Episode 124: Julia Ferraioli on Open Source Stories, and Responsible Recognition for Open Source Contributions

Guest Julia Ferraioli Panelists Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman |
Alyssa Wright Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast
where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul.
Today, we have joining us as our guest, Julia Ferraioli, who’s an
open source human, co-founded Open Source Stories, and has been
part of the Sustain community for a while. Our conversations today
take us through learning about Julia’s background, what Open Source
Stories is, and how she quantifies a black swan open source. We
also learn about two camps of people who work on open source that
Julia encountered, a detailed explanation of what “matters” means,
and what Julia does when she works on standardizing open source
information. Go ahead and download this episode now to hear more!
[00:01:40] Julia talks about her history and how she got to where
she is today. [00:02:43] What is Open Source Stories? [00:06:05] We
find out the story how Julia and Amanda Casari ended up working
together on Open Source Stories. [00:10:48] Julia explains how she
quantifies a black swan open source and what she worries about in
terms of recognition. [00:15:11] Alyssa asks Julia if there are
people that are contributing to open source projects that don’t
feel recognized and acknowledged and if there’s an invisible
community that we’re trying to not only grow and diversify.
[00:16:32] Justin shares a story about Guist, a designer he worked
on a Zsh project with. [00:18:07] Julia brings up how you can
sponsor a developer on GitHub, but wonders if you can sponsor a
designer on GitHub. [00:20:00] Alyssa asks Julia why we have to
recognize people in order to sustain the open source software
communities. [00:23:35] Richard brings up the topic of recognition
of individuals and how do we make sure that recognition is equal
across the board, and Julia shares her thoughts. [00:26:57] Julia
explains two camps she’s encountered, the camp where the
contribution matters and the camp where the whole person matters.
[00:30:03] We find out what “matters” means to the whole ecosystem,
what matters to a sub ecosystem, and what matters to a project.
[00:32:42] What does Julia work on when she works on standardizing
open source information? [00:35:18] Find out where you can follow
Julia online. Quotes [00:08:14] “The conversations that we have
tend to lead to some really interesting explorations and one of our
talks was about black swans and open source.” [00:10:51] “I think
it’s completely subjective.” [00:13:22] “We’ve made really good
strides in recognizing contributions outside of code such as
technical writing, triage, and code reviews.” [00:14:15] “It’s
really important as more and more companies are relying on open
source because it makes it into products.” Spotlight [00:36:22]
Justin’s spotlight is The Non-Code Contributor newsletter.
[00:36:57 Alyssa’s spotlight is Wikipedia for quick searches and
seeing people outside and meeting each other in person. [00:37:50]
Richard’s spotlight is Marquette University and the J.R.R. Tolkien
Fandom Oral History Collection. [00:38:24] Julia's spotlight is a
paper called Chalk: Materials and Concepts in Mathematics Research.
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) Julia
Ferraioli LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliaferraioli)
Julia Ferraioli Twitter (https://twitter.com/juliaferraioli) Julia
Ferraioli Website (https://www.juliaferraioli.com/) Julia Ferraioli
LeadDev
(https://leaddev.com/search/results?search-index=julia+ferraioli)
Open Source Stories (https://www.opensourcestories.org/) Vermont
Complex Systems Center (https://vermontcomplexsystems.org/)
StoryCorps (https://storycorps.org/) Sustain Open Source Design
Podcast (https://sosdesign.sustainoss.org/) Amanda Casari Twitter
(https://twitter.com/amcasari?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
Z shell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_shell) guist.eth Twitter
(https://twitter.com/g_uist) Black Swan theory
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory) Bananas Are
Berries? (Stanford Magazine)
(https://stanfordmag.org/contents/bananas-are-berries) The Non-Code
Contributor By Justin Dorfman
(https://www.getrevue.co/profile/tncc?via=twitter-profile) The
J.R.R. Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection
(https://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/tolkienfandom.php)
[Chalk: Materials and Concepts in Mathematics Research by Michael
J. Barany and Donald
MacKenzie](https://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/assets/pdf/Chalk0.pdf)_
The Non-Code Contributor- Issue #32 by Justin Contributor
(https://www.getrevue.co/profile/tncc/issues/the-non-code-contributor-issue-32-1120100)
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:
Julia Ferraioli.