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 Engineer at Anaconda
working on BeeWare in the OSS team. Russell talks about starting
the project, the challenges of transitioning from an author to a
maintainer, and the role of Anaconda in the Python ecosystem. Then
we’ll have a conversation with our next guest, Uriel Ofir, who’s
the Founder and Manager of Ma’akaf, an open source Israel
community. Uriel tells us all about Ma’akaf, the importance of
members being serious and proactive in contributing to the
community, and how they encourage participants to contribute and
improve their skills through an “open source party.” Hit download
to hear much more! Russell: [00:01:40] Russell explains his role at
Anaconda and being the Founder of the BeeWare Project. [00:03:43]
The role of Anaconda in the Python ecosystem and the company’s open
source offerings is discussed. [00:04:15] Russell discusses the
process of starting the BeeWare project. [00:08:03] We hear about
the funding problem in open source and how development is something
that needs to be looked at. [00:10:15] He tells us the challenges
of transitioning from an author to maintainer. [00:11:51] What’s
hard for Russell as a maintainer? He mentions struggling when you
don’t see progress and the difficulties of finding maintainers with
the necessary skillset. [00:14:35] There’s been a lot of effort
trying to document the onboarding process and making it smoother
for new contributors. [00:15:21] Russell’s excited about the
prospect of iOS and Android becoming officially supported platforms
in C Python and the progress they’ve made after nine years of work.
[00:16:28] Find out where you can follow Russell and read about his
work on the web. Uriel: [00:18:23] Our next guest, Uriel Ofir,
joins us and he tells us about Ma’akaf. [00:22:28] He explains the
community currently has around 350 members and four active
projects. [00:26:09] He started the community even after he got a
job and manages it by delegating tasks and empowering members to
take responsibility for projects, and he emphasizes the importance
of members being serious and proactive in contributing to the
company. [00:29:48] Uriel shares how they encourage participants
who may be hesitant to contribute to their open source community by
hosting an “open source party” where everyone is welcome to
introduce themselves and ask for help or advice. [00:31:43] Uriel
tells us where people can join this group and follow him on the
web. Quotes Russell: [00:02:08] “The Python ecosystem is only
successful because of the open source component of it.” [00:06:51]
“I made some challenge coins that we would give out to anyone who
made a contribution.” [00:08:22] “Open source has a funding
problem. There are big problems that don’t get solved unless you
have someone working on them full-time.” [00:11:22] “Having to
create the project was an inconvenience before I can get to the
point of having other work on it with me.” [00:11:29] “Open source
really is a community. The whole thing is built around people
working together for a greater good.” [00:15:05] “The more you can
remove every possible obstacle to someone getting that first
contribution, the more likely they are to contribute, not
necessarily more likely to hang around long term.” Uriel:
[00:28:33] “The most important thing about open source is to be
serious.” [00:32:07] “I really want people to contact me around the
world because this idea is scalable, and I would be happy to help
you with that.” Links SustainOSS (https://sustainoss.org/)
SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/)
podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS
Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) Richard Littauer
Twitter
(https://twitter.com/richlitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Richard Littauer Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/@richlitt)
Russell Keith-Magee Mastodon (https://cloudisland.nz/@freakboy3742)
BeeWare (https://beeware.org/) BeeWare GitHub
(https://github.com/beeware) Sustain Podcast-Episode 64: Travis
Oliphant and Russell Pekrul on NumPy, Anaconda, and giving back
with FairOSS (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/64) Uriel Ofir Twitter
(https://twitter.com/OfirUriel?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Uriel Ofir GitHub (https://github.com/UrielOfir) Uriel Ofir
LinkedIn (https://il.linkedin.com/in/uriel-ofir) International OS
Party (https://maintainermonth.github.com/schedule/osparty_israel)
Credits Produced by Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/)
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
(https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guests:
Russell Keith-Magee and Uriel Ofir.