Episode 127: GitHub Maintainer Month with Marie Kochsiek of drip and Hélène Martin of ODK

Guest Marie Kochsiek | Hélène Martin Panelists Richard Littauer
Show Notes Hello and welcome to a special episode of Sustain/GitHub
Maintainer Month, which is a short series of podcasts where we’re
focusing on maintainers of open source, what they do with their
experience, and how they contribute to the sustainability of their
projects. Our first guest is Marie Kochsiek, who’s a developer and
one of the maintainers of drip, a menstrual cycle and fertility
tracking app. Marie goes in depth about the drip app, challenges
she has as a maintainer, and since the supreme court repealed Roe
v. Wade, she shares advice on what people can do with their
menstruation trackers to stay safe. Our next guest is Hélène
Martin, who’s the CTO of ODK, a platform for offline data
collection that’s used by organizations like Red Cross. We’ll hear
about ODK’s funding model, how Hélène has transitioned their
governance strategy, we learn about their funding model, and she
shares advice to maintainers who want to go to a higher level with
their projects in open source. Go ahead and download this episode
now! Marie: [00:01:19] Marie explains the drip app and how she
ended up working on this project. [00:03:21] We find out how large
the community is working on drip and how many users there are.
[00:05:37] Since there are a lot of period tracking apps out there,
Marie fills us in on how drip is different from other things out
there. [00:08:16] Marie talks about some hurdles she overcame
recently with her team. [00:10:06] We learn why Marie works on open
source with her free time and what she does for her main work to
work on this stuff. [00:11:51] What advice does Marie wish people
would have given her when she first started out coding to make it
easier. [00:13:28] Find out where you can contribute to her
project. [00:16:00] With Roe v. Wade being overturned, Marie shares
advice what people should do with their menstruation trackers.
Hélène: [00:21:26] Hélène tells us what ODK is and how many users
it has. [00:23:40 ] We learn how Hélène views herself as a
maintainer of that ODK’s software and what it means for her.
[00:24:42] In the past one and a half years Hélène transitioned her
governance strategy, so she expands on what she transitioned to and
why. [00:27:51] Richard wonders if Hélène’s source code has ever
been forked, cloned, or if anyone has ever made their own company
out of it. [00:29:38 ] We hear about ODK’s funding model and where
they get their money to keep the work going. [00:30:13] Since we’ve
heard the direction Hélène has taken with governance, Richard
wonders how she has led that change as a CTO. Also, she tells us if
she’s still getting into the weeds and writing commits. [00:34:47]
Hélène shares advice for maintainers who are realizing they need to
go to a higher level of abstraction to grow the projects they’re
in. [00:37:33 ] If you want to read along and join the ODK
community, find out where you can go to get involved, and where you
can follow Hélène on the web. Quotes Marie: [00:08:35] “The best
work we achieve is when we work on stuff collectively.” [00:10:53]
“Open source work is also community work.” [00:12:03] “Things can
take time.” Hélène: [00:28:16 ] “We think the pie is big enough.”
[00:31:23] “I think it’s hard to jump between levels of
abstraction.” [00:33:08 ] “I really think there are modes, and any
given project can switch between them over time.” [00:34:48 ] “It’s
really important to realize that there’s no one way to do open
source.” [00:36:16] “A lot of times when people talk about open
source, I think they mean the source is open AND.” 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/) Sustain
Podcast Invite Details (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/invite)
podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) Richard
Littauer Twitter
(https://twitter.com/richlitt?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Marie Kochsiek Twitter (https://twitter.com/bl00dymarie) drip
(https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.drip&hl=en_US&gl=US)
drip, the open-source cycle tracking app-GitHub
(https://github.com/jfr3000/drip) drip-GitLab
(https://gitlab.com/bloodyhealth/drip) Hélène Martin Twitter
(https://twitter.com/purplespatula?lang=en) Hélène Martin GitHub
(https://github.com/lognaturel) ODK Twitter
(https://twitter.com/getodk?lang=en) ODK (https://getodk.org/)
Hélène's profile on the ODK forum (https://forum.getodk.org/u/LN)
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:
Hélène Martin and Marie Kochsiek.