Sustain - Episodes Tagged with “Osi”

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 37: An Open Source History Lesson & More with Patrick Masson

SustainOSS — Fri, 22 May 2020 04:00:00 -0400

Panelists

Pia Mancini | Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Richard Littauer

Guest

Patrick Masson
Open Source Initiative

Show Notes

In this episode, we have Patrick Masson, who is the General Manager and Board Director of OSI (Open Source Initiative). Patrick gives some very interesting “nerd history” on Open Source Software. Did you know that you can find Open Source Intelligence as a reference to World War 2? Listen here to find out more interesting things about OSI.

[00:01:33] We start off with Patrick telling us about his job with the OSI.

[00:03:22] Patrick fills us in on the history of OSI, how it started, how long it’s been going, and what are the main things that he does. There is some very cool history revealed here.

[00:08:07] Patrick talks more about communities of collaborative contributors and he touches again on the history of OSI. The term “Openwashing” is explained.

[00:21:00] Pia brings up a topic to Patrick about lately, there has been some friction with groups or other projects trying to use different Open Source licenses in the name of creating better sustainability opportunities for Open Source. He comments about it.

[00:24:31] Patrick answers a question about the idea of avoiding the business model trap of sustainability. He talks about it and also has a great quote.

[00:28:36] Justin chimes in to say he always hears that 98% of companies use Open Source Software. Where did that come from, is it true, and who’s behind that? Patrick answers this.

[00:30:49] Eric brings up a study done by Black Duck Software with the Northbridge survey done in 1915, to back up the number of users. Patrick is on a “roll” with stats here.

[00:36:51] Pia wants to clarify with Patrick about a point he made about if the path to the sustainability of these projects would be if companies are hiring folks to work on these projects, projects that serve many companies? Patrick explains.

[00:38:38] Pia also wonders if the way to join an Open Source project, in a way that is sustainable, is just being hired by a company to work on a project and how is that growing the diversity of our communities and opening the door for more joiners instead of just a few that can be part of those companies? Patrick answers.

Spotlight

[00:41:31] Justin’s spotlight is Show HN. It has great information and it could change your life.
[00:42:01] Eric’s spotlight is a piece of hardware, Dell Precision T7610. It is a screamer!
[00:42:39] Pia’s spotlight is a project called Open Mind, to help protect the user’s data privacy properly.
[00:43:15] Richard’s spotlight is D3, for graphing, and super fun.
[00:43:39] Patrick’s spotlight is FLOSS Desktops for Kids, a program that takes decommissioned hardware and puts it in the hands of underserved districts and the kids there.

Quotes

[00:24:42] “I really think Open Source will take off once all the software companies are gone.”

[00:35:50] “We need to have more joiners of projects than starters of projects. And so, again, there’s no real reason to differentiate any of these.”

Links

Patrick Masson Twitter

Open Source Initiative

Openwashing

US Department of Defense Use of Open Source Software

FLOSS Desktops for Kids

Black Duck Software Survey

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: Patrick Masson.

Episode 23: Why Companies Should Invest Money in Open Source with Josh Simmons

SustainOSS — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 10:00:00 -0500

Panelists

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

Guest

Josh Simmons
Salesforce | Open Source Initiative

Show Notes

In this episode we talk with Josh Simmons, Senior Open Source Strategist at Salesforce Engineering. He is a community strategist, open source advocate, and dusty- foot philosopher. He also serves as Vice President of the Open Source Initiative (OSI).

4:10 Josh talks about how he started in Open Source and his background.

7:27 Josh explains why companies/people should invest money in Open Source even though it’s free and why it’s a good business, adding features, fixing bugs, and risk mitigation.

10:28 Richard says, “As a dusty-foot philosopher,” Josh believes it’s ethical to give back and non-ethical for enterprise companies not to give back.

11:03 We are lucky to have this concept of Open Source. Our fore fathers twenty plus years ago realized there was another approach to intellectual property. Open Source was such a radical concept. Also, as contributors, if we don’t give back who will? If no one does, what are we here for?

20:50 A panelist asks Josh, “What are the challenges of running an OSPO?” In an organization with over 8,000 developers, Josh explains how he tries to pull all the docs and pool everything together and create coherent set of documents and policies. Also, the main challenge is the outreach to the staff.

25:27 Josh tells us tools he likes using such as CLA Assistant (BOT) and OSS Review Toolkit. He also gives a shout out to the TODO Group: talk openly, develop openly which is a project for the LINUX Foundation. Both tools were found through the “To Do Group.”

28:16 Josh talks about his role in OSI (Open Source Initiative). Josh is Vice President of the Open Source Initiative. He gives us the history of how it started and how their goal is to protect and promote Open Source, including maintaining the approved OSI license list.

36:55 Richard and Josh debate whether or not OSI is a vehicle for the community. Richard brings up how dual licensing does not fall under Open Source under OSI’s definitions.

Spotlight

50:04 Justin's spotlight this week is cURL
50:20 Eric’s pick is Ruby-Grape.org
51:22 Gunner’s pick is F-Droid.org
51:52 Richard gives Pia a shout out to Open Collective
52:02 Richard’s pick is SpoofMAC on GitHub
52:40 Josh’s spotlight is Drupal.org

Sponsor

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