Sustain - Episodes Tagged with “Covid 19”

Episode 42: Open Sourcing COVID-19 Data with Cindy Wang & Gil Yehuda

SustainOSS — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 04:00:00 -0400

Panelists

Justin Dorfman | Eric Berry | Richard Littauer

Guest

Cindy Wang
Sr. Director, Product Management, Yahoo Knowledge Graph
Verizon Media

Gil Yehuda
Sr. Director of Open Source
Verizon Media

Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Sustain! In this episode, we have special guests, Gil Yehuda and Cindy Wang, who both work for Verizon Media, which is a combination of a bunch of companies, predominantly Yahoo and AOL. Gil is Senior Director, Open Source Program and Cindy is Sr. Director, Product Management, Yahoo Knowledge Graph. We learn more about Gil and Cindy’s positions with Yahoo, the Yahoo Knowledge Graph COVID-19 project, data sets, complications with data, and Vespa (open source big data serving engine).

[00:02:26] Gil explains to us what coverage he has and what he’s responsible for in his OSPO (Open Source Program Office). He also tells us how many repos and orgs he’s managing.

[00:05:29] Cindy tells us all about the Yahoo Knowledge Graph COVID-19 project. Justin questions data sets and its inconsistencies and Cindy explains.

[00:12:30] Eric asks Cindy if this resource has been established as an authority and if she’s heard feedback or others pointing to this as the authoritative data source?

[00:14:00] Gil explains to us two levels of complications with data that he’s observing.

[00:18:30 ] In regard to financial incentivisation, Eric wonders what has been their experience, or have they had any feedback from people who are trying to massage the numbers in their favor?

[00:21:22 ] Richard wants to know if there is any code open source and can people look at that? How can people get involved and what was that process like besides the data aspects? Also, Gil tells us if he has any pushbacks from making any of this stuff open.

[00:29:01] Gil mentions Vespa.ai, an open source big data serving engine. Richard wonders if Gil has thought of long term plans for how he sustains this work and how it’s going forward and what teams will be on it, and will it just be open source in the sense of like a year?

[00:31:57] Richard wonders if Gil and Cindy have plans to onboard people from the community who are interested in the data who are helping out so that they also become maintainers, so it’s not just a Yahoo only project internally.

[00:33:08] Eric asks Gil to elaborate on a follow up question where he said he was using these tools internally. Cindy tells us all about the tools. Also, Eric wonders if there was any questions or concerns about licensing the open source and are people allowed to build commercial applications on top of this data?

[00:40:24] Gil and Cindy tell us where people can get involved in this project, how can you follow along, and how can you follow them.

Spotlight

[00:42:20] Richard’s spotlight is Moment.js.
[00:42:39] Eric’s spotlight is a project built by Jared White called Bridgetown, which is an updated version of Jekyll.
[00:43:49] Justin’s spotlights are to thank Ashley Wolf for putting this whole thing together and a browser extension called Read Aloud, a text to speech voice reader.
[00:44:31] Gil’s spotlight is a project called Denali.

Quotes

[00:04:51] "AOL had an OSPO and they didn’t have an OSPO and they kind of had an OSPO, but when we merged together we brought it together and we just continue to do what we do.”

[00:05:04] “Before OSPO there was Open Source activity because as you know companies do Open Source even without OSPO’s. They just do Open Source better with OSPO’s.”

[00:14:00] “There’s two levels of complications with data that I’m observing and there’s probably more, because there’s always more to everything.”

[00:14:48] “But then there’s this other element which is, I don’t know, maybe it’s the political nature of data.”

[00:16:23] “And I guess all of the paddling that goes on under the surface of the water to collect that data and to be as accurate as you can, but also to connect it to the source so that you could investigate it.”

[00:20:36] “The training set has to be clean, so they actually spend 80% of their effort in cleaning the data.”

[00:34:28] “So, for example, you look at some states now after opening, the numbers shot up. So, is it concerning from business planning perspective? Perhaps.”

[00:37:23] “We have hundreds of millions of entities in this graph that represent billions of pieces of information that we use across the company for all types of things, like how the news stream is ordered.”

Links

Yahoo Covid-19 Dashboard

Yahoo Knowledge COVID-19 API

Yahoo-GitHub

Vespa-Github

Yahoo! Developer Network (YDN)

Yahoo! Developer Dash Open Podcast

Credits

Produced by Justin Dorfman at CodeFund
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry at CodeFund

Special Guests: Cindy Wang and Gil Yehuda.

Sponsored By:

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Episode 36: The Open Source Movement Shift with María Cruz

SustainOSS — Fri, 15 May 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Sponsored By:

Panelists

Justin Dorfman | Richard Littauer

Guest

Maria Cruz
Google Open Source

Show Notes

In this episode, we have Maria Cruz, Open Source Program Manager at Google. Maria talks about doing community engagements for Cloud Native projects and other things she does at Google. The panelists are curious about how the Open Source movement shifted since COVID-19 took over the world. Also, Maria gives great advice to people who are aspiring to be Program Managers in OSPO (Open Source Program Office). You can also find out what happens when Richard’s had “late coffee.” Hit the button and download this episode!

[00:01:03] Maria tells us what she does at Google and how she first got started with Open Source.

[00:05:45] Maria explains how she has seen the Open Source movement shift in the past couple of months since COVID-19.

[00:10:32] Richard asks Maria how do we design events that are online to be as diverse as possible? How does that work? What role does diversity have when we’re all 2-D?

[00:15:28] Richard is curious to know how do we foster connection and growth on a friendship level between people remotely? Can it happen over Zoom? Are there things we should do to make connection more possible? Maria answers.

[00:20:38] Justin wants to know how big Maria’s OSPO (Open Source Program Office) team is and she also gives advice for those who are aspiring to be Program Managers in OSPO’s.

[00:23:02] Justin asks her if she’s worked in any other OSPO’s. Richard and Justin ask Maria what is Google’s OSPO up to during these times of COVID-19 Coronavirus?

[00:24:49] Google has come out with resources to help out with events that have been canceled or had to move to virtual for Open Source projects. Maria talks more about the actual resources that Google’s offering to the Open Source Community and how people can get involved and use them.

Spotlight

[00:28:29] Richard’s spotlight is the Open Knowledge Foundation.
[00:28:58] Justin’s spotlight is Alligator.io.
[00:29:34] Maria’s spotlight is the Open Source tool, Zulip.

Quotes

[00:33:04] “Just kind of create a situation where the other person feels safe and comfortable enough where they will open up.”

Links

Maria Cruz Twitter

Open Source Virtual Events Guide

Cloud Native

Google Open Source

Google Enterprise G Suite

GO Programming Language

Open Knowledge Foundation

Alligator.io

Zulip

Invest in Open Infrastructure Twitter

Credits

Produced by Justin Dorfman at CodeFund
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry at CodeFund

Special Guest: María Cruz.

Sponsored By:

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Episode 32: What FOSS Responders Does with Megan Sanicki & Duane O’Brien

SustainOSS — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 04:00:00 -0400

Sponsored By:

Panelists

Justin Dorfman | Richard Littauer

Guests

Megan Sanicki
Open Source Program Office at Google

Duane O’Brien
Head of Open Source at Indeed

Show Notes

This is a continuation of our mini COVID-19 coverage series podcast. Today, we have special guests, Megan Byrd-Sanicki and Duane O’Brien, who are FOSS Responders. We are talking about how does the Open Source Ecosystem deal with this and how do we, as Open Source Developes think about this, and how do members feel that can’t host their conferences. Also, listen here to find out why you should check your oxygen tank!

[00:01:29] Duane explains what FOSS Responders does.

[00:03:30] Megan explains how FOSS Responders has grown and what’s happening now.

[00:05:50] Richard wants to know why does it matter to open source developers if events are canceled? Aren’t they just for large corporations anyway?

[00:10:53] Justin wants to know if Duane and Megan have been in touch with organizations such as, Python Software Foundation, since they rely heavily on the income from their yearly conference, PIConf, which is now canceled.

[00:014:38] Duane talks Mozilla. He mentions a program called MOSS (Mozilla Open Source Support) and they put together a COVID-19 solution fund geared to providing awards to Open Source technology projects that are responding to the pandemic.

[00:18:38] Duane and Megan talk about the “Buddy System” that they use a lot. It’s all about supporting each other and sharing talents.

[00:21:43] Megan and Duane give some AWESOME advice to close out the podcast. Remember, keep checking your oxygen tank!

Quotes

[00:8:28] “If we want them to continue to be sustainable, if we want the organizations that run them to continue to be sustainable, then we need to take some kind of action and respond in the opposite.”

[00:09:02] “These are the events that are accelerators, and they do it in a very structured way, but in a very serendipitous way too.”

[00:21:43] “The biggest learning is to check your oxygen tank. Sustainability really starts with yourself and how well you’re sustaining yourself through this time.”

Links

Megan Sanicki Twitter

Duane O’Brien Twitter

FOSS Responders

Open Collective's Slack

SustainOSS Forum

Special Guests: Duane O’Brien and Megan Sanicki.

Sponsored By:

Support Sustain

Episode 31: Practicing Self-Empathy with Whitney Hess

SustainOSS — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 04:00:00 -0400

Sponsored By:

Panelists

Justin Dorfman | Eric Berry | Richard Littauer

Guest

Whitney Hess
Executive Coach

Show Notes

Whitney Hess is the special guest today. She is an Executive Coach, supporting business leaders of various kinds to help them be the best version of themselves. With COVID-19 happening right now it’s affecting everyone. People are stressed, overwhelmed, emotional, anxious, and have a whole rollercoaster of emotions. Remember, we are all human and you are not alone. And, if you’ve never meditated, you will want to after listening to this episode.

01:21 Whitney clarifies what an Executive Coach is and what she does. She also explains how she differentiates from a Life Coach.

03:00 To cut to the chase, Richard wonders how COVID-19 has affected her business and how has it affected the way she helps people during this time.

05:35 On the brighter side of things, Whitney talks about how people are able to work on legacy code because their companies aren’t as in demand and they can do various things that they’ve been putting off.

06:50 Justin wants to know if maintainers would get a lot of value out of Whitney’s management coaching, especially helping FOSS Responders who are dealing with COVID-19.

12:34 “Empathy” is discussed in depth. There is a misconception about empathy and Whitney also explains self-empathy.

15:59 Eric has a question about persona, and he wonders if there is a mother and a maintainer and she’s really stressed, has to feed her kids, teach them, maintain open source and she doesn’t have time to walk away from her computer, what advice does Whitney have for that sort of person. Let’s say “meditation” is talked about, and reprioritizing and re-evaluating our values.

22:37 Richard talks about how one night he hit rock bottom emotionally and physically and what he did to make himself happy. Justin talks about how he was feeling fatigued by everything happening with work and what’s happening in the world and what he did to feel mentally separated and enjoy himself.

25:27 Whitney stresses how especially now, we need to allow ourselves moments of joy. Try to find a little bit of space to allow ourselves to be happy in that moment. She goes more into this with some very uplifting advice.

Quotes

12:48 “I think a misconception about empathy is that it’s all about what we give to others, when in actuality it starts with what we give to ourselves.”

14:28 “You need to put your oxygen mask on first before you help others!”

17:17 “If you don’t have time to meditate once a day, meditate twice a day!”

Links

Special Guest: Whitney Hess.

Sponsored By:

Support Sustain

Episode 30: Silver Linings in The FOSS Community

SustainOSS — Fri, 03 Apr 2020 04:00:00 -0400

Sponsored By:

Panelists

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Eric Berry

Show Notes

COVID-19 is the main focus today and how it is ripping through the open source ecosystem. Although you may be tired of listening to it, the guys get real and speak from the heart and talk about the affects it is having on people all over the country, especially maintainers and coders. The message here is, “BE KIND TODAY!”

02:37 Justin talks about keeping busy with SustainOSS stuff and he’s been listening to an Audible book called, “It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work,” which has changed his perception on how to work smart and not hard.

03:49 Richard chimes in about he’s been working on a lot of projects and since COVID-19 started in the US he’s been involved in a project called FOSS Responders, which is Free and Open Source Responders and he explains what it does.

04:55 Richard gives an update on what FOSS Responder’s did this week.

06:27 Eric joins in to say that he runs CodeFund with Justin and how it allows them to display ethical non-tracking ads to developers all over the world. Find out what happened in THREE DAYS after they launched a FOSS Responders campaign.

08:04 Eric talks about his friend who did an amazing thing with his business and it’s pretty cool! This gets him thinking about Open Source, developers, and us as people and how each of us has a talent to maybe donate or allow use of something to support people to give back to the community.

15:31 Justin’s been trying to find silver linings in everything these days, especially with FOSS Responders. Richard brings up helping at helpwithcovid.com and opencollective.com.

17:08 Richard speaks from the heart about his silver lining. He is more connected then he was a month ago. Listen to hear what he’s been doing about connecting with friends.

18:05 Eric talks about struggles he has been having as well as other people may be having right now, with their jobs, figuring out a way to homeschool their kids, and keeping everybody heathy and happy while doing their jobs. He also talks about his silver lining which is really knowing to him what is important.