The GitHub Podcast

Rachel Nabors grew up in rural Virginia and knew that if they could just get a laptop and the internet, they could bring the world to them. Currently balancing documentation, demos, and community engagement on Facebook’s React Core team, it’s safe to say Rachel was right. An illustrator, developer, author, speaker, and teacher, Rachel shares how they discovered programming via Sailor Moon, what open source and the React Core team means to them, and what’s next, now on The ReadME Podcast.

Almost 25 years ago, in 1997, Daniel Stenburg created cURL, a command line tool for transferring data. The name stands for “client URL,” works on any platform, and is used in billions of installations. Despite maintaining cURL for a quarter of a century, Daniel couldn’t be happier where he is, and wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. We recently sat down with him to hear how he first discovered open source, why he wants to lower the barrier of entry for newcomers, and how he sees cURL evolving in the future, now on The ReadME Podcast.

In this episode, we talk with Henry Zhu, full-time maintainer of Babel, the Javascript compiler. We’ll discover how Henry first got into programming, and what convinced him to leave a stable job at Adobe to take the leap into open source. Henry digs into the challenges and rewards of building a community, and how he finds balance. Hear it all straight from Henry, now on The ReadME Podcast.

While working on his master’s thesis for web applications, Tobias Koppers created an optimizer out of necessity, which he called webpack. His thesis complete, Tobias realized how fun it was to iterate with users and bring code splitting and bundling to the masses. Driven by the continuous innovation of the open source community, a few choice partners (like Sean Larkin) and Open Collective sponsorships, Tobias was able to become a full-time maintainer—and webpack is now used by millions of developers around the world. Tobias shares his story and why he recently took a new role at Vercel, now on The ReadME Podcast.

Originally from the Netherlands and now based in California, Paulus Schoutsen has always been fascinated by data, and how it could be used to optimize people’s lives. Seven years ago, he open sourced a simple way to remotely turn his house lights on at sunset. Today, Home Assistant has grown to an entire home automation framework with a worldwide community. Hear Paulus share his path to programming, including his early experiments and a deep-rooted love for open source, now on The ReadME Podcast.

When Mariatta Wijaya arrived in Canada from Indonesia, she got a job as a software developer, and the first language she learned was Python. Now a Python core developer, she creates GitHub bots that are not just functional, but friendly. She’s also the co-organizer of Vancouver PyLadies and the PyCascades conference, was nominated twice for the Google Open Source Peer Bonus Program, and has received the Python Software Foundation (PSF) community service award. Hear how it all unfolded on Mariatta’s episode, available now.

Tech enthusiasts Scott Hanselman and Mark Downie discuss maintaining Das Blog, a database-free blogging app. They delve into their partnership, revamping legacy code, and the value of blogging. Explore their journey on The ReadME Podcast.

When she was young, Gina Häußge’s dad showed her how to make her first computer commands, and she was hooked on watching code come to life. Fast forward to 2012, when she got her first 3D printer, which she loved. What she didn’t love were the noises and fumes it spat out during prints. So she put it in the spare bathroom, built a monitor that she could control from her office, and open sourced it on GitHub. Octoprint exploded in popularity, and Gina quickly learned there was much more to being a maintainer than writing code. Hear how she figured it all out, and what she’s doing now, on The ReadME Podcast.

Evan You, creator of Vue, shares his journey from Parsons to Google Creative Lab, discussing the organic growth of Vue and doubling of users in 2020. He talks about the idea behind Vue, turning his passion into a popular ecosystem, and advice for maintainers.

On The ReadME Podcast, we take a look behind the scenes of the most impactful open source projects and the developers who make them happen. Our guests are coding in public, creating firmware, designing hardware, researching security vulnerabilities, creating art and music, and making phenomenal scientific discoveries. They’re also working on the periphery of open source, taking time to consider how we think about technology. In sharing these stories, we hope to provide a spotlight on what you don’t always see in the lines of code, and what it takes to build the technology that inspires us all.