Episode 70: Avi Press and Scarf

Guest Avi Press Panelists Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard
Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Our guest today
is Avi Press, Founder and CEO of Scarf. We learn all about what
Scarf is, why it’s called Scarf, and how it works. We also find out
how Avi convinced investors to get on board with him and how Scarf
is helping open source software developers use data effectively.
Find out if there will be any cost for maintainers to join and
about the newest product called Scarf Gateway. Download this
episode now to find out more! [00:01:00] Avi tells us what Scarf
is, what it entails, and how it works. [00:02:41] Avi tells us how
the documentation insights work. [00:04:03] Alyssa wants to know
why it is called Scarf and Avi tells us how he is dealing with
privacy concerns. [00:07:30] Justin asks Avi how he convinced
investors to get on board with him. Also, he tells us about the
Head of Sales position they are looking for and what this position
entails. [00:10:18] Avi talks about how the maintainers have been
using the data to date. [00:11:55] Alyssa asks Avi if he can share
the differences made to a certain project that he’s seen or if
these are still working in a hypothetical space. [00:14:05] Justin
saw on GitHub that Avi’s main project, Scarf, is Apache 2.0 and he
noticed that is becoming the go-to license when there is a VC
involved. He asks Avi if this was chosen before or after the
investment. [00:16:23] Since Scarf provides data to open source
software developers, Richard asks Avi how he is helping them use
that data effectively. [00:18:25] Richard wonders if Avi is going
to be batching their clients or is he marketing for them
individually. [00:19:54] Richard asks Avi: how do you make that
money sustainable to the point where you don’t need to keep going
out and asking people, and how do you turn it into a business?
[00:22:35] Avi talks about dual licensing. [00:24:44] Richard is
curious if Scarf is doing a federated or a decentralized registry
and Avi explains about the new product, Scarf Gateway. [00:26:51]
Richard asks Avi if this will ever cost maintainers money to join
and use his network. [00:28:02] Find out where you can learn more
about Scarf and Avi. Spotlight [00:29:21] Justin’s spotlight is CII
Best Practices Badge Program. [00:30:07] Alyssa’s spotlight is the
Igalia’s Open Prioritization experiment. [00:31:17] Richard’s
spotlight is Goal Zero. [00:32:08] Avi’s spotlight is the project
Org-roam. Quotes [00:05:02] “And really our thesis here is that
currently open source just means sharing code, but we’re trying to
say the benefits of that openness can go much beyond the code and
actually the data about how that code is used and how that code is
interacted with.” [00:07:45] “I want people to be thinking more
about how the companies that run open source infrastructure are
funded. It’s really important to know, and we’re no exception. So,
Scarf is a VC funded company.” [00:10:46] “That’s one really
important way is to validate your project by showing real usage of
the tool, of the code, etc.” [00:11:07] “By being able to allow
maintainers to be proactive rather than reactive there’s just a
whole slew of opportunities that are now unlocked for maintainers,
instead of having to be reactive to everything.” [00:11:27] “And by
being able to let maintainers be more proactive, we’ll have less
burnt out maintainers because they’re not constantly feeling like
they’re just drowning under the weight of the popularity of their
software.” [00:14:38] “And that really, I think is a point that I’d
like to underline as well, which is that if you have an open source
project and there’s a lot of commercial use and there is a business
opportunity there, a lot of developers, they’re not lawyers,
they’re not enterprise salespeople, they’re not all the other
things that are needed to build a business around an open source
project, and that’s what we really want to provide to open source
maintainers.” [00:21:42] “And unfortunately right now until
Tidelift, if and when they really grow their business out, right
now you have a lot of maintainers that are really just competing
for that same pie, and the pie is not getting a lot bigger very
quickly.” Links Avi Press Website (https://avi.press/) Avi Press
Twitter (https://twitter.com/avi_press) Avi Press Github
(https://github.com/aviaviavi) Avi Press Linkedin
(https://www.linkedin.com/public-profile/in/avi-press-4437a356?challengeId=AQFeeFuASQVITAAAAXcXsRXJNXA6iLf9HLLmJ_pntu6ZY1F-xS2sjvwedfXlqxsda9oEUZmTxQiKvX__Me_76caEHQeDGt8hrg&submissionId=2519b8cc-4175-5b16-0a4e-02a47f21834a)
Scarf (https://about.scarf.sh/) Scarf Twitter
(https://twitter.com/scarf_oss?lang=en) Scarf Linkedin
(https://www.linkedin.com/company/scarf-sh?trk=public_profile_topcard-current-company)
CII Best Practices Badge Program
(https://bestpractices.coreinfrastructure.org/en) Open
Collective/Open Prioritization
(https://opencollective.com/open-prioritization) Open
Collective/focus-visible in WebKit
(https://opencollective.com/focus-visible-in-webkit) Goal Zero
(https://www.goalzero.com/) Org-roam
(https://github.com/org-roam/org-roam) 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: Avi Press.