

CHAOSScast
CHAOSS Project
This CHAOSS Community podcast features members who spent considerable time and effort to understand open source community health and how we can measure it through metrics, analytics, and software. We invite guests to this podcast to talk about how they use open source community health metrics and software in their own open source communities, companies, or foundations. This podcast fills the gap with open source community metric definitions and software on one side and their use on the other side.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 29, 2021 • 37min
Episode 27: GSOD with Xiaoya & Jaskirat
Panelists
Georg Link | Matt Snell | Aastha Bist
Guests
Xiaoya Xia
Jaskirat Singh
Sponsor
SustainOSS
Show notes
[00:02:15] Xiaoya introduces herself, how she came to CHAOSS, what it was like to apply to the Google Season of Docs, and why she chose this project.
[00:04:26] Matt and Aastha tell us what the Diversity & Inclusion Badging Program is about and what the status was before Xiaoya started her project.
[00:08:50] Xiaoya tells us her experience coming into this project and deciding what the final outcome will look like.
[00:10:30] Xiaoya shares with us some of the trials and tribulations and how she overcame any challenges.
[00:12:19] Aastha asks Xiaoya how she’s going forward with this project and what her future plans are. She also tells us if she would do it again and if she would recommend other technical writers to the project.
[00:19:49] Jaskirat introduces himself and tells us his background. He also tells us what it was about the CHAOSS project specifically that connected with your past experiences.
[00:23:01] Jaskirat tells us all about his project.
[00:26:51] We learn how Jaskirat got started with the project application process.
[00:30:53] We find out how Jaskirat’s project evolved from the starting point to the completion. He also tells us about the Community Handbook and what his next steps are going forward.
[00:33:30] Jaskirat tells us where we can find him online to connect with him.
Value Adds (Picks) of the week
[00:15:40] Matt’s pick is a WASD Keyboard.
[00:16:07] Xiaoya’s pick is taking a short break to visit her family.
[00:33:59] Georg’s pick is a tv show THE ORVILLE.
[00:34:26] Matt’s second pick is the home search with his fiancé.
[00:34:47] Aastha’s pick is levelling up her freehand drawing skills.
[00:35:17] Jaskirat’s pick is learning and researching robotics stuff.
Links
CHAOSS Project
CHAOSS Project Twitter
CHAOSScast Podcast
podcast@chaoss.community
CHAOSS for Google Summer of Docs 2020
Xiaoya Xia Twitter
Xiaoya Xia Linkedin
Jaskirat Singh Twitter
Jaskirat Singh Linkedin
“How my big mistake led me to success in open source,” by Jaskirat Singh
WASD Keyboards
CHAOSS Community Handbook-Table of Contents
CHAOSS Community Handbook-Table of Contents-GitHub
THE ORVILLE
You Can Draw in 30 Days: The Fun, Easy Way to Learn to Draw in One Month or Less by Mark Kistler
CHAOSS Diversity & Inclusion Badging ProgramSpecial Guests: Aastha Bist, Jaskirat Singh, Matt Snell, and Xiaoya Xia.Support CHAOSScast

Jan 15, 2021 • 44min
Episode 26: SustainOSS and CHAOSS
Panelists
Georg Link | Venia Logan | Brian Proffitt | Richard Littauer | Pia Mancini
Sponsor
SustainOSS
Show Notes
[00:03:54] Richard wants to know if metrics lose some of the qualitative aspects of communities and of projects by trying to find quantitative things and how are they not stripping away what really is the heart of open source.
[00:09:20] Pia wonders what are the most important qualitative metrics CHAOSS is evaluating. Georg tells us how they established the Diversity & Inclusion Badging Program (D&I Badging) at CHAOSS.
[00:14:48] Richard wonders if they’ve found a lot of uptake for the badges and if people have started using them.
[00:15:29] Georg tells us how people can get involved besides joining the working group. He explains three main areas that CHAOSS has to get involved.
[00:20:23] Pia tells us what Sustain is, how it started, and what they do.
[00:23:29] Venia talks about the concept of what a company, organization, or community is to people, and how they want to see something happen, so they ask for more structure. Pia tells us about Open Collective.
[00:27:36] Pia brings up doing the first Sustain and the first insights they wrote from the meeting about maintainers.
[00:29:57] Venia talks about her consultation services and how she works with other companies to produce community strategies. Georg tells us what he thinks works well for the Sustain community and what brought him in.
[00:32:41] Richard gives praises to Gunner and Pia for all the work they’ve done with Sustain, and Pia shares with us about having concerns the first time they did an event with a lot of people.
[00:34:49] Georg tells where you can get involved in the CHAOSS community and Richard tells us where you can get involved in the Sustain community.
Value Adds (Picks) of the week
[00:36:33] Georg’s pick is an open source project called the Toolkit for YNAB.
[00:37:36] Venia’s pick is Scribus.
[00:38:49] Pia’s pick is Open Prioritization by Igalia.
[00:39:42] Brian’s pick is reMarkable 2.
[00:41:40] Richard’s pick is the Audubon Christmas Bird Count.
Links
CHAOSS
CHAOSScast Podcast
CHAOSS News
CHAOSS Software
CHAOSS D&I Badging Program
CHAOSS-How to Participate
SustainOSS
SustainOSS Discourse
Sustain Working Groups
FOSS Backstage
Toolkit for YNAB-GitHub
Scribus
Open Prioritization by Igalia
reMarkable 2
Audobon Christmas Bird Count
Audobon Christmas Bird Count Map of Active Circles
Birding in VermontSpecial Guests: Pia Mancini and Richard Littauer.Support CHAOSScast

Dec 18, 2020 • 22min
Episode 25: GSOC: GitLab Data with Abhinav
Show Notes
[00:01:34] Abhinav gives us an introduction of himself and what he did at Google Summer of Code 2020. He tells us what it was like applying to the program, his experience throughout the process, discovering CHAOSS, and deciding on this project.
[00:03:31] Abhinav talks about working with Gitlab Data and the new feature he developed. Sean explains the merge request and the work Abhinav did with Augur.
[00:05:34] Sean and Abhinav describes how the pull request/merge request portion of how it’s set up and how much he was able to reuse or change it to implement the merge requests.
[00:06:57] We learn the most challenging part about reimplementing the architecture for the GitLab API and how he overcame it.
[00:08:28] Georg wonders once the data was there if Abhinav was able to use the same visualizations that he uses for pull requests or were there changes that he also had to do in the presentation of the data.
[00:10:25] Abhinav tells us how his experience was, how he worked with the mentors in the community, and how his learning experience was enhanced or encumbered by having peers on the Google Summer of Code.
[00:14:06] Abhinav explains what his experience has been like coming into an open source community.
[00:14:56] Since Google of Summer Code is done, Abhinav shares with us his plans for the future and where his journey is taking him now.
Value Adds (Picks) of the week
[00:18:07] Georg’s picks are Minecraft and Minecraft Earth.
[00:20:06] Sean’s picks are electricity and rubber flooring.
[00:20:48] Abhinav’s pick is to play the game “Among Us” with friends.
Panelists
Georg Link | Sean Goggins
Guest
Abhinav Bajpai
Sponsor
SustainOSS
Links
CHAOSS Project
CHAOSS Project Twitter
CHAOSScast Podcast
podcast@chaoss.community
Abhinav Bajpai Linkedin
Google Summer of Code 2020-Abhinav Bajpai Work Product
Abhinav Bajpai Blog Posts (Medium)
Augur
Google Summer of Code
Minecraft
Minecraft Earth
Rubber Flooring
Among UsSpecial Guest: Abhinav Bajpai.Support CHAOSScast

Dec 4, 2020 • 33min
Episode 24: Starting a Metrics Company with Luis Cañas-Díaz
Panelists
Georg Link | Andrea Gallo
Guest
Luis Cañas-Díaz
Sponsor
SustainOSS
Show Notes
[00:02:20] Luis tells us all about himself, what he’s doing now, and how things evolved for him to get to this point.
[00:06:25] Andrea wonders when Luis started the company if he followed those kind of management books of starting the company for dummies where first you need a mission or vision.
[00:08:20] Andrea said some people say that maybe data is the new oil, or maybe it’s the way you use the data, or the metrics can be the new oil, and Luis responds.
[00:11:22] Georg talks about starting CHAOSS three years ago, and how happy he was that Bitergia was one of the Co-Founders bringing in all of this experience. He also tells us about a new thing on the CHAOSS website under “Initiatives” where you can find community reports on the some of the metrics they have been defining. Luis talks about this report too.
[00:13:58] Andrea wonders how many metrics Luis has available and if he has any common ones he recommends starting with. Georg wonders how does Luis identify contributors in open source and their organizational affiliation?
[00:16:50] With Luis’s long history of working with metrics and users of open source metrics, Georg wonders if there are any do’s and don’ts or anything that he would take away from this experience and say to someone who is doing this work that here are some pitfalls that you need to be aware of.
[00:19:28] Andrea talks about one of his favorite metrics, which is the geography one, Luis’s is the elephant factor, and Georg talks about the elephant factor.
[00:23:45] Georg tells us why he enjoys the diversity and inclusion metrics and the value metrics, and why they are so important to him.
[00:26:29] Luis tells us if he has a metric that is the most controversial or the most difficult to use.
[00:29:04] Find out where you can learn more about Luis’s work and where you can find him online.
Value Adds (Picks) of the week
[00:30:09] Andrea’s picks are Queen Crest Logo (Freddie Mercury’s design} and the book, Queen All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track by Benoît Clerc.
[00:31:08] Georg’s pick is his growing family and finally feeling complete.
[00:31:29] Luis’s picks are a book called Persepolis _by Marjane Satrapi _and a video game called “Detroit: Become Human.”
Links
CHAOSS Project
CHAOSS Project Twitter
CHAOSScast Podcast
Luis Cañas-Díaz Twitter
Libre Software People’s Front-Luis Cañas-Díaz Blog
The Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Z. Muller
Community Health Report Request-CHAOSS
CHAOSScast podcast-Episode 9-“In Defense of Vanity Metrics”
Queen Crest logo
Queen All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track by Benoît Clerc
Persepolis
The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Detroit: Become Human
Detroit: Become Human-PlaystationSpecial Guest: Luis Cañas-Díaz.Support CHAOSScast

Nov 20, 2020 • 51min
Episode 23: GSOC & Outreachy: D&I Efforts - Aastha and Tola
Panelists
Venia Logan | Matt Snell | Saleh Abdel Motaal
Guests
Aastha Bist
Tola Ore-Aruwaji
Shownotes
[00:03:04] Aastha and Tola introduce themselves and talk about their projects.
[00:05:21] Aastha and Tola tells us about their coding backgrounds and what interested them in their specific projects.
[00:07:35] Aastha talks about the initial idea of her project and how it affects the CHAOSS metrics in the end. Tola tells us the idea of his project since it went in a different direction and how it came back around to metrics.
[00:13:58] Saleh brings up how important it is to bring in the idea diversity and inclusion and how CHAOSS has managed to make a more inclusive open source body.
[00:15:22] Aastha tells us how the idea for her project evolved from the start of Google Summer of Code, to the project end, and beyond.
[00:21:03] Tola tells us about how his project got started.
[00:26:59] Saleh touches on some of the common pains of developers.
[00:29:34] Tola explains to us about the success with the translation process.
[00:30:32] Venia asks Aastha and Tola what they enjoyed most about working on their projects and what the highlights were, and they explain.
[00:34:51] Aastha and Tola tells us where the projects stand, how people can get involved, and what’s next.
[00:39:38] Matt wants to know what Aastha and Tola’s next steps from here on out, with their projects and professional lives.
Value Adds (Picks) of the week
[00:43:16] Venia’s pick is ‘People Powered’ Book Club by Jono Bacon or any virtual book clubs around your local area.
[00:43:57] Matt’s pick is a used amp for an old guitar-VOX Night Train.
[00:44:28] Saleh’s pick is “Reflecting on My Autistic Self,” (Unlisted Medium Draft}
[00:46:26] Aastha’s pick is conversations with my granddad.
[00:47:52] Tola’s pick is protests in Nigeria- #EndSARS.
Sponsor
SustainOSS
Links
CHAOSS Project
CHAOSS Project Twitter
CHAOSScast Podcast
CHAOSS Community Project Launch: CHAOSS Diversity & Inclusion Badging Program By Matt Snell
CHAOSS Overview of the D&I Badging
Aastha Bist Blog
Aastha Bist Twitter
Aastha Bist Linkedin
Tola Ore-Aruwaji Twitter
Tola Ore-Aruwaji Blog
Tola Ore-Aruwaji Linkedin
Aastha Bist GSoC 2020 final work report-CHAOSS Badging Project
Tola Ore-Aruwaji-My Outreachy Project-Crowdsourcing Translation for CHAOSS Diversity & Inclusion Badging
Jono Bacon People Powered Book Club
VOX Night Train
“Reflecting on My Autistic Self,” by Saleh Abdel Motaal
BBC News-“SARS ban: Nigeria abolishes loathed federal special police unit”
Google Summer of Code
CHAOSS Mentorship Alumi (list of Mentees and their projects)Special Guests: Aastha Bist, Matt Snell, Saleh Abdel Motaal, and Tola Ore-Aruwaji.Support CHAOSScast

Nov 6, 2020 • 42min
Episode 22: University OSPO Metrics with Stephen Jacobs
Panelists
Georg Link | Brian Proffitt | Matt Germonprez
Guest
Stephen Jacobs
Show Notes
[00:03:18] Stephen tells us his background and how he got his start.
[00:08:00] From his early experiences with One Laptop per Child, Stephen tells us some things that are still relevant today with the work he’s doing around open source and the connection between where he started and where he’s at today.
[00:10:23] Brian asks Stephen if he has some immediate goals for the open source academic program that he’s continuing at RIT.
[00:16:02] Matt wants to know if Stephen counsels people through the process of picking the right candidate for open source. Stephen also talks about modifying the IP policy or creating an IP policy dedicated to open source.
[00:23:40] Talking about metrics now, there is a discussion about some challenges to overcome in metrics and the impact that the work in the open in software and other types of open has.
[00:26:04] On the idea of a healthy community, Brian asks Stephen how he is addressing the challenges with working in an academic environment with students who are rotating every four to six years and accepting student contributions.
[00:32:50] Stephen shares a story about his students working on an open project on a video chat program for One Laptop per Child, focusing on the needs of a deaf user.
[00:34:52] Georg is curious if Stephen has thoughts on how we can show impact in what kind of metrics we might be able to develop to show that we are doing good things in the maintenance of work that is not originally our own. Stephen mentions a community of professors called, Teaching Open Source.
[00:39:43] Stephen tells us where to find him online.
Value Adds (Picks) of the week
[00:37:00] Georg’s pick is a Crockpot.
[00:37:16] Brian’s pick is being cognizant of your time since it’s the most valuable resource that you have.
[00:38:07] Stephen’s pick is to be able to walk on his treadmill for sanity and physical health.
[00:38:56] Matt’s pick is a shout out to the Omaha Humane Society who helped him find his lost puppy.
Sponsor
SustainOSS
Links
CHAOSS Project
CHAOSS Project Twitter
Rochester Institute of Technology-Open@RIT
Stephen Jacobs
One Laptop per Child
TeachingOpenSource
Crockpot
Nebraska Humane SocietySpecial Guest: Stephen Jacobs.Support CHAOSScast

Oct 23, 2020 • 36min
Episode 21: GSOC Pt. 2: Extending GrimoireLab projects with Ria and Venu
Panelists
Venia Logan | Dylan Marcy
Guests
Ria Gupta | Venu Vardhan Reddy Tekula
Show Notes
[00:02:35] Ria and Venu introduce themselves and tell us how they got into CHAOSS.
[00:04:34] Ria and Venu share with us how they found their projects and what is was like applying for Google Summer of Code.
[00:07:27] Venu tells us all about what his project was in the Google Summer of Code.
[00:08:50] Ria tells us all about what her project was in the Google Summer of Code.
[00:10:05] Venu and Ria share with us how their projects started and what their experiences were in the Google Summer of Code.
[00:12:24] Since Venu and Ria were working with similar systems, Dylan asks if at one point their two projects overlapped and they ended up working in the same area or with each other more directly.
[00:14:14] Venia wants to know the most difficult parts of Ria and Venu’s projects and they tell us.
[00:17:40] We find out how Ria and Venu feel about their end results and where they are in their projects right now.
[00:23:35] Ria and Venu tells us what’s next for them since Google Summer of Code is over.
[00:27:08] Venu shares one last thought about his project.
Value Adds (Picks) of the week
[00:29:42] Venia’s pick is a book called, Building Brand Communities by Carrie Melissa Jones and Charles Vogl.
[00:30:39] Dylan’s pick is puppies.
[00:32:23] Venu’s pick is amFOSS.
[00:33:08] Ria’s pick is staying connected with friends and family.
Links
CHAOSS Project
CHAOSS Project Twitter
Implementing Social Currency Metric System in GrimoireLab-Ria Gupta
Creating Quality models with GrimoireLab and CHAOSS metrics-Venu Vardhan Reddy Tekula
Ria Gupta Twitter
Ria Gupta-Blog
Ria Gupta Linkedin
Venu Vardhan Reddy Tekula Twitter
Venu Vardhan Reddy Tekula Website
Venu Vardhan Reddy Tekula Linkedin
Venu Vardhan Reddy Tekula YouTube
GrimoireLab
Building Brand Communities: How Organizations Succeed by Creating Belonging-Carrie Melissa Jones and Charles Vogl
amFOSSSpecial Guests: Dylan Marcy, Ria Gupta, and Venu Tekula.Support CHAOSScast

Oct 9, 2020 • 55min
Episode 20: CHAOSS + FINOS: Lessons Learned with Rob Underwood
Panelists
Venia Logan
Guest
Rob Underwood
Show Notes
[00:01:10] Rob tells us about himself, his career, and what he does at FINOS.
[00:03:34] Rob talks about the culture and the environment that he built this tool in FINOS.
[00:12:38] Rob tells us about being blessed in his career with some great mentors, and he shares a story about one.
[00:16:34] We learn from Rob about the “tool” which is their board reporting and program health check. It is a rubric in order to present a set of criteria.
[00:21:44] Venia summarizes the rubric.
[00:23:21] Rob explains the philosophy behind selecting the metrics they did.
[00:28:18] We find out what some of the metrics are which Rob calls “dimensions” and he explains each of these dimensions in detail.
[00:34:58] Venia tells us to go to podcast.chaoss.community-Episode 11, if you’re looking to get involved in diversity and inclusion, which is a really great place to start.
[00:37:38] Rob tells us about some big highlight metrics that he’s excited about.
[00:46:35] We learn what the first step is toward community leaders implementing and adopting this tool in their own community
[00:50:32] QIA process is mentioned by Venia.
Value Adds (Picks) of the week
[00:51:48] Rob’s pick is VOTE and wear a mask.
[00:52:12] Venia’s pick is donate and contribute, especially to the people who are working on the front lines.
Links:
CHAOSS Project
CHAOSS Project Twitter
Rob Underwood Twitter
FINOS
AVC-FINOS (interesting last paragraph about diversity)
FINOS Board Reporting and Program Health Checks (this is the tool for the projects)
CSforAll
Girls who code
Black girls code
FINOS Incubating
FINOS Activation
CHAOSScast Podcast-Episode 11: Diversity & Inclusion with Emma IrwinSpecial Guest: Rob Underwood.Support CHAOSScast

Sep 25, 2020 • 49min
Episode 19: GSOC: Anomaly Detection with Pratik, Akshara, Sarit, and Tianyi
Panelists
Georg Link | Sean Goggins
Guests
Pratik Mishra
Akshara P
Sarit Adhikari
Tianyi
Show Notes
[00:04:02] Sean tells us how he was a mentor to all these students and what they all did.
[00:05:39] Each student will discuss their project, the machine learning they used, and the outcome they were able to generate. Pratik shares his project first, and Georg asks if he can just plug in any metrics, even as new ones are developed, and start seeing behavior.
[00:10:09] Pratik tells us about clustering or label of activity and what this means.
[00:12:16] Akshara talks about her project, what she implemented, and what she is able to do now that her work is complete.
[00:19:43] Akshara talked about building a prediction model and Georg wonders if she tried out how accurate her prediction was and did she go out and actually predict probabilities and then observed over a week or two how likely those were to be merged.
[00:20:55] Sarit talks about his project, what he worked on, and what he is able to do now that his project is complete.
[00:25:11] Georg asks Sarit what he learned about open source projects and is there a way of interacting that is better than another. Also, what is the insight you can gain from this kind of analysis. Sarit also tells us how the conversation mechanism could be different.
[00:28:26] Tianyi tells us about his project, what he worked on, which is different than the others, and what he is able to do now that his project is complete.
[00:34:36] Georg asks Tianyi if he looked at the strength of connections between projects. He also wonders if there are any other insights that Tianyi got from looking at the most active GitHub repositories.
[00:38:46] Tianyi interprets the clustering coefficient of 0.5 for us.
[00:40:21] The students share their experiences from their projects, and they tell us if Google Summer of Code lived up to their expectations going into it.
Picks
[00:45:37] Georg’s pick is his new bike and going biking.
[00:46:00] Sean’s pick is what is in scarce supply which is “silence.” (his kids are home all day doing virtual school ☺).
[00:46:20] Sarit’s pick is a camping trip he took last week.
[00:46:40] Akshara’s pick is finding time to have a virtual meet with her gang of friends form college.
[00:47:34] Pratik’s pick is having a virtual meeting with his friends from college.
[00:48:03] Tianyi’s pick is he took a vacation and went back home to spend time with his parents and grandma.
Links
CHAOSS Project
CHAOSS Project Twitter
Google Summer of Code
Augur softwareSpecial Guests: Akshara P, Pratik Mishra, Sarit Adhikari, and Tianyi.Support CHAOSScast

Sep 18, 2020 • 40min
Episode 18: DevRel Metrics with Mary Thengvall
Panelists
Matt Broberg | Nicole Huesman | Foundjem Armstrong
Guests
Mary Thengvall
Show Notes
[00:01:48] Mary tells us all about herself and her job.
[00:03:05] We find out from Mary what DevRel is.
[00:05:20] Nicole asks Mary to talk the DevRel position being such a unique position and often people may want to apply traditional marketing metrics to the role and sometimes that doesn’t really work, so she explains why.
[00:11:17] Matt wants to know how Mary handles the organization that is so used to trying to build these metaphorical engines everywhere and how do you try to explain DevRel from a data perspective if you don’t have the same easy metaphor available to you. She brings up the “Orbit Model.”
[00:17:53] Armstrong asks Mary if this is a different kind of MetaMetrics that captures different forms of metrics and tries to present it to a different audience.
[00:22:17] Mary tells us her thoughts on the whole notion of the unintended consequences of metrics or measurement, which is always a hot topic.
[00:29:06] We learn how management measures Mary’s success and how does she evaluate her performance.
[00:32:10] Mary tells us what she would like to see from the CHAOSS Project and how does she see the CHAOSS Project being helpful from a DevRel perspective.
Picks
[00:35:08] Mary has two picks: a book called, Working in Public, _by Nadia Eghbal and a video game, _Horizon Zero Dawn.
[00:36:53 Armstrong’s pick is Ordy cartoon.
[00:37:38] Nicole has two picks: I AM C-3PO and A Famous Dog’s Life (Audiobooks).
[00:38:48] Matt’s pick is the research of George Lakoff and his book, _Metaphors We Live By. _
Sponsor
Honeybadger
Links
CHAOSS Project
CHAOSS Project Twitter
Mary Thengvall Website/Blog
Mary Thengvall Twitter
Mary Thengvall Instagram
Camunda
The Business Value of Developer Relations by Mary Thengvall
The Orbit Model-GitHub
“DevRel Qualified Leads: Repurposing A Common Business Metric To Prove Value,” by Mary Thengvall
Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software by Nadia Eghbal
Horizon Zero Dawn-Steam
Ordy Cartoon
I AM C-3PO (Audiobook)
A Famous Dog’s Life (Audiobook)
Metaphors We Live By- George Lakoff
George Lakoff WebsiteSpecial Guest: Mary Thengvall.Support CHAOSScast