Panelists

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Pia Mancini | Eric Berry | Allen “Gunner” Gunn

Guest

Kyle E. Mitchell
Attorney, License Zero

Show Notes

Kyle E. Mitchell is an independent Attorney based in California. Today we talk to him about Open Source subjects such as “License Zero.” He delves into the types of licenses there are, what are their differences, and how they came about. Also, be sure to check out this week’s spotlights for ways to help out during the Coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak.

1:42 Richard ask Kyle about his blog post about License Zero, aka dual licensing, selling exceptions, or public/private licensing. What it is, what it does, and how Dev’s get paid for their creative work.

03:14 Kyle explains that License Zero has two types of licenses, public, which is not open source and the other is parity.

06:55 Kyle talks about how License Zero started out with one licensing choice. It was similar to the Creative Commons license used for stock photos, music, etc.

10:24 Kyle reveals how he needed to create a new license for License Zero, a share-alike license that would help cover Dev’s work they were creating.

14:13 Pia asks about projects that he’s had experience using this license with, and lessons he’s learned.

21:00 Pia wants to know if License Zero is creating complexity in the Open Source world by having different licenses. Is this making it more difficult for people to navigate and understand what they can and can’t do with those licenses? Kyle goes into License Proliferation.

26:32 Richard brings up one of Kyle’s blog posts about the “curse of sustainability” and how it’s impossible to fix the open source problem.

33:04 So far, we’ve mainly talked about the “what” of licensing. Gunner wants Kyle to go into the “who” of licensing. Does he think of persona’s in the licensing world?

Spotlight

• 41:15 Pia’s spotlight is the collective “Meals of Gratitude”, which sends meals to health workers.
• 41:52 Richard’s spotlight is FOSS Responders, which helps Open Source Developers and Open Source Projects during this COVID-19 crisis.
• 42:32 Kyle piggybacks Richard’s spotlight with Bandcamp Daily, which is also helping out music artist during COVID-19.
• 43:51 Gunner spotlights Indeed’s Head of Open Source, Duane O’Brien, who spearheaded the FOSS Responders movement.
• 45:16 Kyle chimes in with one more quick spotlight...Nick Craig-Wood’s Rclone library.

Quotes

06:03 “And this idea that Open Source is a licensing question, first and foremost, and then that’s the whole question is wrong.”

44:14 “The thing I’m amazed with Duane is that he’s spun up this FOSS Responders project, he’s holding so many different communities with integrity, and he’s doing his job for Indeed. But he’s walking just 100% of what I consider to be free and Open source integrity.”

44:28 “He’s really being mindful of different communities and their different cultures. And in this time of crisis we need cloning to get done, so with Duane’s opt-in permission, we could have more Duane’s in this world. I feel like he is setting an example we all need to follow.”

Links

Kyle E. Mitchell Twitter

Kyle E. Mitchell Writings

Kyle E. Mitchell Website

Kyle E. Mitchell GitHub

License Zero

License Zero-Private License

License Zero-Prosperity Public License

License Zero-Parity Public License

Creative Commons License

The Curse of Sustainability

Fernando Pessoa

Open Collective-Meals of Gratitude

FOSS Responders

Bandcamp Daily

Duane O’Brien Twitter

Nick Craig-Wood RClone Library

Special Guest: Kyle E. Mitchell.

Sponsored By:

• Linode: Whether you’re working on a personal project or managing your enterprise’s infrastructure, Linode has the pricing, support, and scale you need to take your project to the next level. Get started on Linode today. Promo Code: sustain2020

Support Sustain

Panelists

Justin Dorfman | Eric Berry

Guest

Gidi (Gideon) Morris
Principal software engineer at Elastic

Show Notes

00:44: The special guest for this episode of Sustain is Gidi (Gideon) Morris. Gidi is the principal software engineer at Elastic and has been in the industry for about two decades now.

03:08: He discusses his worries within not just the open source world, but the entire tech industry. Justin furthers the questions that Gidi raise about the open source world and the various psychological impacts it can have on the employees, due to his own experience. Gideon address the pressures and shifts relating to newcomers in the industry, specifically focusing on the world of open source. He raises the two issues he’s concerned about which is why people come into the industry and how do we support them? And are we creating an environment where they’re burning themselves out the way I did?

06:45 Eric begins the discussion by addressing the term Gidi raises which is, burnout. He relates his own experience where he felt this way about his work in the past year and brings up Gidi current employer, Elastic. Eric talks about his time when he was working at a startup called Mahalo and he used a product called Elastic search.

07:45 The question was posted in IRC and it was answered in 30 seconds according to Eric, which he exclaims was very surprising and that it represented that healthy environment Gidi brought up. Eric says he’s heard the work on Elk Stack is the environment striving to prevent the burnout that Gidi raises issues about.

08:18 Gidi then goes into detail about how companies can prevent the burnout of their employers and how they can learn from companies, like Elastic. He explains Elastic and what they do, he says it mainly works on a product called Elastic search, which is a search engine as well as a variety of satellite products.

10:30 He also states that it’s also one of the biggest remote companies across the tech world. He joined because all of the development within Elastic is developed like an open source project. Gidi also discusses how well the communication is within the employers and the flexibility within the company.

12:50 Eric then moves the conversation to working in a remote company and the benefits and downsides that it can possess. Gidi explains how his team works across 5 different time zones. Eric then asks Gidi about licensing working on a source available product, which allows users to look at the source.

16:30 Gidi discusses the benefits of the open source project and the healthy environment it provides. There is nothing secretive about what's being done within the company which he states as being less limited than more limited. Gidi explains how there are certain folders that have what used to be closed source and are now source available. Eric agrees with Gidi in that the key to open source sustainability is licensing and being honest with customers and contributors.

22:01 Gidi also brings up the recent dilemma about the expectations of the open-source community to shift without the help of those companies, which is where the dilemma comes up between balancing that and licensing agreements. Gidi explains some of the mistakes they’ve made along the way with the dual-licensing model, however it has mostly worked out for them in the end. Eric says that Elastic has taken a good approach to licensing with open source.

36:40 Gideon ends the conversation explaining why he joined Elastic from the start. The main thing was the difference between a company being asynchronous and synchronous and that is what Elastic brought into question for him. He emphasized that if we as a community adopt these ways of working, there will be a big change in how others get involved with the open source community.

43:25 Eric and Justin wrap up the conversation by discussing what they’re planning to do with every podcast, which is every podcast they share an open-source project or library that has provided value or an impact for their personal career or life. They spotlight Erik Rasmussen, Laravel Charts, and a charity called BEAM.

Spotlights

• Gidi - Not an OS project, but plugging Beam - a charity worth mentioning and founded by a fellow developer
• Eric - Final Form by Erik Rasmussen
• Justin - Laravel Charts

Special Guest: Gidi Morris.

Sponsored By:

• Linode: Whether you’re working on a personal project or managing your enterprise’s infrastructure, Linode has the pricing, support, and scale you need to take your project to the next level. Get started on Linode today. Promo Code: sustain2020

Support Sustain