Manuel Riel

Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we are super excited to have as our guest, Manuel Riel, joining us from Austria. Manu ran a web development agency and launched multiple open source related products, including an invoice processing tool, and a backup service. He’s also the Co-founder of PikaPods, which is a container hosting service for open source apps. Manu is with us to talk about PikaPods. We’ll find out what it does, why it’s needed, the benefits of having it, the most popular app, and plans he has in the future for PikaPods. Go ahead and download this episode to learn more!

[00:01:23] Manu tells us his background, what PikaPods is, and about the apps.

[00:03:32] What’s the difference between Heroku, Netlify, and PikaPods?

[00:04:29] Since you can’t run your own stuff and you can’t edit the apps, Manu explains how this is an open source marketplace. We hear about PikaPods user base, how long he’s been up and running, and how many people are using the platform.

[00:06:11] Manu explains the one source of revenue they provide to open source office.

[00:09:06] We hear Manu’s selling point he pitches to open source maintainers and open source projects.

[00:11:45] Why did Manu choose to work with open source projects to host when there are other things available to him? Why PikaPods?

[00:13:32] Justin brings up pricing on PikaPods site and comments a trend with the ones that paid the least had the most demands. He wonders how Manu deals with that.

[00:15:04] Justin wonders if the services are subsidized by using the BorgBase infrastructure, and Manu explains how they are totally separate, and he tells us about his team.

[00:16:31] We hear if there are any collabs with maintainers Manu is working with since there are a lot of projects he hosts.

[00:18:02] Find out PikaPods most popular app, if there’s a limit, and if bandwidth is an issue.

[00:21:17] Manu shares some things he would like to do in the future with PikaPods.

[00:23:35] How does Manu position himself in the ecosystem and are there other things that could be used in collaboration with PikaPods that makes it easier for maintainers?

[00:25:37] Find out where you can follow Manu and PikaPods online.

[00:10:08] “Hosting is not a good fit for part-time maintainers because it’s a big responsibility.”

[00:12:20] “The motivating event for me was the Log4j Vulnerability.”

• [00:26:42] Justin’s spotlight is pydantic, data validation and settings management using Python type hints.
• [00:27:10] Richard’s spotlight is Amna Shamim.
• [00:27:36] Manu’s spotlight is Uptime Kuma, a fancy self-hosted monitoring tool.

• SustainOSS
• SustainOSS Twitter
• SustainOSS Discourse
• [email protected]
• Richard Littauer Twitter
• Justin Dorfman Twitter
• PikaPods
• PikaPods Twitter
• Apache Log4j Vulnerability
• pydantic
• Amna Shamim
• Uptime Kuma

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

Special Guest: Manuel Riel.

Support Sustain

Max Jones

Richard Littauer

In this first ever cross-over episode of Sustain and Open Source for Climate, host Richard welcomes guest Max Jones, a data scientist and open source software developer who works at Carbon Plan. Max discusses the importance of open source in bringing about effective climate action, the role of Carbon Plan in building accessible data products and tools, and how being a nonprofit is advantageous for open source development. The conversation also touches on funding models for open source projects in nonprofits, including support from individual donors, grants, and collaboration with governmental and private entities like NASA and Microsoft. Additionally, Max shares insights into the development of tools for better visualization of climate data, the impact of open source on climate action, and the challenges of ensuring software and data accessibility and reproducibility. Press download now to hear more!
[00:02:50] Richard outlines Max’s background in open source software development focused on climate action, including his leadership role at Carbon Plan.

[00:03:31] Max discusses the mission of Carbon Plan, emphasizing the importance of transparency and accessibility in climate solutions.

[00:04:23] Max describes his role in leading open source initiatives at Carbon Plan.

[00:03:23] The conversation shifts to the practical aspects of running a non-profit focused on open source projects, including funding mechanisms such as grants from NASA.

[00:06:58] Max explains one of their projects that involve tools for visualizing large-scale climate data to assist cities in planning and decision-making. He mentions how these tools are designed to be accessible to both scientists and the general public.

[00:08:13] There’s a discussion about community engagement with their tools, noting that while many people reach out with questions or feature requests, there have been few contributions in terms of pull requests.

[00:08:53] Max reflects on a collaboration with the Washington Post using their tools to inform public understanding of climate projections.

[00:10:37] Max discusses the broader use of the tools by various agencies and the importance of transparency for reproducibility in research.
[00:11:24] Max emphasizes the importance of reproducibility in open source projects across academia, industry, and the non-profit sector, and he acknowledges the challenges in ensuring that external users can engage with and reproduce their computational workflows.

[00:12:56] The conversation shares insights into building a community around open source projects, particularly through involvement with the Pangeo project, which supports reproducibility and scalability in earth science workflows.

[00:14:08] Max talks about the importance of finding common needs across different fields to promote broader collaboration and integration and mentions the Zarr project.

[00:15:51] We hear about the size of the team at Carbon Plan which includes various roles.

[00:16:28] Richard inquires about the funding landscape for open source projects at Carbon Plan. Max mentions the initial funding received through collaborations with NASA and Microsoft. He emphasizes the importance of ongoing government and agency support for both new tools and the maintenance of existing software.

[00:17:51] Max talks about contributing back to open source communities, highlighting the practice of reporting bugs and engaging with upstream dependencies to improve tools.

[00:18:38] The necessity of open source for transparency in climate solutions is discussed, contrasting with closed source companies that sell proprietary products to governments. Max argues for the importance of open source in ensuring accountability and better outcomes in climate solutions.

[00:20:07] Max discusses the broader aspects of open resources, such as leveraging open standards, data, and hardware. He mentions collaborating with other organizations to tackle scalable computing challenges.

[00:21:18] The conversation shifts to the environmental impact of computational work, with Max acknowledging the need for more efficient workflows and the broader implications of their organization’s focus, which includes understanding and adapting to climate change impacts.

[00:24:15] Richard and Max discuss the challenges of making data sets public in a market-driven environment. Max emphasizes the role of nonprofits in pushing for greater transparency and the potential impact of their work on broader technological practices.

[00:26:09] Finally, Max highlights a new project called OffsetsDB, and tell us where you can follow him and his work online.

• [00:03:44] “We believe that it’s necessary to have transparency and accessibility in our research, data, and tools in order to acco...

Sponsors

• Cachefly

Panel

• Pia Mancini
• Eric Berry

Joined By Special Guest: Greg Bloom

Episode Summary

Greg Bloom, the Chief Organizing Officer of Open Referral Initiative, a community of practice that develops data standards and open source tools that make it easier to share, find and use information about health, human, and social services.Greg talks about the evolution of Open Referral Initiative and defines what "commons" is. He mentions how some of the dilemmas developers are facing in open source software maintenance resembles some of the dilemmas dealt with in common resources management. The panel then talks about what principles or rules should be defined for using open source software resources by taking cues from the common resources management guidelines.

Links:

• https://OpenReferral.org
• https://openreferral.org/our-video-open-referral-in-three-minutes/
• Greg's LinkedIn
• Greg's Twitter
• Governing the Commons by Elinor Ostrom
• Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin
• Elinor Ostrom
• https://commons.blog/2012/08/18/how-commons-can-flourish/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_analysis_and_development_framework
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_analysis_and_development_framework
• The Institutional Analysis and Development Framework
• Principles of Open Source Institutional Design
• https://aspirationtech.org
• Governing Knowledge Commons by Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Katherine J. Strandburg

Picks

Eric Berry:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preacher_(comics)
• iPadOS Preview

Pia Mancini:

• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff
• The Value of Everything by Mariana Mazzucato

Greg Bloom:

• https://responsibledata.io/
• https://digitalpublic.io/

Special Guest: Greg Bloom.

Support Sustain

Pia Mancini | Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Richard Littauer

Patrick Masson
Open Source Initiative

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.

• [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.
  

[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.”

Patrick Masson Twitter

Open Source Initiative

Openwashing

US Department of Defense Use of Open Source Software

Show HN

Dell Precision T7610

Open Mind Project

D3js

FLOSS Desktops for Kids

Black Duck Software Survey

• 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.

Sponsored By:

• Linode: Whether you’re working on a personal project or managing your enterp...

Jono Bacon

Justin Dorfman | Richard Littauer

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we have as our special guest, Jono Bacon, a self-employed Community and Collaboration Consultant, author, speaker, and Founder of Jono Bacon Consulting. Jono tells us about his interesting journey with his career, the diversity of his clients, a concern he has with chat channels, and why community is the most important thing in open source. He talks about developers and how to help them see their value and potential to achieve their goals. We learn more about some of the things Jono wrote, including his most recent book, People Powered: How Communities Can Supercharge Your Business, Brands, and Teams, _and how he got the _“star power” behind it. Also, he also shares an awesome story when he worked at XPRIZE, and something that made him realize how unique the open source world really is. Go ahead and download this episode to hear much more!

[00:01:46] Jono tells us how he ended up doing what he does.

[00:03:36] We find out the type of clients Jono has and how he gets them often through referrals.

[00:06:34] Jono talks about how he feels about Discord, Discourse, Gitter, and the open source IRC replacements that are going on right now.

[00:09:42] Richard asks Jono what he thinks the value is of having these side conversations, and how does that help community members have better engagement and build value for them.

[00:13:28] Jono shares his opinion on one of the flaws with individuals in open source and why community is the most important thing.

[00:16:46] Richard wonders how Jono balances the needs of emotionally connecting to everyone in your group and how he makes sure that developers know there is a balance to be met to have the community thrive.

[00:20:30] We learn about some things Jono wrote and he tells us about his most recent book, _People Powered: How Communities Can Supercharge Your Business, Brands, and Teams. _Justin wonders how he got the “star power,” such as Jamie Hyneman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in his book.

[00:28:01] We hear an awesome story when Jono worked at XPRIZE and how personalities of people made him realize how unique the open source world really is.

[00:31:42] Richard asks Jono if there are any challenges, anything open source needs help with, and what is down the road for us.

[00:36:44] Find out where you can follow Jono online and learn more about what he does.

[00:07:25] “The second priority that I’ve got is by extension, that anybody who joins the community should get amazing value out of it.”

[00:07:32] “As far as I concerned, if you join a community and you don’t get value out of it, that community hasn’t earned you.”

[00:07:56] “One of the concerns I have with chat channels and chat services in general and I’d include Slack, Mattermost, Discord, Git, all of these, is that by definition, it’s a linear stream of consciousness. So Slack claims that they’ve got history and you can kind of unlock history for example if you pay for it. It just doesn’t work.”

[00:08:41] “That’s why I think even Slack, don’s say this is for community building, it’s for building teams.”

[00:10:00] “So, to me what brings people into communities is they’re there to solve a problem. They’re there to improve their future state, such as they’re using pieces of open source software, and they want to make better use of it and solve their problems or build their applications.”

[00:10:16] “I think what people stay for in the community is an intrinsic sense of belonging and a sense that this is just a good place for me to be.”

[00:13:26] “My take on this is I think one of the flaws of a lot of open source communities, not so much communities but more individuals, is that they always talk about the most important thing is code, is getting code that can be created and shared with a group of people.”

[00:13:57] “But to me, I’m engineering for impact here, whether you’re building a little project to just make certain types of unit testing easier, or whether you’re building a replacement for a major piece of proprietary software.”

[00:14:48] “ The reason why I’m so passionate about community is because if you take a hundred people inside of those hundred people, there are so many ideas and insights and experiences and skills, and so much time available. Then when we can get all of that out into the open, it makes us the best we can be as people.”

[00:17:28] “But, I think most people, a much more kind of, I guess you could say practical than that, and they will do something if they can see the value, and it’s worth it, and they can achieve their broader outcomes.”

[00:18:36] “You need to be inclusive, not just in terms of a rich demographic of peo...