Episode 128: Sustain Hosts: What Does Sustain Mean?

Panelists Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Ben Nickolls | Amanda
Casari Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where
we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today’s
episode is all panelists, no guests, and our conversations are
focusing on the question, “What does sustaining open source
actually mean?” Each of the panelists share their opinions, give
feedback, and tell stories around sustaining open source. We’ll
also learn the origins of SustainOSS, the definition of a
“sustainer,” and we hear about the OSCA Sustain Community Report
2022 that recently came out and gave Justin chills just reading it.
Go ahead and download this episode now, and if you have any
thoughts you would like to share, please email us! [00:01:30]
Justin gives us the backstory of how Sustain started. [00:06:14]
Since Ben came up with the definition of a “Sustainer” he goes in
depth what it means. [00:10:05] Amanda poses a question when we
think about sustaining, how do we think about helping with graceful
endings and exits? [00:17:42] Richard tells us sustaining is
figuring out and having an ecosystem level approach of what open
source is, and what’s needed now. Justin shares a story about Chad
Whitacre changing the game when it came to donating to open source.
[00:20:53] Ben takes the conversation away from money and talks
about Open Collective and finding a way to sustain the work without
money. [00:22:47] Richard brings up the environmental
sustainability of open source as an entire thing and how the
environmental cost of training AI is massive. [00:26:04] Richard
mentions he finds interesting what sort of conversations happened
on an ecosystem level between all the participants and all the
stakeholders, and Amanda expresses a concern she has. Richard and
Amanda talk about giving honor to people who do honorable things.
[00:29:45] We hear some open questions from Richard about what he
thinks is what sustaining means now, and Amanda talks about the
concept around open source sustainability that a lot of people are
focusing on. Quotes [00:09:51] “Forking is not a threat, it’s a
promise.” [00:11:36] “The whole sustainability thing is about a
combination of incentives and market failures.” [00:13:24] “Two
researchers from South Africa have been looking at contributions to
internet standards over the past twenty years from across the
world, largely from within Africa, and they’ve seen a massive peak
in 2005, and then it’ll die off.” [00:16:24] “Open source is a
jellyfish and jellyfish of course have many eyes.” [00:29:34]
“Honoring people for their work and giving them visibility, making
sure that they’re seen is a great step forward that we can all be
working on because that’s definitely a gap that still exists.”
[00:31:06] “The xkcd comic showing digital infrastructure as one
small person in Kansas is great, but it ignores every other block
in that comic. Who is funding the blocks in those comics, who has
governance to it, who was maintaining it, what are their
intentions, and what is their final destinations that they want to
be going to?” Spotlight [00:36:48] Justin’s spotlight is
recognizing a Non-Code Contributor, Erin McKean and his newsletter
that comes out a couple times a month. [00:37:11] Ben’s spotlight
is Play Monikers. [00:37:59] Amanda’s spotlight is the Elevator
Saga game. [00:38:40] Richard’s spotlight is Nicole Kelner, who’s a
climate artist. 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)
discourse@discourse.sustainoss.org
(mailto:discourse@discourse.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)
Ben Nickolls Twitter
(https://twitter.com/BenJam?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Amanda Casari Twitter
(https://twitter.com/amcasari?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Sustain 2021 Event Report
(https://sustainoss.org/assets/pdf/Sustain-In-2021-Event-Report.pdf)
SustainOSS Report 2017 (with definition of “sustainer”)
(https://sustainoss.org/assets/pdf/SustainOSS-west-2017-report.pdf)
OSCA-Sustain Africa 2022 Community Report
(https://blog.oscafrica.org/sustain-africa-2022-community-report)
Sustain Podcast-Episode 96: Chad Whitacre and how Sentry is giving
$150k to their OSS Dependencies
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/chad-whitacre) Sovereign
Tech Fund (https://sovereigntechfund.de/en) Fuligo septica
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuligo_septica) The Non-Code
Contributor Newsletter by Justin Dorfman
(https://www.getrevue.co/profile/tncc) Play Monikers
(https://www.playmonikers.com/) Elevator Saga
(https://play.elevatorsaga.com/) Elevator Saga-GitHub
(https://github.com/magwo/elevatorsaga) Nicole Kelner Twitter
(https://twitter.com/NicoleKelner) 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/)