Episode 16: Changing Open Source Culture With Serkan Holat

Serkan is a freelance software developer who has been developing
web applications since 2001. Lately he has been working with
Angular and ASP.NET. He shares that he has been studying
sustainability of open source issues since 2014 and also shares
the abridged version of how he came to be involved with the open
source community. 


Richard then asks Serkan to share more details on how he as a
developer became interested in open source. He shares how as a
developer working on proprietary software he often found himself
working on similar solutions in different companies and he
realized that he was building the same software solutions over
and over. From this he concluded that open sourcing these types
of projects would reduce the need to keep creating these projects
by sharing the solutions between those that need them. Serkan
points out the problem with the way open source works now is that
it’s difficult to make money in it and as such he started looking
for ways to fix this problem. He has the desire to find ways to
move money from proprietary solutions into open source. Serkan
asserts that the only real difference between proprietary
software and open source software is licensing and furthermore
that any software could be open source. 


The next topic discussed by the panelists is the changes they’ve
seen in the last five years for funding open source. Serkan
highlights that he believes that many companies are coming to
understand that the future is positive with open source and those
companies are beginning to move that way. Richard responds by
sharing the importance of building structures around funding
developers who decide to open source their software. 


Serkan moves the conversation to a deeper analysis of proprietary
rights. The panelists discuss a survey of developers taken by
Tidelift that shows that many professionals prefer open source
software over proprietary software. The panelists then have a
deeper discussion on what the reasons and drawbacks are for
proprietary companies to turn open source. They also discuss how
to create a tax of sorts that starts funding proprietary
solutions turned open source and who would start that
process. 


The open source experts then discuss how it is difficult to
convince individual companies to go open source because their
focus is on growing their business and making their own software
prosper. Serkan responds to this by saying that open source is an
investment that can pay dividends in the long run. They also
share ideas on how working with governments and individuals could
help to facilitate the transition to greater worldwide
involvement in open source and propel the software industry
forward to supporting open source. 


Serkan closes by reiterating some thoughts he shared earlier that
governments are already involved in a wide range of programs that
benefit all of its citizens. He shares how the sustaining of open
source could be another program that is added to a government’s
agenda and the opportunities that a government has to be of help
in contrast to companies and individuals. 
Panelists



Richard Littauer




Pia Mancini




Eric Berry


Guest



Serkan Holat




Sponsors




iPhreaks




Adventures in Angular




Adventures in .NET


Links



Angular




ASP.NET




Chad Whitacre Medium




Catching Up w/ Nadia Eghbal




Changelog.com




sustainoss.org




Tidelift Survey




Tragedy of the Commons


Picks

Richard Littauer




NPM Tools




The Access Fund




Pia Mancini




Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday




Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou




Eric Berry




Airpods Case




Oscoin




Codefund




Serkan Holat




License Zero




Marcin Jakubowski Ted Talk




The Egg




In a Nutshell


Special Guest: Serkan Holat.