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
Jul 25, 2023 • 44min
Max Howell, CEO of tea.xyz
Tea is the catalyst that shifts open source from a labor of love to a sustainable revolution, ensuring that the creators behind our digital infrastructure receive the funding they deserve. In this episode, we sit down with Max Howell, the visionary mind behind the Tea Package Manager, and explore his journey from building the widely popular Homebrew (Brew) to embarking on a mission to fix open-source remuneration. With passion and determination, Max shares his vision for Tea, a groundbreaking solution aimed at reshaping the funding landscape for open-source projects. He walks through the intricate workings of Tea, where voluntary donations are replaced by a unique investment model that rewards stakeholders with a stake in the system. By leveraging blockchain technology, Tea creates a direct link between funding and open source, ensuring that those who contribute receive their fair share. Don't miss out on exploring the power of blockchain technology and its capacity to transform the world of open-source software. Tune in now!
Jul 11, 2023 • 39min
Rob Moffat, Senior Technical Architect at FINOS
For the longest time, financial services organizations have largely been consumers of open-source technology, and they haven’t been very keen in moving towards the contribution side. But things are starting to change as a lot of organizations in the space are beginning to give more weight to the idea of using their resources to help maintain and improve the open-source projects that they use. FINOS leads the way in promoting open innovation in the financial services industry. Joining us on the podcast today to tell us more about it is the nonprofit’s Senior Technical Architect, Rob Moffat. In this conversation, Rob tells us how FINOS provides open-source software solutions that help address common industry challenges and drive innovation that benefits all organizations involved. Join in and learn the prospects lying in wait for the future of open-source fintech!
Jun 27, 2023 • 39min
Kamran Ahmed, Founder of roadmap.sh
Many of us struggle with where to start whenever we embark on a new journey. For developers contending in such a fast-paced and ever-growing environment, it can be confusing to figure out what to learn next. This episode’s guest is breaking down this barrier. Kamran Ahmed created roadmap.sh to help developers find their path and help them learn and grow in their careers. Kamran joins us to share his remarkable journey as the founder of this great resource project. Initially met with mixed responses, his brainchild has blossomed into a thriving community-driven initiative. Kamran shares insights into maintaining this community approach, partnering with organizations, and hosting the project on GitHub. With an impressive user base of 700,000 monthly visitors and a newsletter with 250,000 subscribers, Kamran discusses the challenges and strategies behind managing such remarkable growth. We also gain valuable insights into their creative process as well as their plans for income generation. Tune in to discover the inspiring story of roadmap.sh and its incredible success.
Jun 13, 2023 • 46min
Emre Baran, CEO & Co-Founder At Cerbos
Authorization can be a time-consuming process, but you can never get away from it because it is just as essential to your product and business. What if there is a way to make this easy? With Cerbos, that is possible. Cerbos is the authorization layer for software applications to be able to quickly and securely implement roles and permissions. In this episode, its CEO and Founder Emre Baran joins us to help us get to know the work they are doing and how they have built and grown it. He talks about decoupling authorization, making life easy for developers to implement this. He also breaks down the differences between authorization, authentication, and feature flagging as well as the benefits of open source to developing trust. Emre fills us with so many insights about the world of Cerbos and how they are making authorization simpler. So tune in to this conversation to learn more!
Jun 6, 2023 • 48min
Daniel Lenton, CEO Of Ivy
There is fragmentation in the field of AI that no one seems to be taking too seriously. Daniel Lenton, the CEO of Ivy, observed this, finding so many frameworks, models, infrastructures, and hardware that make it hard for collaboration. Helping solve this problem, Ivy was created to unify all Machine Learning (ML) frameworks. In this episode, he tells us how they made it possible to fit these pieces together. Daniel also takes us through his journey prior to Ivy, the walls they hit in the labs, and the lessons they learned overcoming them. Talking about Ivy’s growth, he then shares their success in GitHub and Discord and where they see they’re heading in the future. For more insights about AI, ML frameworks, and open-source technology, join Daniel in this conversation. Find out how Ivy uniquely allows you to bring any model, library, or function into one line of code for your project.
May 30, 2023 • 48min
Special Episode - Ben Rometsch, Founder & CEO Of Flagsmith And The Craft Of Open Source
Flagsmith's CEO, Ben Rometsch, is a true champion of open source. His software revolution is turning heads among developers, by unlocking the true potential of simplicity and sustainability in the digital world. In this special interview episode, Jason Bosco from Type Sense takes charge and conducts an exciting conversation with Ben Rometsch. Today’s episode unravels the story behind Flagsmith and the pivotal moments that drove its creation. Jason probes Ben with insightful questions, exploring his decision to embrace open source from the start and the strategic considerations around its future monetization. Together, they discuss the significance of self-hosting for customers and the synergies it brings to software deployment. Ben shares how he approaches positioning the product, bridging the gap between proprietary solutions and an open-source alternative. They also delve into the realm of developer marketing, exploring effective channels and lessons learned. Don't miss out on the exciting glimpse into Flag Smith's future roadmap and the enduring philosophy of simplicity and sustainability in software development. Tune in now!
May 16, 2023 • 45min
NanoVMs
This whole idea of having an operating system that runs many different programs on one computer is completely outdated and doesn't reflect reality whatsoever. The question is, “What would an operating system look like for something in 2020 to serve up the software?” That's where NanoVMs come in with a unikernel concept. Today, its CEO, Ian Eyberg, takes us into a deep dive into unikernels and how they function. Tune in to discover how to efficiently manage virtual machines and create a truly agile environment for your software development.
May 9, 2023 • 38min
CapRover
In this episode, we welcome Kasra Bigdeli, Engineering Manager at CapRover. He shares how he built an open-source version of Heroku that features one-click apps. He explains how he designed it to be newbie-friendly: easy to navigate and full of contextual help. Kasra also talks about using only organic techniques in marketing CapRover, and now its community is naturally growing with more than a hundred projects.
May 2, 2023 • 41min
React-Admin
When you create something you love, it feels good to give it away for people to tinker around and do great things with it. That is what is open-source is all about. But what happens when the cost of maintaining an open-source project becomes too high to sustain? Some people would abandon it, but not Francois Zaninotto, CEO of Marmelab. Realizing the untapped potential of React-Admin, he managed to build a sustainable business model from an open-source core. Find out how he did it in this conversation. Plus, get a glimpse of his other project, GreenFrame.io, which allows users to estimate the carbon emissions linked to user scenarios on a web application and use that information to create a carbon reduction strategy.
Apr 25, 2023 • 38min
Project Calico
Ben Rometsch and Matt Althauser sit down with Shaun Campton, Principal Engineer at Tigera, who shares his experiences as a core developer on Project Calico. He talks about their origins of moving out of the era of doing forklift moves into OpenStack and down the development of network splitting, focusing more on a dynamic firewall approach. He opens up on his experiences writing their first 10,000 lines of code, their identity-based policy, and the value they are offering to clients. Shaun also provides insights on what may be next for Kubernetes and how open-source projects must get ready for any change ahead.
