The Future of Open Source at OSCON 2017

28 July 2017

Interviewed by The Changelog

This is an anthology episode from OSCON 2017 featuring awesome conversations with Kelsey Hightower (OSCON Co-Chair and Developer Advocate at Google Cloud Platform), Safia Abdalla (Open Source Developer and Creator of Zarf), and Mike McQuaid and Nadia Eghbal (GitHub Open Source Programs).

Show transcript

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1:02 From changelog media, you're listening to the changelog, a podcast featuring the hackers,
1:15 leaders, and innovators of open source. I'm Adam Stachowiak, editor-in-chief of changelog.
1:21 Today, we are featuring some awesome conversations Jared and I had at OzCon 2017. First up is
1:27 Kelsey Hightower, OzCon co-chair and developer advocate at Google Cloud Platform. We talked
1:33 about being a co-chair, why he does live demos, and his motivations towards open source. Second,
1:39 we talked with Safia Abdallah, open source developer and creator of Zarf, about being a command line
1:43 junkie, and her talk on the intersection of open source and business. Last, we talked with Mike McQuaid and
1:49 Nadia Ekbal about GitHub's open source alley, which can only be seen at OzCon, and how they're working
1:54 to better support open source maintainers in their communities.
1:57 So, we're here with Kelsey Hightower, OzCon co-chair. What's it mean to be a co-chair?
2:06 Co-chair, the job is to make sure that the program is worth buying a ticket for.
2:11 Worth buying a ticket. So, what do you do to achieve that?
2:14 So, we think about the themes. So, like you saw the keynotes today. You know, we talk about some of the veterans
2:19 in open source. You know, people that have worked on projects like Apache all the way to the White House, right?
2:25 Like, what is our government doing with open source? So, our goal is to think about the keynotes,
2:29 the structure of the keynotes, and then also all the tracks, right? We know ML is pretty hot,
2:33 so we have a TensorFlow day. We know containers are hot, so we have a container day. And then we try to make sure
2:38 that the workshops actually deliver the skills people are like looking for, right? You don't just go to a conference
2:42 just to hang out. Some people come here to actually learn something. So, as a program chair, you're kind of in charge
2:48 of the program, and we make sure we also give people a chance to speak. So, if you're a new speaker, we do the research
2:54 to say, hey, this person's contributing to this project, and no one knows their name, but it doesn't mean they don't get to speak.
2:59 So, we try to pull people up and make sure that the voices of the community are being heard. That's the role of a program chair.
3:05 So, we're here on, well, for us it's day one, but day three of the conference. First day of sessions,
3:10 is the pressure off, like, is your job done at this point? Pressure's off, you're just enjoying the show,
3:14 or you've still got a lot of balls in the air?
3:16 Well, for me, it's like going around and seeing all the sponsors, seeing people like the changelog show up,
3:21 and make sure the community is right. So, I kind of focus on all parts of the community, right?
3:25 There's the business side of the community. There's the people that are here for the very first time.
3:29 There are people here on diversity scholarships. There are people that are thinking about open source,
3:34 and this is like their first introduction to open source. So, as a chair, you know,
3:38 I was also a speaker by giving two workshops on the first two days.
3:42 So, that hat's off, and now it's all about introducing our keynote speakers, making sure that they feel special.
3:48 We give them a warm introduction, and then walking around the floor.
3:51 How's the conference going for you? Is it good?
3:54 Shaking hands, and then sometimes people come to see you.
3:56 Like, maybe you had an open source project that you released, and this is the first time they get to see you in person,
4:01 and then you can actually make time for them one-on-one to go deeper in that conversation.
4:05 And then I'm also learning, too. So, I go and say, hey, what are you working on?
4:09 And I just listen for a minute.
4:10 Right. Give us an example, something you heard, some feedback you heard, like, from the community,
4:14 about the conference. What's something you heard today?
4:16 I think a lot of people were interested that our government is now actually embracing and shipping things.
4:22 A lot of people think open source is just a grassroots thing that you do if you're hardcore,
4:27 and then everyone else in the world ignores it.
4:29 The scope of it has just grown big time, and for some people, having a person in a tailor-made suit on stage
4:36 articulating in very great detail about what they're doing at the White House
4:40 and being able to give us a URL to go touch the code.
4:43 Whether you're a startup or a big company, that's always been the challenge.
4:47 And now, here we are. The White House is shipping internal projects.
4:51 And I think a lot of people are like, oh, if they can do it.
4:54 This is the king of bureaucracy, right? I mean, government is actually shipping software.
4:59 So there's some of that. And then you also got some new projects, right?
5:01 Like, a lot of projects that had a lot of hype, this container stuff.
5:05 Now people have had an opportunity to test it out.
5:07 You hear some horror stories.
5:09 Yeah.
5:10 And we went that route.
5:11 Is that right?
5:12 We watched your video, and it didn't quite work out that way.
5:15 And that's good feedback, right?
5:16 It helps you understand that we're past the hype stage.
5:19 We've got to be responsible.
5:21 So in my workshops, I was responsible.
5:23 I gave people a taste and then made them go hands-on so they understood the pain.
5:27 Like, this ain't for everybody.
5:29 So what you're going to do is you're going to do something from scratch, and you're going to struggle.
5:32 And I'm going to help you a little bit, but you're going to struggle first.
5:35 So that way, when you go back to the office, you're not going to just be drinking the Kool-Aid.
5:38 You're going to understand what you're talking about.
5:40 You're stating words you heard, basically.
5:42 Exactly.
5:43 People come to learn.
5:44 You know, we don't need to just talk to them all the time.
5:45 These are very smart people in attendance.
5:47 We've just got to give them an opportunity to understand what they're getting into.
5:50 How long have you been involved in this conference in particular?
5:52 So OzCon, my first OzCon was probably about five or six years ago when it was in Portland.
5:58 Right.
5:59 And I remember walking in there like, wow, this is a big conference, right?
6:03 A lot of big people there.
6:04 You meet all these interesting people, and it felt different from any other conference where it's more about a product or a particular technology.
6:10 I think of OzCon as like the GitHub of conferences.
6:13 All the projects are here.
6:14 Right?
6:15 Not a lot of people are trying to sell anything.
6:17 It's like people are trying to prove their value in their contributions.
6:20 Here, if you want to show value, you've got to have contributions to talk about.
6:25 And from there, just doing work in the community, I was invited to be a co-chair, which was an honor of itself.
6:30 You know, I've spoken at the OzCon.
6:31 I've given tutorials before.
6:33 But I think it's an opportunity to be a chair to shape it for everyone else, for the same person that will have the same experience that I had six years ago.
6:39 So having this history with it, those who were not here today listening to the show later on, what are they missing out on?
6:48 What's a common misconception about this conference that someone's like, I'm not going to fork over, I don't know what the ticket is, it's above $1,000.
6:55 So it's harder for individuals to afford it.
6:58 It's easier for companies to sponsor it.
7:00 So what's that misconception, what's the hurdle for people that aren't here, why aren't they here, what are they missing out on?
7:04 So the first thing, we have like 40% discounts for like independent people.
7:07 Like if you're not at a company, you're going to knock 40% off that price, and you can show up.
7:12 So a lot of people do take that route.
7:14 So we do stuff for the indie people.
7:15 We get to give away a hall pass for free.
7:17 We get some hall passes, and we have diversity scholarships.
7:20 So we have different ways for people to get in.
7:22 So if you're a big enterprise, then you probably have the budget to send 10 people at the full price.
7:26 But for independent people, consultants, where it costs them to be here, there are just discounts that are standard on the website.
7:32 So we always try to communicate those.
7:34 And then a lot of people are intimidated.
7:37 Like, I haven't contributed to open source for before.
7:39 Do I deserve to be there?
7:41 Do I belong?
7:42 Do I belong?
7:43 And the truth is, most people is where they come and do their first contribution.
7:47 So we kind of have this kind of getting started segment of the show, where you come out, and you actually get to do your first commit.
7:53 Or you learn how to do Git for the first time.
7:55 How do I check out some code?
7:57 How do I set up my editor?
7:58 So there's a lot of tutorials that are geared towards that.
8:01 Some of the things, like the open container day, where people come and contribute.
8:04 We have a thing called open contribute as well.
8:06 You can get in that with a hall pass.
8:08 So you just get the smaller tier thing.
8:11 Hall pass, you walk around, you get all the events.
8:14 So after parties, you get to go to all the container day, TensorFlow day, and learn from all the people that are core contributors to these projects.
8:22 So I think it's worth for people to come in and get that experience and then decide if you want to go a little deeper in the next year.
8:28 Change the subject a little bit on you.
8:30 A recent tweet, I think you even have it pinned at this point.
8:33 I don't write code for free.
8:35 I write code for freedom.
8:37 So for people that are in hip-hop, they know Chance the Rapper has a line in one of his songs that he talks about, about how he makes music.
8:45 And he does it for freedom.
8:46 So Chance is known for not ever releasing an album that was like for sale.
8:50 It was streaming only and given away for free on the internet.
8:53 And he won a Grammy.
8:54 So he really broke the barrier.
8:57 A lot of artists have released digital stuff before, digital album.
9:00 But that's really just changing the format.
9:01 Chance the Rapper has like this huge heart where he really cares about people having access to his music, quality music, right?
9:09 That album is like legendary in the hip-hop community already.
9:12 So listening to that song, I just tweeted, I don't write code for free.
9:17 I write code for freedom.
9:18 And just my personal background, when I decided to write code myself, I threw it on GitHub on purpose because I want other people to get a use for it.
9:25 So it's not like I'm trying to build a company out of it.
9:28 I'm not necessarily having a business model that I choose to go out of it.
9:31 It's really my freedom to express myself.
9:33 The fact that I learned how to program means that I'm free to build my own tools.
9:37 And it's also to inspire other people.
9:38 It's like, look, you actually have the power to do this.
9:40 Most programming languages that I know of are free.
9:43 You download it.
9:44 You can even run it on the most underpowered machine, even on your mobile device.
9:48 And you can write any code you want.
9:50 Honestly, that's freedom to me.
9:52 It's not about people giving you money or whatever.
9:54 They're freedom to express yourself.
9:56 And then we have all these outlets, GitHub, ChangeLog, where you can go and talk about your projects.
10:01 There's no other industry where you can actually express yourself at such a low cost.
10:07 That's true.
10:08 The barrier is very, very low to get in.
10:11 But sometimes you need that invitation, you know?
10:13 Like you were saying at this conference, like for those not coming here, they're either intimidated, they don't feel welcome, they don't feel invited, or that they belong here.
10:21 And I think for us to have a little bit of a following, a little bit of a platform, we've got to remind the people watching that we also believe in what they believe in.
10:29 Because, you know, people are not really sure what's going on in certain people's minds.
10:33 Like, is Google paying him to do everything he does?
10:36 Does CoreOS influence everything he thinks about?
10:39 And the truth is, I'm an independent thinker, just like everyone else.
10:42 And I try to navigate to organizations that support that.
10:45 So I think it's our responsibility to continually remind people, I do this because of X, Y, Z.
10:50 And no matter where I'm at, it's going to be the same output.
10:53 And when it's not, you've got to call me on it.
10:55 You've got to call me on it.
10:57 How do you personally navigate that, besides the communication side?
10:59 Well, when people call you out on it, I just listen, to be honest.
11:03 Like, I have interactions on Twitter where I'll just listen to people and really ask them, you know, hey, thanks for that feedback.
11:09 Could you elaborate a little bit more so I can make sure that I got it straight?
11:14 And maybe they don't agree with something.
11:15 And it's good for me to kind of hear that feedback.
11:17 It's like, hey, Kelsey, maybe you give too many technical talks.
11:20 Maybe you give talks about, it seems like the happy path.
11:24 Show me something a little deeper.
11:26 So you look at that and it's like, first of all, they took the time to watch all the way through.
11:29 Yeah.
11:30 That's like, dude, they gave me some of their time.
11:33 I owe them a little bit of mine.
11:34 Which is the most expensive commodity.
11:37 Right.
11:38 Money, sure, you can earn more.
11:39 Time you can't get more of.
11:40 So I try to follow all my actions.
11:42 Right.
11:43 So recently I was here in Austin, gave a keynote kind of about my personal life.
11:46 And let's just say there was a lot of people crying, myself included, on stage because some of those words I've never said out loud before.
11:55 And it wasn't a sad story.
11:57 It was just a very real story.
11:58 And to me, that is meeting the expectations of the community, taking all feedback from like years and years and years of doing this stuff.
12:06 And then one day being able to be on stage and give it right back to people.
12:09 That's what happens when you listen.
12:12 What is this keynote you were speaking of?
12:13 DevOps Days Austin.
12:15 I gave this keynote.
12:16 It's untitled.
12:17 And I was going back and forth.
12:19 It's on the internet.
12:20 A lot of people have watched it on YouTube.
12:21 Okay.
12:22 You can go to YouTube, DevOps Days Austin, and you can probably just search for Kelsey Hightower keynote.
12:26 About 20 minutes.
12:27 Okay.
12:28 And it's just like this American lifestyle of me navigating from my very first job at McDonald's to my introduction to tech and just my experiences along the way with the final summarization that regardless of the buzzwords, DevOps, Agile, Golang, Kubernetes, none of that matter.
12:45 At the end of the day, it's you.
12:46 And most people are very afraid to just embrace their own power.
12:50 You have influence over what you do, who you work with, how you work.
12:54 And that was my first time being able to tell that story.
12:56 It wasn't just about technology or tools.
12:58 It was literally about my personal life and the people that I'm thankful for that helped me get there.
13:04 And it's okay to say that out loud.
13:06 Without any approval, without any data to back it up or that other people should do it too.
13:10 You just express yourself in the most natural way possible.
13:14 I think far too often, let's see what am I trying to say here really.
13:19 You had a couple tweets recently that got a little bit of controversy because of your switch from one talk style to another.
13:24 So that's one thing.
13:25 But I think far too often we're not human enough in what we do.
13:28 And it's not so much just focused on the technical or the culture kind of thing, which is what that scenario was about.
13:35 And we'll maybe link these up, those tweets up, just to kind of give some people context.
13:39 But, you know, far too often we kind of get stuck in this situation where we're just trying to be, you know, smart, so to speak.
13:46 You know, I know Kubernetes or I know containers or I know this or that.
13:49 You know, and instead of just being you and being human and showing your flaws even, you know.
13:54 And that's the imposter syndrome that comes up.
13:56 It's the lack of invitation.
13:57 It's the lack of belonging.
13:58 It's all those things that kind of come up.
14:00 And it just takes to being a human.
14:02 People always ask me, why do I do live demos?
14:05 And it's only because I want to show you the realness.
14:08 I can't, on the slides, I can make you believe anything with the slide deck.
14:12 True, that's true.
14:13 But with the live demos, I have to do it on stage live.
14:16 I can't exaggerate it.
14:17 So if I put it into a live demo, it's me being human saying, I may or may not get this right right now.
14:22 Yeah.
14:23 While building a live demo, you have to have empathy on what's real.
14:26 Right.
14:27 I can't just be like pie in the sky stuff.
14:28 What do people actually want to see?
14:30 So I think a lot of people don't understand that part.
14:32 It's like, that's why I do the live demos.
14:34 It's a little bit more risky.
14:36 But the goal is to really put myself in everyone else's shoes and go that route.
14:40 That live demo route, though, I've seen a couple of yours and a couple have gone bumpy.
14:46 That's good, though, because you get to see those bumps.
14:48 And it's like, even Kelsey, even Kelsey can mess up, you know?
14:53 Have you ever had one that just completely exploded on you?
14:55 No, I did, and I think that's when I started to do them more.
14:58 I got a little bit more confident.
14:59 Yeah.
15:00 I was at one of the very first Kubernetes ones when we were, like, getting around 1.0 launch, and we were all in San Francisco.
15:07 And this is when I was still at CoreOS, and I met, like, kind of the core engineering team.
15:11 We were all there for Kubernetes Summit.
15:13 And I was doing this smooth demo.
15:15 I mean, it was smooth.
15:16 And I used to do it on my laptop.
15:18 And then the networking switch, and all the VMs crashed.
15:21 And I'm, like, almost out of time.
15:23 And I was like, anyone want to see me finish this?
15:25 And they were like, yeah, because everyone's on the edge of the seat to see how this thing goes down.
15:28 So I deleted the whole cluster, and I built it back from scratch.
15:31 Walked it back up, and we got the whole thing done.
15:35 And it was like mic drop.
15:36 And someone came up to me afterwards and was like, you did that on purpose.
15:39 We're trying to show off.
15:40 I was like, man, I'm sweating bricks, dude.
15:42 Like, that was so dope.
15:43 And then that told me that it's okay to mess up.
15:46 What people come to see is you make it through it.
15:48 And that's what gave me the confidence that if that's the worst, then I'm good from here.
15:52 That's cool.
15:53 I've seen live demos explode on people at talks.
15:56 And, of course, you have the empathy.
15:58 Like, you feel bad for them.
15:59 But then you also enjoy how they deal with it.
16:02 Pull through, man.
16:03 And then cheering them.
16:04 Because no one's in the audience.
16:05 Ha, ha.
16:06 We knew you were going to mess up this live demo.
16:08 We caught you.
16:09 Everyone's there cheering on the person.
16:11 You said something really important there.
16:12 We caught you.
16:14 Like, people are there usually to support the speaker.
16:17 And when people hit a rough spot or they get emotional or they get scared or nervous, you can look in people's eyes and you just see this.
16:24 They're like, I'm right here for you.
16:25 I'm not checking my email right now.
16:27 Just come on.
16:28 I'll be quiet while you get through this.
16:30 And I think a lot of people forget that.
16:32 That's the interaction we have.
16:33 Yeah.
16:34 That's a good point.
16:36 Because I think far too often when you're on the stage and you're in that spotlight, it's really easy to get totally full of fear.
16:44 You know, like, you're just like, I'm on the spotlight.
16:46 Everybody out there thinks I'm an idiot.
16:47 I can't get this right.
16:48 How did I get myself in this situation?
16:50 Can I get out fast?
16:51 And the only thing I think maybe what you learned with your live demos was like power through, you know, and there's something you gain once you do power through because you kind of gain that confidence like, okay, it's not that hard.
17:03 Or, you know, I dealt with that pressure, so to speak, you know, and you made it on the other end.
17:08 That's the hardest part, making it through.
17:10 Yep.
17:12 And I think the community has been very supportive of me personally.
17:16 I think a lot of people don't realize what it takes for someone to be successful.
17:20 It takes a whole bunch of people pushing you up and celebrating when you win.
17:24 And when I see people, you know, like they may ask for a selfie.
17:27 Give me a good example of celebrating a win.
17:29 So here's the thing, like, you know, you go out and now my Kubernetes book is almost finished with the help of some co-authors came in, Joe Beta, Brendan Burns, co-founders of Kubernetes.
17:39 And them celebrating like, hey, this dude started a book and we're going to help him finish it.
17:43 Or when you show up at a conference and people ask you to sign the book for them.
17:46 Or when you release something on GitHub, I have this documentation of Kubernetes the hard way.
17:51 I really wanted everyone to be able to experience Kubernetes the hardest way possible so they learn all the moving pieces so that way they can also walk around with that level of knowledge.
18:00 And when people hit that star button and then you watch that thing climb, that's people celebrating with you.
18:05 Or you tweet an update on Twitter and everyone retweets.
18:09 Brian Kettleston, right, host of Go Time.
18:12 And I remember my birthday came out and he was like, I want everyone to retweet if Kelsey taught you something.
18:18 And when you wake up to that and you see that number as high as it got, you're like, wow.
18:23 What's this story?
18:24 This was recently.
18:25 This was like on my birthday, February 27th.
18:27 Okay.
18:28 Brian Kettleston just, you know, he's in a different time zone.
18:30 He's three hours ahead of me, so I'm still asleep.
18:32 In Florida.
18:33 In Florida.
18:35 I'm in Portland and he kicks off this thread on Twitter.
18:38 He's like, hey, it's Kelsey Hightower's birthday today.
18:40 I would like you to retweet if you learn or Kelsey has taught you something.
18:45 And you wake up and you see that, like your phone's buzzing like, what the hell's going on?
18:49 I haven't done anything today.
18:50 Right.
18:51 And then you see that.
18:52 That's celebrating your win when people say nice things about you and you're not even there.
18:58 And it's positive energy.
18:59 This isn't like negative energy where you're attacking or being attacked.
19:03 This is just straight up positive energy.
19:05 And to me, I think that's part of it.
19:08 And when you're saying that you're successful, I guarantee if you look around, it's because someone is celebrating your victories.
19:13 Wow.
19:14 And that's why it proliferates the way it does.
19:16 That's awesome.
19:17 I love that story, man.
19:18 That's awesome.
19:19 I would love to have a birthday like that one day.
19:21 Now you're just teasing.
19:23 Now you're just setting it up.
19:24 Note to self.
19:26 Thanks, Kelsey.
19:27 It was a pleasure, man.
19:28 Thanks for having me.
19:33 Coming up after the break, we talk with Safia Abdallah about being a command line junkie and her talk on the intersection of business and open source and how open source can operate more like a business.
19:48 We also talk about the ever growing number of hats and skills required of open source maintainers.
19:54 All this and more after the break.
19:56 This episode is sponsored by CircleCI.
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20:19 They recently launched version 2.0 of their platform with a focus on providing faster build times thanks to advanced caching strategies and flexible resource allocation.
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20:58 There's a ton more to learn about CircleCI, so head to circleci.com slash changelawpodcast.
21:04 Once again, circleci.com slash changelawpodcast to learn more.
21:12 I'll see you next time.
21:21 Yes.
21:22 What has she released recently?
21:24 Was it nightly or was it weekly?
21:27 She's been all over everything.
21:28 All over everything.
21:29 I got a couple of...
21:31 Pulled up a couple of them that I remember off the top of my head.
21:33 You want me to tell you them or you want me to surprise you guys?
21:36 Surprise me.
21:37 She knows what they are.
21:38 She knows what they are.
21:39 If I can remember them all, to be honest, I forget some of them sometimes.
21:42 Unforgettable.
21:44 Would you say that prolific and open source describes you?
21:48 Prolific is such a...
21:50 I don't think so.
21:51 I'm not sure what the metric for prolific is.
21:55 I've only been an open source for about two years, but I have produced a lot of work in that time.
22:01 Technical, community, documentation, and otherwise.
22:06 So, maybe...
22:07 So, according to Webster, prolific means it's got two good versions of this adjective.
22:14 Producing much fruit or foliage or many offspring.
22:17 Or, also, present in large numbers or quantities, plentiful.
22:25 I guess, recently, I've been prolific because I have been producing a lot of work.
22:29 Do you consider your open source projects offspring?
22:32 Yeah.
22:34 You do?
22:35 A little bit.
22:36 Like babies.
22:37 There are babies that I tend to.
22:38 There you go.
22:39 A little garden.
22:40 Sometimes badly, but they are my children.
22:42 Well, I like that.
22:46 They are my children.
22:47 I don't always take the care of them, but they are my children.
22:49 So, Safia Abdallah, you've been releasing so many things lately.
22:54 I was just telling you before we started recording that I'm starting to feel inadequate as an open source programmer.
23:00 It's like, how is anybody going to keep up with this lady?
23:03 A few things that have hit weekly.
23:05 Phony.
23:06 Would you tell us about Phony real quick?
23:09 So, Phony is a command line tool that basically allows you to generate test JSON data from a defined schema.
23:18 So, if you wanted to create a list of 10 JSON objects that contained a name and an address, you could do that at the command line really quickly.
23:27 Exactly.
23:28 And then, Legit or Legit, I don't know how you say it.
23:32 So, Legit was one of the first projects I produced.
23:35 It's kind of similar to a lot of other projects that exist in the ecosystem with a fun twist.
23:41 Legit allows you to add a license to your open source project.
23:45 But it actually allows you to also add license headers to specific files, which is a requirement by some licenses that sometimes people don't necessarily follow.
23:54 So, that was legit.
23:57 There was a couple of stuff.
23:58 More recently, I've released Giddy, which is a command line wrapper around Git, and it attempts to address some of the user experience hiccups with Git.
24:08 So, revision history traversal at the command line with Git is not super fun.
24:14 So, Giddy abstracts that logic out and provides you two simple commands to do revision history traversal.
24:21 And it's also got a Giddy oops functionality, which basically allows you to fix common Git issues, like, oh, I made a commit, but I forgot to add this file.
24:30 Or, oh, I want to, like, undo this commit that I just did.
24:33 So, yeah.
24:34 A lot of command line tools.
24:35 Yes.
24:37 Are you a command line junkie, or what's the deal?
24:39 I am.
24:40 So, I think one thing that I get asked a lot about the stuff I make is, like, why are you making this?
24:46 Which is a nice question.
24:48 Why does this have to exist?
24:51 And the reason is that I work a lot at the command line.
24:53 Most of the work I do is in Hyper, which is a terminal built in Electron using React and JavaScript.
25:02 It's really amazing and interesting technology.
25:05 I usually have one pane that is Vim, and then two panes that are just shells for me to, like, run tests on or run a server or just, like, execute Git commands.
25:16 And so, I'm in the command line a lot, and I kind of preach this philosophy of minimalism in my development environment.
25:24 So, I don't add a ton of extensions and tools and, like, crazy things.
25:32 Customizations until I know I need them.
25:34 Because I think one thing that kind of happens a lot in tech is we take more than what we need.
25:39 And the philosophy that I've adopted is start with the most basic setup you can.
25:46 And then, as you encounter a problem or a pain point, find the resolution instead of finding a solution for a problem that you might not have or might not exist for you yet.
25:56 Yeah.
25:57 And so, a lot of the tools I've built have come up because I was working on a project, and I was like, I wish there was this thing, but it has to work this, like, very specific way that I want because I'm a very anal person.
26:10 And that thing didn't exist.
26:11 So, I set out and made it, and then I just released it in the open because I guess that's what you should do when you make things, or at least that's what I do as someone who works in an open source.
26:20 That's kind of where they all started.
26:24 So, you're also organizer of PyData Chicago.
26:27 Yes.
26:28 So, you do some Python, you do some JavaScript, all these tools that are like NPM installable things.
26:33 Yeah.
26:35 Tell us about your efforts in organizing and what you're up to there.
26:38 So, PyData Chicago is a community meetup.
26:41 We meet once a month, and the idea is to bring people who are doing interesting work around open science and open source, specifically as it relates to data science.
26:51 In a previous life, I was really interested in data science, but then I kind of made the transition into web technologies.
26:58 So, no more interest?
27:00 Very little interest?
27:02 Less interest?
27:04 Some interest, no active work, is the best way to put it.
27:08 Some interest, no active work, meaning you couldn't find work, or you don't have currently work?
27:12 Not currently having work, because the interest in data science is now less than the interest in web technologies.
27:21 Meaning other people's interest or your interest?
27:23 Gotcha.
27:24 Like, I'm interested in observing where the industry is going, what people are doing, keeping track of it, connecting people together.
27:29 And moving yourself to be there.
27:30 Yeah.
27:31 I just kind of watch in the room.
27:33 But maybe not necessarily being a part of the show.
27:36 Oh, you're part of the show.
27:39 Always part of the show.
27:40 Always part of the show.
27:42 I mean, if you're on the JavaScript show, I mean, if you're a command line junkie or in the JavaScript or NPM communities and you're on Twitter, you've seen Captain Sophia retweeted around with some new awesome CLI tool.
27:55 I've seen it so many times recently that I told you I'm getting a fear of inadequacy.
27:59 And so you're part of the show.
28:02 I mean, maybe you even are the show at this point.
28:04 So just don't don't undersell yourself.
28:06 Captain of the show.
28:08 Oh, captain of the show.
28:10 I don't know what he's talking about.
28:12 But we cut you off when you're talking about Pi Data Chicago.
28:14 So I apologize.
28:15 Oh, yeah.
28:16 So we meet once a month.
28:18 Generally, people talk about work that they're doing that's related to machine learning, deep learning, really interesting stuff going on in the field.
28:26 That's also happening out in open source, because one of the big things about data science is, although it can be used to push a company's bottom line forward and help them make more money because they understand their customers' habits better, it's also something that should be done in a public space.
28:43 It's like people should know what technology companies are using to process their data and have insights and awareness into how that works.
28:51 And so my effort with Pi Data Chicago is just kind of bring more transparency into the field of data science.
28:58 So you've been watching the show here.
29:02 We're at OSCON.
29:03 First, curious what you're up to here at OSCON, what you're talking about, and then we'll talk to you about where you see things moving next.
29:11 But what do you see in here at OSCON today?
29:14 Oh, so confession, this might not be super good material for the podcast.
29:19 I flew in yesterday or Tuesday evening, spent most of Wednesday prepping for my talk, which I had to give Wednesday afternoon.
29:28 And then after I gave my talk, I just kind of like shut down.
29:32 So I didn't get to see.
29:33 For good reason.
29:34 Crunch time, right?
29:35 Yeah.
29:36 You just got to depress.
29:37 Do not prep a talk five hours before you're due to present it.
29:41 Um, that's, that's like an intense and stressful experience.
29:44 How'd it go?
29:45 I think it went pretty well.
29:48 The talk covered kind of the intersection of open source and business and what tech companies can do to be more like open source projects and what open source projects can do to be more like tech companies.
29:59 So kind of that relationship between the two.
30:02 Um, I did get a chance to talk to a ton of people.
30:05 Um, this is my first O'Reilly conference actually.
30:09 So the vibe is different from the kind of local or community conferences that I usually go to.
30:14 Um, how do you mean vibe?
30:17 So it's bigger.
30:18 Yeah.
30:19 The space is bigger.
30:20 There's more people.
30:21 Um, I generally either will go to a conference that's focused on a particular topic.
30:26 So either a JavaScript conference or a Python conference or a data science conference.
30:30 There's a lot of diversity in topic material here.
30:34 Um, which is good because you get to kind of see more things and it encourages you to discover, um, new things that you might not generally be interested in.
30:44 But it can also be overwhelming because there's just like so much going on.
30:49 There's a lot going on.
30:50 And I'm definitely a kind of a one track kind of person.
30:55 Yeah.
30:56 I like, I also enjoy a small one track conference.
30:59 In fact, I help organize a small one track conference about JavaScript, uh, a regional one.
31:03 Plug it.
31:04 Any JSConf.
31:05 Any JSConf.
31:06 July 21st.
31:07 Be there or be square.
31:09 I'll be around circle.
31:11 Whatever it takes, come there.
31:14 Please come.
31:15 Please come.
31:16 JS for the win.
31:17 So tell us a little bit more about your talk.
31:20 You said it's the intersection of business and open source.
31:23 I like how you said not just how businesses can be more like open source, because that seems like a lot of people are talking about that, but also how open source can be more like business.
31:31 That seems like not too many folks are thinking about that.
31:34 So the premise I started off in my talk was the fact that a lot of open source projects, at least the ones that are really notorious, well-known, and well-utilized in the industry, in production and inside projects and pretty much everywhere, are the ones where the maintainers or contributors have put in a lot of time into developing the technical code base, the documentation.
31:57 They've put in a lot of work in developer evangelism and the marketing and branding, and they've also, to a certain extent, done some work around fundraising and sustainability plans for their open source project.
32:09 And the premise I laid out was all of these things are things that a tech startup would do.
32:15 Like, think of any successful tech startup, and it's likely that they're executing all five of those things.
32:23 But open source maintainers and contributors who own or build large successful projects don't get the same amount of noise or attention that tech CEOs do, because there just isn't that, like, allure and that curiosity associated with open source.
32:42 And so the premise I laid out was that every open source project that operates as a certain scale is actually a mini-business, and maintainers are actually entrepreneurs who have the potential to go off and start tech companies in the usual lens that we think of them.
33:02 And I talked a little bit about what that means for us to exist in a society that glorifies and values the Mark Zuckerbergs, but doesn't glorify and value the people who made it possible for Mark Zuckerberg to build Facebook in his dorm room over the course of a couple of days or weeks.
33:22 All free open source software.
33:23 We've had this conversation to some degree with James Pierce, head of open source at Facebook, and he basically said in that show that because of open source and the roots of Facebook is built on open source, it has even came to be, and it's even possible.
33:37 Yeah, but go into any American household and ask them to explain what open source is or what its role is in the phone that they own or the TV that they own or the laptop that they use, and they're not going to be able to explain it.
33:49 Or you go to the about page of any app you use, and it's like, they give the disclosure, like, these are the open source projects we use, and it's like, well, Instagram and everything they are is front and center, but sure, they, okay, in the about section or this very low menu that is obscure and never found, they mention the open source they use.
34:04 Is that what you mean by that?
34:05 Yes, exactly, and I think the first reaction that people have is, well, is it really necessary for the day-to-day consumer of our products to know that we're using open source or what open source is?
34:16 So what?
34:17 Whatever.
34:18 I think it is necessary.
34:19 I think it's an important part of having transparency between you and your users, and just, like, people should know that the software they use is not software that's entirely produced by a certain company.
34:31 Like, the risk you take by introducing open source into your organization is you have a code base that is outside of your control, and your consumers should know that, that it's both a good thing and a bad thing, but your consumers should be aware of where the software that they're using is coming from.
34:48 Like, if we all want to know what's in our, like, our, like, you know, our steak, we should know what's in our software, so.
34:58 That's a good comparison to nutrition, to the nutrition facts.
35:00 Like, this is what's in your food.
35:02 Do not, or eat it, or do not eat it.
35:04 It's like, do you know how many NPM modules are in this stuff?
35:07 I am not using that.
35:08 That's a good one, man.
35:10 That's a good one.
35:11 And I think as we, as technology becomes more pervasive in our society, and data becomes more pervasive in our society, people are going to want to know how their software works, and who they're trusting their information with.
35:23 Some people will, for sure.
35:24 Down to the open source level.
35:25 Yeah.
35:26 Yeah, and certainly, like, not every, like, Joe and Jane in the world is going to want to know, like, what open source project is used in my software, but it's information that should be easily accessible and consumable to the general non-technical public.
35:39 So, what's a great way to deploy that kind of, that kind of mindset?
35:43 So, let's, maybe let's use one example.
35:46 Since I know for sure Instagram lists in their sub-menus, this is the open source we use, how could Instagram change to reflect a world where you're, this world you're sharing?
35:57 I think bringing it in and moving it to, like, the updates text in app updates, that's the one place that consumers generally are more likely to read information than kind of, like, scrolling through.
36:07 Yeah, scrolling through, like, settings in their app is a bit more hidden is a good place to add it.
36:13 In the install screen, if that's something where the software would make sense to have that kind of information displayed in the install screen.
36:22 So, I think, move it away from, like, hidden behind settings and, like, various toggles and menus and just put it front and center where the user can access it if they know that that's what they want to read.
36:35 I was surprised they did it at all.
36:37 Yeah, I was too when I saw that.
36:39 Yeah, they have to disclose it because of licensing.
36:41 Some of the licenses.
36:43 It doesn't mean they have to follow it.
36:44 They can break the law.
36:46 Well, I mean, that's true.
36:48 Anybody can break the law.
36:49 I'm just saying, I was surprised they wouldn't even surface it at all.
36:51 Yeah, but certainly if the licenses did not require it, they probably would not have done it at all.
36:55 So, say, like, if you enforce it at the license level, like, you can use the software, but you have to display it.
37:00 A lot of them are, like, you have to include this in the, you know, reproduced copy or whatever.
37:05 But if it actually said, like, and you have to display it prominently during your launch screen or something.
37:08 Yeah.
37:09 Like, that would be an actual license that you would insist upon.
37:11 No one would use it.
37:12 Yeah.
37:13 And maybe that would...
37:14 The UX system would be like, nope, sorry.
37:15 Yeah.
37:16 Don't want to compromise our brand.
37:18 Well, that's interesting, though.
37:21 To glorify the Mark Zuckerbergs, but not the open source tools out there that enable Mark to be Mark.
37:27 And I think...
37:28 Well, not Mark to be Mark, but Mark to be Mark of Facebook, for example.
37:31 Marky Mark.
37:33 And I think in a certain way, when we present the people behind the big tech companies that we see,
37:40 like, the people who are developing the open source software,
37:42 that's a much more approachable image to attain for than being, like, a tech CEO or this, like, insane genius in their dorm room.
37:51 Like, if you told somebody, a lot of the software that you use is actually lots of small tools built by lots of different people across the world,
37:58 that's a more empowering and relatable message than Mark Zuckerberg did this thing in his dorm room in two weeks because he was a genius.
38:06 So there's also that kind of social and technical education perspective to it, too.
38:13 I think your point about, you know, most, you said open source maintainers are like entrepreneurs.
38:19 It definitely resonates with me because a lot of the conversations that we have, and we speak with businesses, we also speak with open source developers.
38:25 And we bring...
38:27 I mean, we are a business.
38:28 We're also open source developers.
38:29 Right.
38:30 So we bring kind of a product and a business.
38:32 I feel like I'm asking business questions to open source maintainers all the time.
38:35 Oh, yeah.
38:36 Like, if you just replace that person with somebody running a startup, I would be asking that person the exact same.
38:41 I mean, we talk about traction, sustainability.
38:43 We talk about...
38:44 The currency is different.
38:46 A business generates money, dollars, whereas an open source project is more like users, maintainers, contributors.
38:54 You know, the...
38:55 The users are your currency?
38:56 Well, you know, there's value is what I'm trying to say.
38:59 There's some value being exchanged.
39:01 And there's some sort of form of currency, whether it's like the old school Woofie or it's actual dollars.
39:07 Would you say the old school Woofie?
39:09 Look it up.
39:10 You lost me at Woofie.
39:12 Keep going on the conversation.
39:13 I'll find it real quick for you.
39:15 So on the other side...
39:19 Well, not on the other side, but another point to that is a lot of the...
39:22 So what we see is a lot of open source projects thriving and dying, right?
39:27 We track that.
39:29 We talk to the people that are thriving.
39:30 Sometimes we talk to the ones that are not doing so well.
39:32 But we do retrospectives about projects.
39:38 And a lot of the times, the things that hinge on success or failure are the same things that would a business.
39:44 And so I think that's an apt comparison.
39:45 And so the ones also, of course, just like in business, there's luck and timing and there's things outside of your control.
39:52 But a lot of the people that we see having success in open source is because they are thinking about it in the same way that an entrepreneur would.
40:00 So they're very deliberate about their actions and they're not just floating some software out there.
40:05 One thing that I like to say is if you want to have a successful open source project, you have to have a lot of hustle.
40:10 It's that same...
40:12 Can't that the what?
40:13 A lot of hustle.
40:14 It's that same attribute that we associate with entrepreneurs in the traditional sense.
40:19 Yeah, you definitely do.
40:20 Yeah, you definitely can't fit what I think is maybe the traditional image of an open source developer,
40:26 which is someone who's purely technical and very skilled in a small subsection or stack.
40:34 To really be successful, you have to be the person who can, like I mentioned earlier, go out and do the documentation,
40:40 go out and do the marketing and branding, be a developer evangelist, all of that.
40:44 Many hats, lots of skills.
40:45 So you've had a lot of success lately, at least in terms of people using your stuff, liking your stuff.
40:52 What's next for you in the open source world?
40:55 I think I'll probably keep doing a lot of those small little CLI tools because really what I'm doing there is scratching my own itch
41:03 and I just share it with the world and sometimes it picks up, sometimes it doesn't.
41:07 I've had a few things that weren't super exciting and didn't really pick up, but they're useful to me and that's all that matters.
41:13 So I'll probably keep developing that.
41:15 I'm probably going to stay in the JavaScript ecosystem for a long while.
41:21 I've started to explore going into like Rust and Go, but JavaScript has my heart.
41:26 It appears.
41:27 So I guess next six months for me, I'll probably be doing a lot of open source CLI tools.
41:33 So keep your eyes on your Twitter feed for what I'm going to drop.
41:38 Yes.
41:39 I love that.
41:40 And to close the loop on Woofie, since I can't leave this, the audience is sitting there saying like, Adam's looking it up.
41:48 He's going to tell us what it is.
41:49 I had already forgotten about it.
41:51 So I had originally heard of Woofie from Tara Hunt's book called The Woofie Factor.
41:55 As per Wikipedia, it's described as Woofie is the ephemeral reputation-based currency of Cory Doctorow's science fiction novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.
42:06 So Woofie is essentially a reputation factor currency.
42:11 And so that's what I meant.
42:12 Yeah, it's clout.
42:13 That's why I said back the old school Woofie because.
42:16 Leave it to Cory Doctorow.
42:18 To use it in a book.
42:19 Yeah, exactly.
42:20 And Tara Hunt to write the book on it, basically.
42:21 But it's, you know, you do good things out there.
42:25 You get reputation.
42:26 That's a form of currency is what I mean by that.
42:28 Gotcha.
42:29 In business and open source, there's still some sort of currency happening.
42:32 It's just described.
42:35 It's in different forms.
42:36 Exactly.
42:37 Woofie.
42:38 Woofie.
42:39 You learn something new every day.
42:40 Yeah.
42:41 Bring it back, Woofie.
42:42 Safia, final thoughts about Woofie and specifically, no.
42:46 Anything else you'd like to close on or talk about?
42:51 No, not now.
42:52 Okay.
42:53 Keep your eye on the Twitter feed for what she's about to drop.
42:56 What's the Twitter handle again?
42:57 Captain Safia.
42:59 Trekkie.
43:00 Check the show notes.
43:01 It'll be there.
43:02 Thank you so much.
43:03 No problem.
43:11 After the break, we close down this show and OzCon by talking with Nadia Ekbal and Mike McQuaid from GitHub about GitHub's open source alley.
43:18 This is something they only do at OzCon, and its aim is to feature open source maintainers in their projects.
43:25 There's conversation, live demonstration, and GitHub does this completely free of any cost to maintainers.
43:32 In fact, they help them with branded giveaways like stickers, t-shirts, and more.
43:36 We also get a glimpse at a different side of GitHub.
43:39 The side that Nadia and Mike work on that has a mission of better supporting open source maintainers, their communities, and communicating their roadmap to open source developers.
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45:37 Once again, Hired.com slash changelog.
45:40 So we're here with Mike McQuaid and Nadia Ekbal from GitHub.
45:54 And it's been a fun conference.
45:57 Open source at OSCON.
45:59 The changelog's here.
46:00 GitHub's here.
46:01 GitHub's here.
46:02 Open source alley.
46:03 Whose idea was this, open source alley?
46:05 First of all, what is it?
46:06 And then secondly, whose idea it was?
46:07 So there's a guy called Alistair who's really big into open source.
46:10 So we generally call him open source alley.
46:12 And he, no, sorry, that's the worst joke.
46:15 But I had to make that.
46:16 Open source alley is.
46:18 That was a great joke.
46:19 I want to say, well, it definitely wasn't either of our ideas.
46:21 It might've been Brandon's maybe.
46:23 Brandon keepers.
46:24 Just say it was Brandon.
46:25 Yeah.
46:26 It's been going on longer than I've been at GitHub.
46:28 So it definitely wasn't my idea.
46:29 I got a little backstory on this.
46:30 I can probably tell you.
46:31 I asked Brandon the same question.
46:32 And Brandon said that this is the third year and they only do it here at OzCon.
46:36 Yes.
46:37 That is true.
46:38 And so rather than schlep GitHub, basically, long story short, he said, let's promote open
46:42 source projects.
46:43 And that's open source alley.
46:44 Open source alley is like demonstrations of awesome open source and stickers get created.
46:50 You know, the poster boards are there and you do a great job of like helping those projects
46:55 share what they're doing to the people who care, basically.
46:58 Yeah.
46:59 And it's nice from that perspective because at a conference like this, the projects that
47:03 tend to have booths are obviously the projects that tend to have some sort of like money behind
47:07 them and corporate backing maybe or something like that.
47:10 Whereas so much of GitHub and so much of our projects are...
47:13 Some craziness has happened here.
47:15 The actual air ducts are going...
47:17 No, they're moving things over there.
47:19 We've reached teardown phase.
47:21 We're in teardown phase here.
47:23 We are literally...
47:24 They're literally tearing it down right next to us.
47:25 They're tearing it down next to us.
47:26 The world is crumbling around us.
47:27 Careful, Mike.
47:28 Continue, Mike.
47:29 Talk fast because we may die.
47:31 Sorry, Mike.
47:33 The nice thing is like, I guess the projects that we have in open source alley tend to be
47:38 those that wouldn't like pay money to have a booth here.
47:41 So we can go and have them and have some representation and blast their logo all over the place and
47:45 get people to like talk to the people who are running these projects.
47:49 Like give them a little bit of exposure.
47:50 So this is three years running.
47:51 Do either of you know the impact of this and how that's played out or is this...
47:57 How informed are you?
47:58 Not very.
47:59 Not very, apparently.
48:00 It's great.
48:02 We love it.
48:03 It was the first year either of us had been involved.
48:04 Well, they keep inviting you back or at least letting you pay them...
48:07 That's right.
48:08 Yeah, they let us pay the money.
48:09 Something's working.
48:10 Well, there's a part...
48:11 There is a transaction in there.
48:12 Yeah, there's a...
48:13 Moving on.
48:14 Let's talk about the projects a little bit because we were lucky enough to have a few
48:17 of them on the show.
48:18 Hospital Run, Mimic.
48:20 That's it.
48:23 That we had on.
48:25 We didn't talk about Open Collective here.
48:27 Nice.
48:28 In the past.
48:29 How are these projects selected and why were they chosen?
48:33 So we basically asked for...
48:35 Asked some people we knew and we've got a communication channel with some of the more active GitHub
48:40 maintainers now.
48:41 And we basically asked them to sort of self-select and say if they're interested.
48:46 And then we kind of reached out to some of the people we know.
48:48 And then some of it's just plain nepotism.
48:50 Like exorcism and homebrew.
48:52 Nepotism.
48:53 Exorcism and homebrew were there because we work here.
48:56 So we've got to get our...
48:58 But who doesn't use homebrew and who doesn't know about exorcism?
49:01 I guess...
49:02 Anybody who doesn't know on Mac.
49:03 Mac port.
49:04 No.
49:05 I legit had a conversation today with a guy from the SFF who had literally never heard
49:10 I was like, is this like a package manager but like by Apple or something?
49:15 And like we were like explaining like what the...
49:18 It was fun.
49:19 What acronym did you use?
49:21 What?
49:22 What acronym did you use there?
49:24 Free Software Foundation.
49:25 Free Software Foundation.
49:26 I thought you called it an SFF.
49:28 I think you just shouted a bunch of letters.
49:30 Yeah.
49:31 I said SFF.
49:32 No.
49:33 Damage.
49:34 We'll find out later in the recording.
49:36 So netfism works.
49:39 Come to GitHub.
49:40 One person doesn't know about homebrew.
49:42 One person.
49:43 What else have we learned today?
49:44 Well, so also there's some people from O'Reilly who also didn't know about homebrew who I think
49:48 were in their marketing team and were like, yeah, it doesn't say like the name on your
49:52 Like you should improve that.
49:54 Obviously, open source is important to GitHub.
49:56 I feel like that's clear.
49:58 Clear.
49:59 From the founding fathers.
50:00 Social coding.
50:01 To GitHub.
50:02 You know, Chris and PJ and Tom.
50:05 All the way till now.
50:07 It does seem like in terms of like engagement with open source developers, maybe indie developers
50:14 smaller.
50:15 It seems like there's been a bit of a renewed effort on GitHub's behalf to like re-engage
50:19 and not just participate in the conversation, but like help out in certain ways that wasn't
50:24 happening for a while.
50:25 Is that just my sense or is that real?
50:27 Is that true?
50:28 I would say your sense is very real.
50:30 Yeah.
50:31 I mean, I think like Brandon Heeper has moved to kind of being the first person, I guess,
50:35 in the company who was like dedicated to working on open source stuff.
50:38 That was about two years ago, right?
50:39 And he spent a while kind of almost like thinking about, I mean, initially he moved to almost
50:43 be like, I'm going to get GitHub's open source projects in shape.
50:47 And then it became more about the community and stuff like that.
50:50 And I think the real thing that probably gave a lot of people a wakeup call to GitHub was
50:57 your GitHub like last year.
50:58 And just the impact of realizing that, okay, there's a lot of people in our community who
51:03 don't feel listened to, but they don't feel that we're listening to their concerns.
51:07 And also like a realization of us internally, like we almost don't have the relationships
51:12 with these people.
51:13 Like we may on an individual basis, but we don't as a company have any sort of formal
51:17 way of having these communications.
51:18 Like when I speak to people, like as a GitHub, if people had complaints with GitHub, I would
51:24 say, well, send an email to support and then that will get turned into a feature request.
51:28 And I appreciate it from most people's perspective, but that's a black box.
51:31 They don't get any feedback from that.
51:33 Like our support team are great and they do email people back when those features get
51:37 implemented, but people have problems and those problems aren't getting solved.
51:40 And I feel like we now have more of a communication channel and more people who are dedicated to
51:45 kind of building those relationships as part of our job so that we can make GitHub better
51:49 It's also been like some major and minor features that y'all have been doing recently.
51:54 I think of some of the work that Nadia has done in the team with the open source handbook
51:59 or the guides, as well as like, even just recently, which I don't even know if it had any fanfare,
52:05 but like you're now adding like license metadata in like a very explanatory way to everything
52:10 as you're like picking.
52:11 So like just making it easier on us when we're making those decisions that are outside of
52:17 our developer wheelhouse, smoother, really helpful.
52:22 There's some really good things coming in the pipeline too from community and safety team
52:25 just in terms of helping you manage your communities better and manage those conversations.
52:29 So there are a lot of really good things in the works this year that I'm very excited
52:32 about but won't talk about because they're insider stuff, but they're coming.
52:37 Anything on the horizon you can mention that's like so close considering this, this is to
52:42 come out in a couple of weeks.
52:43 What can you share?
52:48 I don't want to fuck up.
52:49 So close.
52:52 Yeah, nothing that's guaranteed.
52:54 Nice try out of it.
52:55 But yeah, I mean, I think one thing that's changing too just about the way that we're enrolling
52:59 some of these things is our team has worked harder this year to establish these formal
53:04 relationships with open source maintainers and some of our biggest fans on GitHub instead
53:08 of it being these individual relationships making it so that they feel like they can talk to
53:11 GitHub.
53:12 And so as we're releasing these new product features and stuff, we're actively talking
53:17 to those maintainers and getting feedback from them and involving them in the process.
53:21 Yeah, totally.
53:22 So that's something I'm really proud of.
53:24 That's excellent.
53:26 Yeah, I think we've kind of realized because we have big enterprise sales customers who
53:31 in the early days of GitHub, they'd asked us what was on our roadmap and we were like,
53:34 oh, well, we don't talk about that.
53:35 And then when a company is looking at spending like vast amounts of money with GitHub, obviously
53:40 that's not always really good enough anymore.
53:42 And I think we're now realizing that that's an appropriate thing to do with maintainers as
53:47 Like we have people who are really invested and are really...
53:50 Right, because if you expect maintainers to continue to invest in open source in general,
53:55 you would expect to give them proper tools to do so.
53:58 Or even education to do so.
54:00 Yeah.
54:01 So I think we are beginning to open up a bit more with that and opening up with the community
54:05 and not making everything like a public announcement.
54:08 But like reaching out to people who are going to be affected by these changes and getting
54:11 their feedback on them before we released.
54:14 The open source guides that you did, is that focused towards maintainers or on ramping contributors?
54:21 What is the purpose of the guides?
54:23 All of it.
54:24 Originally, the idea was to have information publicly available for maintainers or aspiring
54:30 maintainers so that that kind of knowledge is shared among the whole community.
54:34 But I think some of the most popular content has actually been some of the stuff that we wrote
54:39 about how to contribute to open source in the first place and find a project.
54:42 And that's also been coming around, even internally, having that information out there and taking
54:46 a stance and saying, this is the way that open source gets built, has fed into our product
54:49 itself.
54:50 So it's been really good.
54:51 We should probably let you two go because they are literally tearing down.
54:56 Rolling up the carpet around us.
54:57 And rolling up the carpet from around us.
54:58 And if you heard that loud roar back there, the audience, that was a Corvette driving out
55:03 Actually, a bear tried to eat at him.
55:06 It's Nadia's Corvette.
55:07 She's got to go.
55:08 We're out of here.
55:09 Mike, Nadia, thank you.
55:10 Get it?
55:11 My bear hands.
55:13 You heard from Jared.
55:14 Had to get a pun in there.
55:15 You got to beat Mike in the pun game.
55:17 All right.
55:21 Thanks for tuning into The Change Law this week.
55:23 We love doing shows like this where we go out into the community, meet people face to face.
55:27 A place like OzCon is where you meet friends, meet new people, enjoy the open source community.
55:32 And this is what we absolutely love to do.
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56:09 Thanks for listening.
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56:40 We'll see you next time.