Episode 80: Emma Irwin and the FOSS Fund Program

Guest Emma Irwin Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Richard
Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! We are so excited
to have on this episode as our guest, Emma Irwin. She is a Senior
Project Manager in the Open Source Program Office at Microsoft.
Today, we learn what Emma does at Microsoft OSPO, how she runs the
FOSS Fund Program inside Microsoft, and she tells us about an
article she wrote on Mozilla last year about safety. We also dive
into the recent news of Richard Stallman returning to the FSF
board, and what Emma is excited about happening soon with work
she’s trying to do to help with diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Download this episode to find out much more! [00:01:32] Emma fills
us in on what she does at Microsoft OSPO. [00:02:47] Richard
wonders how Emma manages to make it not seem extractive to do open
source and how she makes it inviting for people to come and
volunteer their time to work on projects which are housed by
Microsoft or Microsoft is involved in. [00:05:05] Emma tells us how
she runs the FOSS Fund Program inside of Microsoft and the three
goals of the FOSS Fund. She also tells us how many people are
working in it and if it’s involved with other departments or
business units, or if it’s completely separate. [00:09:26] Emma
gives us her opinion of how you can best build communities that
enable people to thrive in an open source environment. [00:11:36]
Emma elaborates on the safety issue she brought up and tells us
about an article she wrote on Mozilla last year. [00:13:32] We
learn how many incidents Mozilla experienced a year. [00:14:32]
Justin wonders of Emma sees any projects that get more hate than
others. [00:15:56] Richard brings up the recent news of Richard
Stallman returning to the Free Software Foundation after resigning
in 2019, and Emma shares her thoughts about it. [00:19:57 ] Emma
tells us what she’s most excited about in the next six months with
work she’s trying to do to help DEI work. [00:21:56] Find out what
Emma shares that she’s been learning recently as part of the FOSS
Fund, which is a positive thing from Microsoft. [00:24:57] Find out
where you can follow Emma on the internet. Quotes [00:01:47] “And
then the place that we’re kind of at Microsoft is thinking about
the culture that we’re building around open source as well, you
know it’s the mechanics and the compliance piece, but it’s also the
human piece.” [00:03:27] “But I really believe that, and my
experience at Mozilla where I worked before this, was like bringing
people together around specific topics, allowing people to learn a
thing, but also collaborate and chat, come together around shared
pain points or opportunities.” [00:07:48] “A good OSPO doesn’t live
in any part of the organization, it traverses and works with
organizations and teams across it.” [00:09:41] “I think, and I
teach that you really have to be mindful of who it is that you want
to engage as part of your open source project.” [00:11:53] “So that
work was done kind of back in the topic are of recognizing that
there is not a fluid line in open source between employee or paid
staff and contributors.” [00:12:51] “So that blog post and work was
all about creating an end to end program to ensure that both staff
and volunteers felt safe, but also understood their role.”
[00:14:08] “I’ll actually say that a lot of people mean well, a lot
of people want, but they’re often unprepared.” [00:14:42] “I think
some of the well-organized projects, the .net project at Microsoft.
The group that runs that is extremely good at running community.”
[00:17:26] “And that’s why open source is still less diverse than
tech overall and Stahllman is like dinosaur in my opinion of that
era.” [00:24:08] “Yeah, and there’s a risk working group with
CHAOSS, that’s what they call the RISK WG, which is basically like,
how do we think about our dependencies as a problem, how do we
solve this?” Spotlight [00:26:21] Justin’s spotlight is Fiverr.
[00:26:49] Eric’s spotlight is Gitpod. [00:27:25] Richard’s
spotlight is Gist. [00:27:55] Emma’s spotlight is the Drupal
Project. Links Emma Irwin Twitter
(https://twitter.com/sunnydeveloper?lang=en) Emma Irwin Linkedin
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmamirwin/) Emma Irwin Medium
(https://medium.com/@sunnydeveloper) Microsoft Open Source
(https://opensource.microsoft.com/) Microsoft’s Free and Open
Source Software Fund (FOSS Fund)-GitHub
(https://github.com/microsoft-sponsorships/microsoft-foss-fund)
Mozilla Community Participation Guidelines
(https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/governance/policies/participation/)
“Weaving Safety into the Fabric of Open Source Collaboration” By
Emma Irwin
(https://blog.mozilla.org/community/2020/09/10/weaving-safety-into-the-fabric-of-open-source/)
Contributor Covenant (https://www.contributor-covenant.org/)
“Richard M. Stallman returns to the Free Software Foundation Board
of Directors,” article on ZDNet
(https://www.zdnet.com/article/richard-m-stallman-returns-to-the-free-software-foundation-board-of-directors/)
RMS Open Letter-GitHub
(https://github.com/rms-open-letter/rms-open-letter.github.io)
CHAOSS Diversity and Inclusion Working Group-GitHub
(https://github.com/chaoss/wg-diversity-inclusion) Fiverr Business
(https://www.fiverr.com/business) Gitpod (https://www.gitpod.io/)
Gist (https://gist.github.com/discover) Drupal Project
(https://www.drupal.org/project/project) 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 at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guest: Emma Irwin.