Episode 153: Kailash Nadh and the FOSS United Foundation

Guest Kailash Nadh 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. We’re super excited to
have as our guest today, Kailash Nadh. In 2020, he co-founded the
FOSS United Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports the
FOSS ecosystem in India, where he serves as director. He also has
been the CTO of Zerodha, India’s largest stock broking firm for the
last decade. Today, our conversations with Kailash will take
through the FOSS program at Zerodha, and he’ll explain how they’ve
grown to be one of the largest financial tech companies in India.
He’ll take us through the journey of starting the FOSS Foundation,
Zerodha’s funding for FOSS, and Kailash explains why people getting
interested in open source is such a huge valuable concept and
philosophy. Download this episode now to learn more! [00:02:20]
Kailash tells us about the FOSS program at Zerodha and being a CTO.
[00:06:46] There’s a FOSS Pledge on the FOSS United website and
Kailash explains who it’s for and if anyone can sign it. [00:08:04]
We learn about Zerodha’s yearly budget to the FOSS Foundation.
[00:10:36] A question comes up if there are any documents or
resources Kailash has in place to help ensure that their interests
at Zerodha don’t erode away the native interests of any open source
project. [00:13:04] Kailash tells us about paperd.ink. [00:15:04]
Justin is curious to know if every part of the product is open
source or if there’s some type of proprietary in there and what
their focus is for the funds. [00:16:01] Dwayne O’Brien’s name
comes up with the FOSS Contributor Fund, and if Kailash has ever
talked to him. [00:17:32] Since it’s hard to find people to fund
right now, Richard wonders what the intake process is for Kailash
to get new contributors and maintainers. [00:18:26] Does Zerodha
have Community Managers or social media people to help out the
foundation? [00:20:27] We hear about the different conferences in
India. [00:23:58] Kailash explains what the people were interested
in hearing about at the FOSS focused events and how enticing it is
for people to go to them. [00:28:41] We hear Kailash’s views on
what he thinks about people getting interested in open source, and
he tells us about the social development sector. [00:34:23] A
questions comes up if there are any resources people could reach
out to if they are in the NGO sector, or social sector. where they
can learn what FOSS tools are best for them. [00:36:15] Find out
where you can follow Kailash and his work online. Quotes [00:04:00]
“We have close to zero SaaS subscriptions even as a really large
enterprise.” [00:04:20] “FOSS really is why Zerodha exists today in
the form it does.” [00:04:31] “We’ve grown to be one of the largest
financial tech companies in India all on the back of FOSS.”
[00:06:32] “Building everything community first, first principles,
is really key.” [00:08:50] “At Zerodha, we’ve set aside one million
dollars a year minimum to fund FOSS.” [00:20:29] “The conference a
few months ago was IndiaFOSS, then a conference that happened in
Kochi they named KochiFOSS, then DelhiFOSS, and there’s an upcoming
one MumbaiFOSS, which has a nice ring to it. This evolved
organically with people in Kochi because they really wanted to call
it KochiFOSS to identify with the city.” [00:32:50] “FOSS is the
answer to the massive systematic risk that is the lack of technical
capacity in the most dire of needs.” Spotlight [00:37:13] Justin’s
spotlight is a project he’s been working on with his co-worker
Camden called, conc: better structured concurrency for go.
[00:38:04] Richard’s spotlight is Ben Acker. [00:39:06] Kailash’s
spotlight is Matt’s FormMail and Planet Source Code. 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) Richard
Littauer Twitter
(https://twitter.com/richlitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Justin Dorfman Twitter
(https://twitter.com/jdorfman?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Kailash Nadh LinkedIn (https://in.linkedin.com/in/kailashnadh)
Kailash Nadh Website (https://nadh.in/) FOSS United
(https://fossunited.org/) FOSS Pledge
(https://fossunited.org/foss-pledge) Zerodha (https://zerodha.com/)
paperd.ink (https://paperd.ink/) IndiaFOSS (https://indiafoss.net/)
KochiFOSS (https://indiafoss.net/Kochi/2022) DelhiFOSS
(https://indiafoss.net/delhi/2022) conc-GitHub
(https://github.com/sourcegraph/conc/) Ben Acker GitHub
(https://github.com/nvcexploder) Matts Script Archive-FormMail
(http://www.scriptarchive.com/formmail.html) Planet Source Code
(https://www.sourcecodester.com/weblink/planet-source-code.html)
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 Guest:
Kailash Nadh.