Episode 99: Matt Mankins and giving Kudos to OSS maintainers

Guest Matt Mankins Panelists Richard Littauer | Ben Nichols Show
Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about
sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we are very
excited to have as our guest, Matt Mankins, joining us from
Barcelona. He is a Fellow at Mozilla, currently working on
advancing open monetization strategies for the web. He previously
worked at the publisher Condé Nast, where he led global
monetization engineering efforts for the company’s iconic brands
and was the CTO of FastCo magazine. He’s also the Founder of
numerous companies such as Lorem Ipsum Books, SMTP.com, Vert, and
Fair Tread. On this episode, Matt fills us in on his journey as a
Fellow at Mozilla and his ideas about alternative ways to fund the
web, which led him to the idea of Kudos, that came out of thinking
about payments. We learn what his main goal is right now with
Kudos, the hardest problem he’s facing as he develops Kudos, and
what he’s trying to accomplish before his Fellowship ends. Also,
find out what Matt means when he said, “Kudos are about the
creation, not the creator.” Go ahead and download this episode now
to find out much more! [00:02:20] Matt fills us in on the history
of the Lorem Ipsum Bookstore. [00:03:57] We learn what Matt is
doing at Mozilla and he explains Interledger. [00:07:00] Matt
describes what Kudos is and how it works, since that is the main
thing he is working on now. [00:12:50] Matt explains how Kudos is
in the philosophy stage right now and the implementation is up to
the various people that implement this. [00:15:22] Flattr is
brought up in conversation, and Matt explains something he did
called “in-a-moon.” [00:17:27] Richard wonders how Matt sells this
to companies and how does he get them involved in wanting to invest
in Kudos, and Matt shares a goal he has right now. [00:20:02] Matt
shares what he thinks is the hardest problem he’s facing right now
as he develops Kudos. [00:21:52] Ben wonders if Matt is looking for
particular communities that might be interested in experimenting
and Matt shares a dream of his with us. [00:24:09] We find out how
Matt is working with the Mozilla communities and how he’s about to
be in the “build it phase” and the “promote it a little bit more
phase.” He also tells us something he’s hoping to do in the
implementation phase with Facebook and Kudos. [00:30:44] Find out
where you can follow Matt and his work online. Quotes [00:11:31]
“In my mind, this is not just supporting Babel or Henry, but you’re
supporting all of the contributors that could number in the
thousands or tens of thousands.” [00:22:21] “One of my dreams is
that, as a creator, I can just go do my creation and money will
show up in my bank account as I do good work to society.” Spotlight
[00:31:11] Ben’s spotlight is Open PHD Guiding. [00:31:56]
Richard’s spotlight is the Scottish Rail System. [00:32:43] Matt’s
spotlight is a GitHub project called libfood. 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/) Matt
Mankins Twitter (https://twitter.com/mankins?lang=en) Matt Mankins
Blog (https://matt.mankins.net/) Matt Mankins Linkedin
(https://uk.linkedin.com/in/mankins) Babel (https://babeljs.io/)
JWT (https://jwt.io/) Interledger Foundation
(https://interledger.org/) In-a-Moon Overview by Matt Mankins
(https://www.slideshare.net/mankins/inamoon-overview) Flattr
(https://flattr.com/) The Hacker Milieu as Gift Culture
(http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/homesteading/ar01s06.html)
Open PHD Guiding (https://openphdguiding.org/) ScotRail (Scotland’s
Railway) (https://www.scotrail.co.uk/) libfood-GitHub
(https://github.com/noahlevenson/libfood) Flossbank
(https://flossbank.com/) The Digital Infrastructure Fund Podcast
Hosted By Richard Littauer (https://dif.fireside.fm/) The
Faithful-The King, The Pope, The Princess- Laemmle Theatres
(https://www.laemmle.com/film/faithful) Sustain Podcast-Episode
96-Chad Whitacre and how Sentry is giving $150k to their OSS
Dependencies (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/96) Credits Produced
by [Richard Littauer] (https://www.burntfen.com/)
(https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr at [Peachtree
Sound] (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
(https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr
[Peachtree Sound] (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
(https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest: Matt Mankins.