Joining us this week is VM (Vicky) Brasseur from Open Source Initiative.

NEW BOOK

Forge Your Future with Open Source

Build Your Skills. Build Your Network. Build the Future of Technology.

Free and open source is the foundation of software development, and it’s built by people just like you. Discover the fundamental tenets that drive the movement. Take control of your career by selecting the right project to meet your professional goals. Master the language and avoid the pitfalls that typically ensnare new contributors. Join a community of like-minded people and change the world. Programmers, writers, designers, and everyone interested in software will make their mark through free and open source software contributions.

Highlights

• 1 min 20 sec: Types of Companies Supported
  • Companies don’t know why they want to do open source
• 3 min 23 sec: Can’t Abandon Software into Community
  • Communities don’t instantly form around your software
• 4 min 22 sec: Is Marketing “Evil” in Open Source
  • Marketing has become associated with advertising which is invasive
  • 5 min 19 sec: Define Marketing
    • Discovering the needs of the market and build to support it
    • Technologists don’t really understand marketing
  • 6 min 17 sec: Issues of Marketing in Open Source
    • What is your goal in using open source?
• 8 min 15 sec: Everyone has their own Goal in Open Source
  • There is no bullet point list of how to do open source
• 9 min 29 sec: Issues of Accessing Projects and Support for Free
  • Open source done a poor job of talking about value being provided
  • People assume big projects are paid for by large companies so they take advantage
  • 13 min 19 sec: Difficult to Tell New User’s End State as Communities Invest in Helping them Learn the Technology
    • Some communities set the bar too high for user participation
    • Open source does a bad job in documentation typically
• 17 min 9 sec: What about CI/CD Systems?
  • Not a significant issue today in open source for contributors
• 19 min 21 sec: How help People Build Empathy for Users and Maintainers and Impact when Corporations are involved
• 21 min 29 sec: How Communities Manage Competitive Companies Working Together
  • Foundations play a key role in managing these issues
  • Open source is not corporate! The vast majority of open source is not corporate based
  • Is there less concern for the tiny project’s vs the large corporate projects?
    • Substantial lack of awareness of this in user community
• 25 min 04 sec: Price to a Community when a Customer Pulls out and Uses Corporate Version of Solution?
  • Should companies pay for open source software they grab from community?
    • Many ways to contribute other than money
• 27 min 56 sec: Business Continuity Issues in Open Source
  • Free and open source software needs to be part of business continuity plans
  • Vendor software solutions are equally risky as open source solutions
• 30 min 36 sec: Define Copyleft
  • 4 Freedoms of Copyleft from Richard Stallman
  • Can never change the license of Copyleft software
• 32 min 43 sec: Open Core Model
  • Analogy of a restaurant with more tables than it can serve
  • Proprietary products with open source APIs / SDKs

Podcast Guest: VM (Vicky) Brasseur, Vice President, Open Source Initiative

I’ve spent most of my 20 years in the tech industry leading software development departments and teams, and providing technical management and leadership consulting for small and medium businesses. Now I leverage nearly 30 years of free and open source software experience and a strong business background to advise companies about open source, technology, community, business, and the intersections between them

I am Vice President of the Open Source Initiative. I’m the proud winner of the Perl White Camel Award(2014) and the O’Reilly Open Source Award (2016).

I am a moderator and author for <opensource.com and a frequent and popular speaker at open source conferences and events. I frequently blog about open source, business, and technical management at{anonymous => ‘hash’}

I am the author of Forge Your Future with Open Source, the first book to detail how to contribute to free and open source software projects. Think of it as the missing manual of open source contributions and community participation. The book is published by The Pragmatic Programmers and is now available in an early release beta version. Buy it today and start contributing to free and open source software projects!

Currently I live in lovely Portland, Oregon with my amazing cats,Percy and Nigel. I am not interested in relocating.

If you or your company needs full time, part time, or consulting assistance with open source strategy, implementation, compliance, or community management, please contact me.