Balancing priorities with Gorkem Ercan

I continue my conversation with Gorkem Ercan, founding Distinguished Engineer and CTO of Jozu. Gorkem has experience working and leading teams with various technologies ranging from building IDEs, to building mobile phones, and CI/CD systems. He is an avid contributor and supporter of open source.

In this part of the conversation, Gorkem talks about:

Time Management and Prioritization:

• for both personal and team work.
• Using visual tools like lists and boards to track and prioritize contributions.
• Acknowledging that priorities are constantly evolving and require continuous adjustment.

The importance of Giving Back and Open Source Sustainability:

• Finding immense satisfaction in seeing his projects used by millions.
• Emphasizing the importance of economic sustainability for open source projects.
• Why Companies should consider how they can support the projects they rely on.
• Highlighting the misconception that open source is always "free" and the risks associated with this.

Frustrations with Open Source:

• Unrealistic expectations from companies who demand immediate fixes from contributors.
• Security concerns and the lack of focus on secure supply chain practices in some projects.
• Resource constraints for open source projects in implementing and maintaining security measures.

Work-Life Balance:

• Initially viewed open source contributions as a hobby, similar to other leisure activities.
• Acknowledges that open source contributions can be time-consuming and require careful consideration of work-life balance.

Encouragement for Newcomers:

• Invites listeners to contribute to the kitops.ml project, which is supported by Jozu
• Encourages contributions in various forms, including code, documentation, and more

Gorkem Ercan is a founding Distinguished Engineer and CTO of Jozu. Gorkem has experience working and leading teams with various technologies ranging from building IDEs, to building mobile phones, and CI/CD systems. He is an avid contributor and supporter of open source.

Gorkem is the creator of the wildly popular Eclipse JDT language server and vscode-java extension, as well as the YAML Language server and vscode-yaml extension. He is a committer on various projects, including Eclipse Che, Eclipse Theia and Apache Cordova. Gorkem is a member of the Eclipse Architecture Council, and he is one of the longest-serving Eclipse commiters.

LinkedInl:https://www.linkedin.com/in/gorkemercan/

Website:https://jozu.com/

link to the kitops.ml open source project https://kitops.ml/