My Open Source Experience Podcast (Ildiko Vancsa, Phil Robb)

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In this episode of the My Open Source Experience Podcast, Ildiko and Phil are chatting with Aeva Black. The group is discussing a very important topic, security in open source. Recent attacks have shed some light on security challenges not just in open source, but also in the software supply chain overall, which open source communities, corporate organizations and even governments started to look into to address. This episode goes into details on challenges, recent attacks like the XZ Backdoor incident, the state of the ecosystem related to security, good practices and more!

OmniBOR project - https://omnibor.io

Lessons from XZ Utils: Achieving a More Sustainable Open Source Ecosystem (CISA Blog) - https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/lessons-xz-utils-achieving-more-sustainable-open-source-ecosystem

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In this season finale episode of the My Open Source Experience Podcast, Ildiko talks about the original idea and motivation to create the podcast, reflects back on the season and goes through highlights of every episode. She also shares the outcomes of an exercise she and Phil have with every guest on the show.

Stay tuned for Season 2!

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Engaging in conversatins on public forums and communication channels can be hard, especially if you are new to the open source ecosystem. Why would you talk to someone on the public mailing list about a specific topic, when you can reach out to the person directly? How to phrase a message that anyone in the world can read? How can a community help establish contributors and newcomers to navigate the various communication channels in an open, welcoming and efficient way?

In this MOSE Short segment, Jim Hall and Phil Robb talk about the communication challenges within open source communities, and Jim shares the principles that the FreeDOS community has been following for 30 years and counting.

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Knowing who, and more importantly how they are using the open source project that you're working on is not just interesting, but also very important. This helps the community to evolve and strengthen the project and keep the ecosystem growing along with making it long living. Also, in most cases, people will use your project in a way you would've never imagined!

In this MOSE Short, Jim Hall talks about how the FreeDOS use cases evolved over the years, including academic usage, hobbyists, a railway communication system, and booting an IBM PC 5150 from a vinyl record!

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Justifying the value of upstream work is often hard. Being involved in open source projects tends to fall short when competing with product deadlines and priorities.

In this MOSE Short, Allison Randal and Ildiko talk about the debates on how much time developers should spend contributing to open source projects versus working on their company's proprietary solutions, and weigh different options from full-time allocation to part-time upstream work. The group also discusses strategies of harmonizing upstream and product development work and priorities, the importance of sharing updates within the company about the open source project, like upcoming releases, important bug fixes, and more, and continuously showing the value of upstream involvement.

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When we talk about contributions in the context of an open source project, people most often associate to writing code, test cases, and maybe some documentation. The open source software, or hardware, is in the focal point. However, in order to maintain that code, you need to build a community along with an ecosystem around it and maintain a collaborative environment. This is crucial, and hard at the same time.

In this MOSE Short, Onexi Medina, Ildiko and Phil talk about ways people can participate in open source communities to advance the project beyond the code. The group discusses key areas, such as supporting users, onboarding, and the challenges of making sure these activities get equal priority.

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This MOSE Short brings you a conversation where Kristi Nikolla, Ildiko and Phil talk about servant leadership.

Leadership roles in open source communities deliver the most value if they are designed to guide and serve the community the best. Controlling and badly behaving leaders will slowly damage the community over time, which may result in the project's decline over time.

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In order to help your internal teams of software developers to be successful as they are working upstream, you need to have an internal structure and people who take care of creating a community internally as well. This can also be a key to keep your people for the long run, as happy employees are harder to poach.

In this MOSE Short, Alex Scammon, Ildiko and Phil are talking about how important it is to have an internal structure with diverse roles, as part of an organization's investment in open source and upstream work. In some cases, you need to provide support to software developers to be able to work in a public environment and balance community and corporate priorities, in other cases you can support them with doing more than just software development, like writing articles or speaking at conferences. While having your people, and their good work, more visible can look scary when you are trying to keep them on your payroll, they are more likely to stay with your company when they feel supported, while you're also giving more visibility to your company's success indirectly.

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In this MOSE Short segment Stefano Maffulli, Ildiko and Phil are exploring open source licenses from an individual's perspective.

Whether you are a developer writing code, or someone who is about to launch a new open source project, a basic understanding of open source licenses is a must. If you are launching a new project, it is even more crucial to understand the different licenses and pick the one that will serve your new community the best. When in doubt, always consult a lawyer!

And remember, all open source licenses are permissive, however, some also come with obligations.

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In this MOSE Short, Emily Lovell, Ildiko and Phil talk about why it is crucial to have open source included in the core curriculum of academic institutions, and how it can still be a long road to implementation.

Every bit counts, learning about the concept and mechanisms of open source development sets up students for success in the field by gaining crucial knowledge that many people already working in the industry still don't have. And, more importantly, allowing students to interact with open source communities and to participate in projects through classes and mentorship programs will help them develop important skills through practice and experience.

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In this MOSE Short, Uriel Ofir, Ildiko and Phil touch on how important roles that go beyond code development, are to open source communities. Making the code work is the first step towards the success of a project, however, making it sustainable and long lasting takes much more than that!

A project's success depends highly on the ecosystem around it, which includes users and contributors alike. To grow your ecosystem, you need people who create content to spread the word about your project. As your community starts to grow it needs people who can help managing processes and workflows for the most efficient collaboration.

In this short segment Uriel highlights how important it is that people step up, work proactively and pick up tasks in areas from community management all the way to data science.

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In this MOSE Short segment Stefano Maffulli, Ildiko and Phil talk about the early days of the OpenStack community.

With one dominant contributing company at the beginning, it was important to put careful planning and effort into setting up the community to be able to grow and diversify. That included an open governance, and what you might expect less, a marketing budget!

It is key to bring the technology and artifacts a community is working on to the people who would use them. This is where marketing plays a crucial role, that many people, communities and companies are underutilizing by not using the forums and avenues to talk directly about the open source projects.

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You made the decision to invest in open source and tackle working upstream. Have you figured out how to manage your team's allocation between working int he community versus on your products and services?

In this MOSE Short, Allison Randal, Ildiko and Phil talk about a frequently applied model to divide people's times between the various work items and methods, to ensure that they are plugged into the open source project and keeping the company's priorities in mind at the same time. You will learn about startegies on how to structure your team, and how to listen to your people to decide who should work on what.

Could this just be the silver bullet that you've been looking for? Leave a comment if you've tried this already or if you're going to and share your experience!

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Did you know that you will need to spend more time and effort doing code reviews before using AI-generated code?

AI is heavily utilized in work environments already, it enhances efficiency and productivity. But, it can also be an increased risk factor in your company or open source project, if you are not careful.

In this MOSE Short segment, Aeva Black, Ildiko and Phil talk about the risks that come with using AI, if people try to cut corners and trust the tool blindly. For example, have you ever merged code in a rush? You might know the person who submitted it, or it looked good at the first glance and you didn't have the time to dig deeper into it. While humans also make mistakes, when you know someone's work you have some reassurance that they will keep the quality standards that you are used to. We often trust machines the same way, as we are used to the deterministic output that most tools produce. AI, however, while it is a tool, you cannot predict the output it is creating and you also cannot trust it. Aeva describes an example where there was a security vulnerability hidden in the otherwise good looking, AI-generated code. The group also discusses further social implications of using AI to generate email responses or convincing, but fake content.

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