Episode 265: Sean Goggins on Sustainability through CHAOSS

Guest Sean Goggins Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this
episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer chats with guest Sean
Goggins, a tenured full Professor of Computer Science at the
University of Missouri. Sean discusses his extensive involvement in
the open source community, particularly through his work with the
CHAOSS Project, a Linux Foundation initiative focused on
understanding and improving open-source project sustainability.
Their conversation covers Sean's academic background, his role in
CHAOSS, the importance of distributed leadership, and how metrics
can impact the sustainability of open source projects. Sean also
shares insights into his teaching methods, the challenges of
maintaining open source software, and the future direction of his
work on CHAOSS and Augur. Hit the download button now! [00:01:25]
Sean shares that he’s a professor specializing in software
engineering, algorithms, data science, and visualization, and he
discusses his tenure status and passion for research and open
source work. [00:02:41] Sean explains how open source leadership is
distributed rather than centralized. [00:04:45] We hear how the
CHAOSS Project emerged from studying open source governance and
leadership. Sean and Matt Germonprez started working on open source
collaboration data and a metrics-focused discussion at a Linux
Foundation Summit that led to the founding of the CHAOSS Project in
2017. [00:08:23] Richard asks Sean how he balances research,
teaching, and open source. Sean discusses how he splits time
between research (40%), teaching (40%), and service (20%), with
CHAOSS being a major part of his research efforts. [00:13:27] Sean
explains that the Augur Project was born out of a need for
structured open source data tracking. [00:15:18] Richard asks Sean
if he teaches his students about open source, and he explains that
he uses CHAOSS and Auger to teach students about GitHub
collaboration, pull requests, and open source workflows. [00:19:25]
Sean shares his insights on research and open source. He emphasizes
his involvement in maintaining software and aiding organizations in
making sense of CHAOSS metrics through Augur, which has given him a
deep understanding of open source development. [00:20:44] Sean
explains why he thinks metrics help make projects more sustainable
and how the CHAOSS community has benefitted from fostering a
welcoming environment for both technical and non-technical
contributors. [00:25:23] We hear some challenges within CHAOSS
where it’s been difficult to build a strong developer community
around CHAOSS software tools and maintaining open source software
requires significant effort. [00:28:11] He goes further to explain
how to be a better project and that there’s potential for improving
project sustainability through structured mentoring and governance.
[00:35:07] Sean shares CHAOSS Project’s future and research goals.
Quotes [00:03:46] “Distributed leadership: this exists in most of
open source. There’s not often a single individual who drives an
entire project.” [00:09:18] “You have 40% of your time for
teaching, 40% of your time for research, and 20% of your time for
service.” [00:12:15] “There’s a challenge of being a university
professor. The advantage is you can do what you want, the challenge
is that you have to set your own boundaries.” [00:23:12] “A leading
indicator for community health is how many newcomers you have
coming in over time.” [00:28:14] “How can I have a better project?
It’s the same as going to a family reunion and saying, ‘How can we
be a better family’?” Spotlight [00:37:25] Richard’s spotlight is
BibtexParser. [00:38:21] Sean’s spotlight is Stuart Geiger. Links
SustainOSS (https://sustainoss.org/) podcast@sustainoss.org
(mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) richard@sustainoss.org
(mailto:richard@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS Discourse
(https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Mastodon
(https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) Open
Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute)
(https://opencollective.com/sustainoss) Richard Littauer Socials
(https://www.burntfen.com/2023-05-30/socials) Sean Goggins Website
(https://www.seangoggins.net/) Sean Goggins X
(https://x.com/sociallycompute) Nora McDonald Website
(https://www.noramcdonald.net/) Nora McDonald-Commonwealth Cyber
Initiative
(https://cyberinitiative.org/research/researcher-directory/mcdonald-nora.html)
Sustain Podcast- 3 episodes featuring guest Georg Link
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/georg-link) Sustain Podcast-
2 episodes featuring guest Dawn Foster
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/foster) Matt
Germonprez-Univ. of Nebraska Omaha
(https://www.unomaha.edu/college-of-information-science-and-technology/about/faculty-staff/matt-germonprez.php)
The Linux Kernel Maintainer Summit-Tokyo, Japan 2025
(https://events.linuxfoundation.org/linux-kernel-maintainer-summit/)
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (https://sloan.org/) CHAOSS
(https://chaoss.community/) CHAOSS-GrimoireLab
(https://chaoss.github.io/grimoirelab/) CHAOSS-Augur
(https://github.com/chaoss/augur) Kelly Blincoe-University of
Auckland (https://profiles.auckland.ac.nz/k-blincoe) James Howison
(https://james.howison.name/) Sustain Podcast- episode 218
featuring guest James Howison
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/james-howison) Sustain
Podcast-episode 243 featuring guest Elizabeth Barron
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/elizabeth-barron) Sustain
Podcast-episode 65 featuring guest Brian Proffitt
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/briant-proffitt) Sustain
Podcast-2 episodes featuring guest Duane O’Brien
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/duane-obrien) Sustain
Podcast-episode 200 featuring guest Stuart Geiger
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/guests/geiger) Digital
Infrastructure Podcast- 2 episodes featuring guest Rayya El Zein
(https://dif.fireside.fm/guests/rayya-el-zein) BibtexParser
(https://bibtexparser.readthedocs.io/en/main/) Stuart Geiger
(https://css.ucsd.edu/people/profiles/sgeiger.html) 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: Sean Goggins.