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Sustain

Sustain brings together practitioners, sustainers, funders, researchers and maintainers of the open source ecosystem. We have conversations about the health and sustainability of the open source community. We learn about the ins and outs of what ‘open source’ entails in the real world. Open source means so much more than a license; we're interested in talking about how to make sure that the culture of open source continues, grows, and ultimately, sustains itself. Newsletter
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Episodes

Episode 194: FOSSY 2023 with Timmy Barnett & Devin Ulibarri

Guests Timmy Barnett | Devin Ulibarri Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Richard is in Portland at FOSSY, the Free and Open Source Software Yearly conference that is held by the Software Freedom Conservancy. In this podcast episode, Richard interviews Devin Ulibarri and Timmy Barnett about their work with Music Blocks and Sugar Labs. Music Blocks is a visual programming language that combines music and computation, allowing users to explore musical and computation...

Aug 11, 202317 min

Episode 193: FOSSY 2023 with Matthew Wild & Stephen Paul Weber

Guests Matthew Wild | Stephen Paul Weber Panelists Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Richard is in Portland at FOSSY, the Free and Open Source Software Yearly conference that is held by the Software Freedom Conservancy. Today, he engages with XMPP protocol experts Matthew Wild and Stephen Paul. Matthew shares about his project, Snikket, which aims to make XMPP more accessible for everyday communication among friends and family groups. Stephen introduces JMP, a project des...

Aug 04, 202317 min

Episode 192: FOSSY 2023 with Erik Benner

Guest Erik Benner Panelists Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! We are in Portland at FOSSY, the Free and Open Source Software Yearly conference that is held by the Software Freedom Conservancy. Richard and Eriol are joined by Erik Benner, who works for Mythics, a large public sector IT company specializing in cloud migration and traditional legacy applications. Today, they discuss the challenges of transitioning open source software to government departments an...

Jul 28, 202317 min

Episode 191: FOSSY 2023 with Sam Whited

Guest Sam Whited Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Richard is in Portland, OR at FOSSY, the Free and Open Source Software Yearly conference that is held by the Software Freedom Conservancy. Today, our guest is Sam Whited, a bicycle mechanic with a deep involvement in open source software development. His contributions include work with the XMPP Standards Foundation, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and the creation of Mellium, an XMPP library in Go. The conve...

Jul 21, 202315 min

Episode 190: Karen M. Sandler on Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC)

Guest Karen M. Sandler Panelists Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, hosts Richard and Justin welcome Karen Sandler, Executive Director of the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC). Karen shares her journey from engineer to lawyer, and how her personal health condition led her to the world of open source. She discusses her role at SFC, the importance of Copyleft licenses, and the organization's diversity initiative, Outreachy. Karen also shares her personal expe...

Jul 07, 202338 min

Episode 189: Otto Richter on Codeberg

Guest Otto Richter Panelists Richard Littauer | Abby Cabunoc Mayes Show Notes Welcome back to another episode of Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. In this episode, Richard and Abby are joined by guest Otto Richter. Otto is the executive director of Codeberg, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing a free and open space for developers to host their software projects. It’s like GitHub or GitLab but powered by free software as an alternative ...

Jun 30, 202337 min

Episode 188: Maintainer Month with Ruth Cheesley & Josh Goldberg

Guests Ruth Cheesley | Josh Goldberg Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Note: Due to an issue with Gmail sending the edited podcast to spam (thanks, gmail), this is going out a bit late! Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a special podcast and one of several in this series for GitHub’s Maintainer Month. We’re interviewing maintainers to ask them about their experience of open source and their experience of living as m...

Jun 27, 202337 min

Episode 187: Karthik Ram on Research Software Sustainability

Guest Karthik Ram Panelists Richard Littauer | Abby Cabunoc Mayes Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. In this episode, Richard and Abby are joined by guest Karthik Ram, a research scientist at UC Berkeley’s Institute for Data Science and Berkeley Initiative for Global Change Biology, as well as co-founder and director of the rOpenSci Project, and lead at URSSI. Karthik’s journey from field ecologist to data scientist ...

Jun 23, 202342 min

Episode 186: Yan Minagawa & Christian Paul at FOSS Backstage 2023

Guests Yan Minagawa | Christian Paul Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is at FOSS Backstage 2023 in Berlin, where he has two guests joining him, Yan Minagawa and Christian Paul, from the Matrix Project. Today, they talk about what the Matrix Project is. The project has 80 million users and around 10,000 home servers. We also learn that Christian works on developing bridges for the Matrix project, and Yan is part of the team and works as a...

Jun 20, 202323 min

Episode 185: Daniel Stenberg on the cURL project

Guest Daniel Stenberg Panelists Richard Littauer | Leslie Hawthorne Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. On this episode, Richard and Leslie are super excited to have as their guest, Daniel Stenberg, Lead Developer of the cURL project. Today, Daniel shares his journey of how he got involved with cURL, its development over the years, the community behind it, and funding the development. Our conversation also touches on ...

Jun 16, 202337 min

Episode 184: Omotola Eunice Omotayo & Jan Ainali at FOSS Backstage 2023

Guests Omotola Eunice Omotayo | Jan Ainali Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Today, Richard’s live at FOSS Backstage 2023 in Berlin, and on this episode, he’s joined by two guests. His first guest is Omotola Eunice Omotayo, who works as a community manager and organizer for Outreachy, which is a fellowship under Software Freedom Conservancy. She gave a talk about “Contributor engagement and monetization opportunities” at the event. They discuss the number of appl...

Jun 13, 202334 min

Episode 183: Nahuai Badiola on WordPress, W3C, and all of tech sustainability

Guest Nahuai Badiola Panelists Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, Richard and Justin are very excited to have as their guest, Nahuai Badiola, who’s a freelance WordPress developer, part of the WordPress Sustainability Initiative, the W3C Sustainability Working Group, and a recent recipient of a fellowship at The Green Web Foundation. Today’s discussion covers the importance of...

Jun 09, 202335 min

Episode 182: Wolfgang Gehring & Ana Jiménez at FOSS Backstage

Guests Wolfgang Gehring | Ana Jiménez Santamaría Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Today, Richard is joined by two guests from FOSS Backstage 2023 in Berlin. His first guest is Wolfgang Gehring, OSPO Head at Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation. Wolfgang discusses the importance of open source at Mercedes-Benz. He mentions the company's recent FOSS convention, explains his role in getting people to work together, and talks about the challenges of de-risking and softenin...

Jun 06, 202338 min

Episode 181: John Robb of React Flow on how we ask for money in open source

Guest John Robb Panelists Richard Littauer | Amanda Casari Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We’re super excited to have guest, John Robb, joining us today. John is a Community Manager at React Flow, an open source library for building node-based UI. Today, John talks about how they’ve sustained the project without investors and valuing intentionally and autonomy over endless growth. Then, there’s a conversation aro...

Jun 02, 202337 min

Episode 180: Gregor Bransky at FOSS Backstage 2023

Guest Gregor Bransky Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is in Berlin this week at FOSS Backstage 2023, and he is joined by his guest, Gregor Bransky, who’s an artist, hacker, and computer technician. He discussed his experiences at CCC and how they value the creation of beauty using technology as part of their "Hacker Ethics." Gregor also discusses his role as a board member for present policy of the Innovation Council Public Health, an NG...

May 30, 202324 min

Episode 179: Maintainer Month with GitHub's Martin Woodward

Guest Martin Woodward Panelists Richard Littauer | Ben Nickolls Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a special podcast and one of several in this series for GitHub’s Maintainer Month. We’re interviewing maintainers to ask them about their experience of open source and their experience of living as maintainers. We are super excited to talk to our guest, Martin Woodward, who’s the VP of Developer Relations at Git...

May 26, 202342 min

Episode 178: Maintainer Month with Predrag Gruevski & Kingsley Mkpandiok

Guests Predrag Gruevski | Kingsley Mkpandiok Panelists Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a special podcast and one of several in this series for Maintainer Month. We’re interviewing maintainers to ask them about their experience of open source and their experience of living as maintainers. We’re super excited to have two guests with us. Our first guest is Predrag Gruevski, who’s ...

May 23, 202337 min

Episode 177: Lisa Caywood from RedHat's OSPO on working with code communities

Guest Lisa Caywood Panelists Richard Littauer | Amanda Casari Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We’re very excited for our guest today! Joining us is Lisa Caywood, who’s the Senior Principal Community Architect at Red Hat OSPO, and has a podcast about cheese, which we’ll learn a little more about. Today, our discussion revolves around managing open source communities, determining their strategic value, and gracefull...

May 19, 202338 min

Episode 176: Maintainer Month with Russell Keith-Magee & Uriel Ofir

Guests Russell Keith-Magee | Uriel Ofir Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a special podcast and one of several in this series for GitHub’s Maintainer Month. We’re interviewing maintainers to ask them about their experience of open source and their experience of living as maintainers. Our first guest is Dr. Russell Keith-Magee, who’s the Founder of the BeeWare Project and Software En...

May 16, 202334 min

Episode 175: Serkan Holat on Agile Public Funds

Guest Serkan Holat Panelists Richard Littauer | Leslie Hawthorn Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Richard and Leslie are hosting today, and they’re very excited to welcome our special guest, Serkan Holat, who’s a Freelance Software Developer, with over 20 years of experience in researching finance, open source ecosystems, and digital public goods. He advocates for financing open source software with public money and...

May 12, 202341 min

Episode 174: Maintainer Month with Bob Killen & Navendu Pottekkat

Guests Bob Killen | Navendu Pottekkat Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a special podcast and one of several in this series for GitHub’s Maintainer Month. We’re interviewing maintainers to ask them about what their experience is of maintainership and open source. Today, we’re very excited to have two guests joining us. Our first guest is Bob Killen, who’s a Program Manager at Google...

May 09, 202334 min

Episode 173: Nick Vidal & Masae Shida at FOSS Backstage 2023

Guests Nick Vidal | Masae Shida Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is roaming the halls at FOSS Backstage 2023 this week, and you just never know who you’re going to bump into. He grabs Nick Vidal, the new Community Manager for ClearlyDefined, which is an open-source project that aims to bring clarity to licensing information for open-source projects. Nick is trying to reach out to different communities to work together, such as OpenSSF an...

May 05, 202338 min

Episode 172: Maintainer Month 2023 with Sarah Boyce & David Blass

Guests Sarah Boyce | David Blass Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a special podcast and one of several in this series for GitHub’s Maintainer Month. We’re interviewing actual maintainers of open source code to talk about what they do, how they like it, and what they need to keep going. Today, we’re very excited to have two guests joining us. Our first guest is Sarah Boyce, who’s a ...

May 02, 202339 min

Episode 171: Chris Baker & Stephen Jacobs on Open@RIT

Guests Chris Baker | Stephen Jacobs Panelists Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Abby Cabunoc Mayes Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we are excited to have as our guests, Chris Baker and Stephen Jacobs, who work at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology). Chris is the Assistant Director for the Open@RIT Program Office, and Stephen is a Professor at RIT and the Founder of Open@RIT . Our conversations today f...

Apr 28, 202341 min

Episode 170: Smera Goel & Dotan Horovits at FOSS Backstage 2023

Guests Smera Goel | Dotan Horovits Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2023 that is held in Berlin every year. Today, Richard has two guests joining him. He meets up with Smera Goel who was featured on Episode 3 of our Sustain Open Source Design Podcast. Richard catches up with her and what has been going on the past year and a half. Smera is a Product Designer and an Outreachy Mentor for Fedora. She is also the Men...

Apr 25, 202340 min

Episode 169: Dawn Wages of PSF on organizing communities, ethical licenses, and more

Guest Dawn Wages Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, Richard is very excited to have as his guest, Dawn Wages, who’s the Python Community Advocate at Microsoft, Core Team Member for Wagtail, DjangoCon Organizer, and Director and Treasurer for the Python Software Foundation. We’ll hear Dawn’s journey into how she got involved with the PSF and as a Python Community Advocate at Microsoft,...

Apr 21, 202337 min

Episode 168: Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz at FOSS Backstage 2023

Guest Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! On this episode, Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2023 that is held in Berlin every year. Today, Richard speaks with Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz, CEO of Kaleidos, and creator of Penpot and Taiga. The episode focuses on open-source design and how open-source products can be successful. They discuss how Kaleidos started as a consultancy company, but eventually became a full open-source products company. They also ta...

Apr 18, 202324 min

Episode 167: Paul Berschick & Oleg Nenashev at FOSS Backstage 2023

Guests Paul Berschick | Oleg Nenashev Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! We are at FOSS Backstage 2023 this week, and our host Richard is joined by Paul Berschick, who’s the organizer of the conference. Paul has been involved with Foss Backstage from the beginning in 2017, and he talks about the development of the event and how it has grown over the years. He mentions that the pandemic helped to refocus the conference and reach more people online. Paul also talks ...

Apr 14, 202337 min

Episode 166: Thomas Steenbergen & Josep Prat at FOSS Backstage 2023

Guests Thomas Steenbergen | Josep Prat Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2023 that’s held in Berlin every year. On this episode, Richard has two guests joining him. His first guest is Thomas Steenbergen, co-founder and organizer for the TODO Group Europe and Head of the Open Source Program Office at EPAM Systems. Thomas talks about his current workshop, OSS Review Toolkit, his background as a software developer, and the three impo...

Apr 11, 202346 min

Episode 165: Hugi Ásgeirsson, Silona Bonewald & Marco Möller at State of Open Con 2023

Guest Hugi Ásgeirsson | Silona Bonewald | Marco Möller Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome back to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Richard is at the State of Open Con 2023 UK in London, and he’s excited to have his first ever in-person podcasts. Today, he has three guests joining him. His first guest is Hugi Ásgeirsson, who’s the Strategy & Partnerships Director at Open Collective Europe. He talks about the differences ...

Apr 07, 202351 min
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