
Moderne is a pioneer in the field of mass-scale automated code refactoring, and it has some pretty interesting origins. In this episode, co-founder Jonathan Schneider talks about the genesis of Moderne, how he started his open-source journey from being an engineer at Netflix, and their current initiatives, including some interesting developments at Openhaus. Tune in for more details!
Jul 16, 2024 • 47min
Deb Goodkin, Executive Director at The FreeBSD Foundation
Ever wondered how the backbone of streaming giants like Netflix or gaming consoles like Sony PlayStation ticks? Dive deep with us in this episode as we unravel the legacy and impact of FreeBSD, one of the unsung heroes of the tech world. Join us in an insightful conversation with Deb Goodkin, the Executive Director of the FreeBSD Foundation, as we explore the history, evolution, and significance of FreeBSD. From its roots in Berkeley UNIX to its integral role in modern technology, Deb sheds light on why this powerful, cohesive operating system stands out from Linux and how its permissive licensing has attracted major players. Discover the fascinating story behind FreeBSD's stability, performance, and community-driven development. Tune in for more intriguing details and expert insights you won't want to miss!
Jun 11, 2024 • 51min
Eddie Jaoude, Open Source Consultant
Success is not just about focusing on the grind. It is also about applying yourself every single day and letting your efforts compound over time. In this episode, open source consultant Eddie Jaoude shares how he applied this mindset in his own career path. Joining Ben Rometsch, he explains how he successfully built a strong online following through his edutainment content about the open source industry, especially on Twitter. Eddie also opens up on how he takes care of his mental health as he deals with online trolls, toxic feedback, and negative comments on social media every single day.
Jun 4, 2024 • 44min
Ari Zilka, CEO of MyDecisive.ai
In this episode of The Craft of Open Source, Ari Zilka describes his transition from his previous projects to founding a new company that aims to improve control over observability data in IT. He identifies issues with current observability tools, such as high costs and lack of flexibility, and propose using OpenTelemetry to offer a more customizable and manageable system. This new approach gives DevOps teams better tools for handling large amounts of data, ensuring security, and optimizing costs without relying on proprietary solutions. Tune in to learn more about MyDecisive.ai and Ari's outlook on the open-source space!
May 14, 2024 • 40min
Birk Jernström, CEO/Founder at Polar
Ben Rometsch sits down with Birk Jernström, who shares the genesis story of Polar, a creator platform for developers. He explains how he established his company using his experiences and expertise gained from Tictail and Shopify. Birk discusses how he changes the status quo for open-source developers in terms of working on their passions full-time and independently. He also talks about the power of changing your perspectives and how he handles the needs of every single person down the dependency tree.
Apr 9, 2024 • 55min
Heather Meeker, Founding Partner at OSS Capital
These past few years, open-source has been on the fast track to dominating the software market. It might sound contradictory to many people, but open-source is big business. A project’s source code may be free, but the products generated from that source code can certainly be commercialized. If you’re a project developer, therein lies the potential for economic benefit, if only you had the financial backing and business know-how. Heather Meeker, Founding Partner at OSS Capital returns to the show to talk about the different aspects of open-source business, from finding venture capital backing to navigating the intricacies of branding and product positioning. Tune in to this informative episode!
Feb 20, 2024 • 37min
Joe Duffy, CEO and Founder of Pulumi
Join us in this episode, where we take a deep dive into the story of Pulumi with its CEO and Founder, Joe Duffy. From its inception in 2016 with the ambitious goal of simplifying cloud infrastructure management through the creation of a new programming language, Joe takes us on a journey into the team’s evolution that helped Pulumi become what it is today. He talks about the intricacies of Pulumi Cloud, insights product, and the strategic alignment of Pulumi’s business model with the community's success. Get ready for a candid conversation as Joe shares his insights on overcoming challenges, chasing future goals, and dreaming big about an open ecosystem in cloud infrastructure management. Tune in now and discover how Pulumi is shaping the future of cloud development!
Jan 9, 2024 • 37min
Oleg Nenashev, Governance Board/Core Maintainer, Jenkins
Jenkins, an open-source stalwart and a foundational project of the Continuous Delivery Foundation, underwent a transformative journey towards independence within the foundation. In this conversation with Oleg Nenashev, Governance Board/Core Maintainer, we navigate through the significance of feature flags in continuous integration and delivery, culminating in excitement about the potential standardization through the open feature project. Shifting gears, the conversation delves into WireMock, a widely-used API mocking tool, exploring its capabilities, commercial extensions, and upcoming improvements in version 3. Oleg emphasizes collaboration and alignment across diverse languages and repositories. The conversation concludes by spotlighting Penpot, an open-source design platform, as a noteworthy project. Join in for a comprehensive exploration of Jenkins, feature flags, WireMock, and the broader open-source landscape.
