Episode 201

FOSSY 2023 with Josh Simmons

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September 29th, 2023

14 mins 39 secs

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About this Episode

Guest

Josh Simmons

Panelist

Richard Littauer

Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Sustain! Richard is in Portland at FOSSY, the Free and Open Source Software Yearly conference that is held by the Software Freedom Conservancy. In this exciting episode, we welcome guest Josh Simmons, a notable figure with an illustrious career in the open source community. We hear about Josh’s important contributions, particularly his involvement with OSCON as a community manager and now, a co-organizer and program chair of the community track. Josh also outlines his talk on health and safety policies in the diversity, equity, and inclusion track, focusing on minimizing risks and promoting inclusivity at events. Josh also introduces his exciting new venture, Open Chapters, a consultancy designed to support and elevate open source projects, community organizers, and institutions. If you’re curious about the dynamics and challenges of open source communities, this episode is a must listen! Hit download now!

[00:00:41] Josh talks about his involvement in OSCON as a community manager and how he’s now involved in the community track, as a co-organizer and program chair and mentions his fellow organizers. He also mentions his upcoming talk on health and safety policies in the diversity, equity, and inclusion track.

[00:02:14] Richard shares his experience of traveling and getting COVID twice, and asks Josh provides an overview of health and safety practices.

[00:05:05] Josh shares about his newly launched consultancy with Julia Ferraioli called Open Chapters, which focuses on social and technical systems in open source projects.

[00:06:00] He explains his ideal clients for their consultancy for profit or non-profit organizations looking to benefit from or contribute to open source and free software.

[00:07:03] Josh discusses the “community manager trap” and how they plan to avoid it by providing coaching, strategy, and educational materials to mentor new community managers into those roles.

[00:07:50] Josh acknowledges the resource disparities in open source and his hopes to level the playing field.

[00:10:40] Richard presents a devil’s advocate stance, challenging the approach of trying to help maintainers and suggesting that they should be encouraged to set boundaries instead. Josh agrees with Richard’s stance and highlights the importance of maintainers and suggesting that they should be encouraged to set boundaries instead.

[00:12:47] Find out where you can follow Josh, Open Chapters, and his health and safety policy work online.

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