Sustain - Episodes Tagged with “Floss”

Episode 76: Tobie Langel on what people mean when they say "Open Source"

SustainOSS — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 10:00:00 -0400

Guest

Tobie Langel

Panelists

Richard Littauer

Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Sustain! On today’s episode, we have an amazing guest back for a second time, Tobie Langel, who is an open source strategy consultant and Founder of UnlockOpen. He’s a really great resource for learning about the ins and outs of how open source works, with his common-sense approach to dealing with common issues that we have with open source licenses. One of the reasons he is here is to talk about a wonderful Tweet he sent out about “this” graph of what is and what is not open source. Download this episode now to learn much more as Tobie goes in depth about each quadrant of the graph.

[00:02:02] Tobie explains what he meant by “this” that he refers to in the Tweet.

[00:04:08] Tobie talks more about licenses and compliance in using open source in corporations.

[00:07:06] Richard brings up Tobie’s Tweet about the grid with a Y and X axis and he describes what’s in each quadrant.

[00:14:04] We learn what’s in the bottom right quadrant of the graph.

[00:17:29] Richard shares his ideas on the early days of open source and Tobie expands on them.

[00:24:02] Tobie talks about the role of OSI and how he imagines OSI looking at this going forward.

[00:30:16] Richard explains what he thinks about when he thinks of OSI and how the graph is a really useful way of talking with people to figure out where they are.

[00:32:24] Find out where you can follow Tobie on the internet.

Quotes

[00:04:50] “The other thing that corporations really care about are security of the software and the other aspect is community health. Why? And what’s interesting, that security itself has to do really closely to community health.”

[00:19:06] “We say that copy left is a hack on copyright, but to some degree open source is a hack on copyright too. It’s a hack on being able to cross sort of corporate borders.”

Spotlight

[00:33:50] Richard’s spotlights are ICQ, AIM, IRC, and AOL.
[00:34:37] Tobie’s spotlight is a book he read called, How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens.

Credits

Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound

Special Guest: Tobie Langel.

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Episode 75: Deb Nicholson on the OSI, the future of open source, and SeaGL

SustainOSS — Fri, 23 Apr 2021 09:30:00 -0400

Guest

Deb Nicholson

Panelists

Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer

Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Sustain! Today, we are incredibly privileged to have as our guest, Deb Nicholson, who is Interim General Manager and Interim Executive Director at the Open Source Initiative, as well as a founding organizer of the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference (SeaGL). Deb tells us how she founded SeaGL and what she did in legislature before open source. We learn about a blog post that Elastic wrote, how Deb feels about it, and how OSI is addressing it. Also, we learn how open source is looked at differently by the community and by lawyers, and a talk Deb did about all the different patent clauses in licenses. Find out what Deb is currently doing as the Interim General Manager at OSI and why being kind is so important to her. As well, if you haven’t seen the Seagulls video on YouTube, you have to watch it! Download this episode now to find out more!

[00:02:23] Deb tells us the story of how she founded SeaGL, when the next conference will be, and how many people come to it.

[00:05:39] Justin brings up a blog post that Elastic wrote recently and asks Deb what her feelings are about it and wonders how OSI is addressing it. Alyssa wonders if there was any direct conversation with somebody from Elastic.

[00:09:20] Deb explains the two groups of people, the community and lawyers, and the differences between what they think open source means.

[00:11:20] Eric asks Deb if Elastic deserves all the bad press and negative feelings. Deb also tells us what approach Elastic should have taken.

[00:14:22] Alyssa asks Deb to speak more about lawyers sit in the community now and what lawyers and people with legal expertise can do to be a part of open source creation and sustainability.

[00:16:40] Deb tells us what she did in legislature before open source.

[00:17:40] Alyssa asks Deb how she found clarity around all these licenses, was she ever confused about how to navigate, and if she could help people understand and navigate through them. She mentions she did a talk about all the different patent clauses in licenses.

[00:20:52] Deb explains how she ended up as the Interim General Manager at the OSI and what she’s currently doing there.

[00:22:14] Find out why being kind so important to Deb.

[00:25:13] Deb talks about the process of the Cryptographic Autonomous License.

[00:26:54] Richard wonders Deb’s thoughts on setting best practices for open source in general, not just licensing, in particular other countries.

[00:28:25] Find out where you can follow Deb on the Internet.

Quotes

[00:06:23] “Basically, we didn’t really think our business model through. We decided we were going to do one thing and then whoops, because we didn’t think it through, now we have to change.”

[00:23:24] “It also means that when you go out and you talk to people about your mission you sound like a person that hasn’t had a conversation with someone about anything other than your work five years, because you kind of haven’t.”

[00:24:35] “There might be other decisions I could affect, but like you end up sounding really out of touch and it’s not good for your organization and for promoting your mission if you never have perspective.”

[00:24:44] “Unfortunately, Deb, you’re one of our guests, and this happens occasionally with our guests who are so eloquent that I can’t even imagine a question ‘cause you just wrapped everything up in such a nice bow that it’s like yes, that’s exactly the problem, that’s a really good point, I totally agree, we should all have more time off!”

[00:25:05] “Take a vacation! Never forget! Even if it’s a staycation, because, you know, pandemic.”

[00:25:36] “So we don’t draft licenses, that’s the thing we don’t do, but we do look at new licenses, and last year we approved the Cryptographic Autonomous License.”

Spotlight

[00:29:33] Alyssa’s spotlight is the launch of FundOSS.
[00:30:38] Eric’s spotlight is Exercism.
[00:31:43] Justin’s spotlights are “The Onion seagull beach interview,” and Katacoda-Interactive Learning and Training Platform we are using for Curiefense.
[00:32:33] Richard’s spotlight is WaffleJS.
[00:32:49] Deb’s spotlight is a project called Spritely.

Credits

Produced by Richard Littauer
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound

Special Guest: Deb Nicholson.

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Episode 51: Working in Public: Nadia Eghbal and her new book about Making and Sustaining Open Source Software

SustainOSS — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 14:00:00 -0400

Sponsored by: [![](https://www.honeybadger.io/images/navbar_logo.svg?1597697989)](https://www.honeybadger.io/)

Panelists

Allen "Gunner" Gunn | Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Richard Littauer

Guest

Nadia Eghbal

Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Sustain! Today, we have special guest. Nadia Eghbal, a writer and researcher, works for Substack, and has a new book out which we will be talking about today! We discuss Nadia’s book, what it’s all about, why she wrote it, and why Eric refers to it as the “Open Source Bible.” She also talks about the report she did called, “Roads and Bridges,” published by the Ford Foundation. Find out why she has been called the “Open Source Archaeologist.” Download this episode now!

[00:01:43] Nadia tells us all about her book, what it’s about, and why she wrote it.

[00:02:56] Justin asks Nadia what her expectations were of writing her report, Roads and Bridges.

[00:05:01] Eric mentions a talk Nadia gave a few years back, and she used a “lobster” reference throughout it, so he wonders what her motivation was behind going so deep into creating a legacy of documentation and knowledge that very few people in the world have.

[00:09:16] Richard brings up Mike McQuaid’s sticker funds and Nadia brings up an example of this.

[00:11:40] Eric talks about Nadia’s book which he refers to as the “Open Source Bible,” and Gunner adds his viewpoint as well.

[00:13:24] Gunner asks Nadia if this book leads to actions and does she have any thoughts about what actions she would like it to lead to on the part of readers.

[00:15:36] Gunner has an archaeology question for Nadia and is curious to know if she has reflected on the idea that when you’re not downloading, when you’re not installing the idea of a license or the idea of a piece of technology, being more community created, as a more abstract or removed concept.

[00:17:52] Justin brings up a previous podcast guest, Matt Asay from AWS, talking about Amazon working hand in hand with Redis and all these other open source companies, and he asks Nadia what she thinks about this.

[00:22:03] Richard is curious to know what to do with projects that don’t have a charismatic leader where it hasn’t focused on who they are, which may have really good documentation. Is there any hope for any of those projects or they doomed to just continually wither and run out of steam? Nadia gives us the run down.

[00:27:28] Richard wants to know what Nadia is doing at Sub Stack that is so interesting to her and following the research that you’ve learned from this book, why there? She tells us why she wrote the book.

[00:32:37] Justin mentions a book he read called, Hate Inc. by Matt Taibbi, who has a Sub Stack thing. This is a great read! ☺

[00:35:08] Richard wants to know how Nadia can help people who write low-level software projects, who don’t have the power or the means or they are shy. What can we do to help those people?

[00:38:22] Nadia tells us where you can find her on the internet, where you can find her book, and work.

Spotlight

[00:39:02] Gunner’s spotlight is Gosh science.
[00:37:27] Justin’s spotlight is Nadia’s book, Working in Public (real world version).
[00:39:30] Eric’s spotlight is also Nadia’s book, Working in Public and a quote from the book.
[00:41:32] Richard’s spotlight is the concept of Antilibraries.
[00:42:25] Nadia’s spotlight is Brendon Schlagel’s anti-library.

Quotes

[00:11:39] “I think what we’re seeing happen in all of this is we’re working toward building a shared vocabulary of the universe of this ecosystem, where each project is going to have its own arcane vocabulary over time.”

[00:17:49] “Depending on who you talk to, the term open source just means so many things to different people.”

Credits

Produced by
- Richard Littauer
- Rebase.fm
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at Peachtree Sound
Ad Sales by Eric Berry

Special Guest: Nadia Eghbal.

Support Sustain

Sustain - Episodes Tagged with “Floss”

Episode 76: Tobie Langel on what people mean when they say "Open Source"

Guest

Panelists

Show Notes

Quotes

Spotlight

Links

Credits

Episode 75: Deb Nicholson on the OSI, the future of open source, and SeaGL

Guest

Panelists

Show Notes

Quotes

Spotlight

Links

Credits

Episode 51: Working in Public: Nadia Eghbal and her new book about Making and Sustaining Open Source Software

Panelists

Guest

Show Notes

Spotlight

Quotes

Links

Credits