 Hi, this is your something party on behalf of Linux Foundation and today we have with us guy Martin executive director of OSTs open So today we are going to discuss the new open source management and strategy training series from the Linux Foundation, which you authored So I want to know from you First of all Can you talk about because you have been in this field of open source for so long? tell me what are open source program offices and What is the importance and significance of these offices and today's were especially when number one? almost everybody is either consuming or using open source and number two is that It is becoming increasingly important To know how to engage with open source committee because this is not a one-way traffic, right? Exactly. I mean, I think I look at open source program offices Somebody wants to find it as the and it may have been our friend Nithya Ruff at Comcast as the central nexus where all open source work Is coordinated within an organization now that doesn't mean all the work is necessarily done in that organization But it's a central place where coordination happens around things like compliance around things like it like you said interacting with the open source community and so within that framework, I think Ospos are a reasonably new sort of construct I've actually you know, obviously run one at at at Samsung ran one at Autodesk But in in kind of the formality of really talking about Ospos. It's still reasonably new I think probably within the last 10 years or so and so I think it's a really great way to to again centralize at least how people work with open source and in organizations, but let the work potentially be decentralized But have a place that is again the central nexus of training and and engagement with the community Can you talk about what are the risks? You know if a company does not have an open source strategy? Or if they don't have an open source program, what are the risks they might run into? Yeah So the thing is you may be able to consume open source Effectively as an organization for for quite a while But eventually technology being what it is you're eventually going to run into a situation Where you have a bug or you have in the open source project that you're relying on or you need a feature that the community is Unwilling or unable to contribute or fix for you So you have to have that strategy for how you effectively contribute back to that upstream open source project and I've seen in places that have been in my career where that strategy wasn't in place and Rather than engaging constructively with the community understanding what the community is built that That code was just tossed over the wall to say hey, I've got this patch Or I've got this new feature Please accept it without any sort of strategy for engaging effectively with that community and that generally never ends well That I've seen it generally ends up being that the community says well either a we fix that bug in a different way Or we've implemented that feature, but we don't want to take your fix and then you're in this catch 22 of do you Maintain a long-lived fork of that open source project And then have to do all the engineering with that and then continue to merge changes from the from that upstream or do you You know Basically give up on your fix use whatever the community built and then do all the regression tests within your own product to make It work So it's generally better to have that strategy up front so that when you get to the point that you find a bug or you Know you're going to need to contribute to that that upstream community and by the way you will any executive that says Will only ever consume from open source is is really not living in reality The reality is at some point you will have to contribute back or engage in some constructive way with an open source community And so having that strategy Locked in ahead of time makes it a lot easier organizations individuals companies who do want to Set up open source program office or they want to build A strategy for open source in a very structured manner I think Linux foundation and you have collaborated to come up with this training course series So tell us a bit about this series What does it cover? Who is the target audience for this course? Right? I mean, I think you know this series of courses I was really excited to to to be asked to build this by the Linux foundation And this was actually kind of concurrent with as I took all my new role as the executive director of oasis open Which I'd love to talk to you about more at some point too But as I took this on I I think I was really glad to see that It's not even though I'm the the author on the course. It's really not just my content It's content obviously that I've had over 15 to 18 plus years Running open source program offices, but it's also content that is really the collective Tribal knowledge if you will of all of the open source program office folks that that are in our community And this course is really targeted. I think at both executives and engineers And and really my hope is that at some point This course is something that can help build The the bench of people who run open source program offices because you know, I'm really glad to be part of that community But right now that community is only about 40 or 50 of us in the world We all know each other right, which is great But there's a ton of opportunities and there's a ton of organizations That need this expertise of people who can help run open source program offices And my desire is that this course is one of those things that that you can use to do that So again, it covers everything in in a structured way that really was what I Came up with when I worked with my team at red hat, which is a strategy A core of strategy and governance the why and how of you of of open source or what open source looks like in your organization With modules around how you consume open source How you contribute or collaborate With upstream open source communities and how you create open source So it's really designed to to look at the whole picture of open source from consume Contribute collaborate and create as well as the what I call the core muscles right before you do any of those things You I think the the key to a good strategy is to have those the core muscles defined of the the why and how Right, what's your overall strategy and how are you going to effectively? Work both with the upstream community and train your own organization because you and I know swap It's it's a lot of times. It's a mindset shift. It's not just a process shift. So This course is designed these core series is really designed to encompass all of those things and I will say that it's designed not to be a deep dive necessarily into any of those topics It gives a high level overview and obviously there's a lot of other training courses that that are out there That Linux foundation and others have already developed and so this is I think meant to give the holistic view at You know a 20 000 foot level that that really lets people kind of get started Who are these people who can benefit from it and what kind of benefit it offers them? I mean, I think it Anybody from an engineer who has to do the work to a senior leader who has to oversee the work to the Middle management that that is working on these day to day things I tried to target this Really across that spectrum and so not everybody has to take every single module I think we tried to design it so that the things like strategy and governance the core pieces Everybody should take but you know engineers can can who aren't familiar with open source can Learn about kind of open source development practices in the in the consume or the or the contribute Modules that we have but senior executives can also Learn both about kind of the strategy and governance But also how to work with With the their engineering teams and how to work with their legal teams In some ways I wanted the benefit of this to be for people Kind of across that engineering management legal spectrum For them to understand where they all fit right because we know it's not just it's not just engineers It's not just you know senior leaders. It's legal. It's you know qa and test. It's release engineers It's a whole wide spectrum of people that you need to be all on the same page to work really effectively with open source How were people, you know who were involved with open source program office? Gained as a skill up till now, you know Since now you have a course where they can benefit from but how are they doing it so far? Uh through a variety of sources, right? I mean, uh, you and I both know that that the that there's also the to-do group Right, which is a kind of a sub foundation area of the linux foundation I've been involved in that community for quite a while and contributed a lot of things to it And I think that's where people have tended to come is through through places like the to-do group or just finding that experience or quite frankly sort of muddling through and I in my early career I muddled through a lot of this right where where there wasn't training and there wasn't we We all were kind of learning on the fly and making making mistakes as you pointed out and you know having ip issues But um, I think my goal really in in this training series is To demystify a lot of that right and say yes, you're right You do have to be careful But that that shouldn't be a barrier to actually trying because I think We're finally at a point now with open source program offices and in the evolution of open source use in Industry where it's less about the fear uncertainty and doubt Right. I mean our friends at microsoft are fantastic now, right? And originally they were the original purveyors of fear uncertainty and doubt and now they're doing an amazing job in open source Because they've began to realize the benefit, right? and I think the showing that benefit and getting senior leaders to understand and more senior leaders to understand The benefits of open source and why you should do it and that you shouldn't be afraid of it You should be cautious and you should have a good strategy, but you shouldn't be afraid of it That's what I hope this this the other thing that this Course series really really helps put forward now before we wrap this up What I want to know from you and these are your thoughts as as a leader in open source yourself is that As companies they do embark on their Distant transformation a cloud native journey and they will come across open source. They will come across only open source That's what is there Why they should embrace? Uh, uh, as they are consuming open source you have touched upon But I want to wrap up with these thoughts of yours that as they do embark Why they should have a very concrete open source strategy and why they should also consider having an open source program office So that irrespective of how much they want to give back or contribute depending on how much resources they have But at least they should be able to leverage these technologies in the best possible way and not create a lot of technical data as well Right. Well, I mean, I think we've all heard the the saying that open source is one, right? Yeah, maybe not on the desktop. But as you pointed out, there's not a single thing from my watch to My phone to the computers we're talking on now that is not in some way touched by open source, right? So everybody's Life is touched by open source. So Then you go up to where where organizations are and there's not a single organization And a lot of them by the way are not traditional software organizations, right? You look at somebody like a tesla Okay, a car company. Well, they're a huge software organization, right? So the having a consistent strategy Um, if you let me let me kind of put it in a different way if you don't have that strategy What you're going to find especially on the consume side, which you made a great point swap Which is yes, it's really easy to download something I would argue that it's almost too easy in some cases because I've been in organizations where Um, everybody just downloaded whatever whatever, right? And it was like a piece meal and trying to get everybody on the same page was really really difficult Whereas saying hey, we want to we want to embrace open source We want to take advantage of but let's have a consistent strategy for what we download, right? And it's not just technical fitness of purpose It's how is the and this is where senior leadership comes in and having a good strategy is You know, what's the community like, right? Am I downloading this thing that meets my technical needs? But the community is dead and I've got a project out there that essentially is dead And I'm now basing my business on it. I think having you're an open source program office at a certain point when you In your organization and again, it depends on it It varies in terms of when that that that break point is when you need to create that organization Um, it gives you I think not just the place to to manage open source It gives you the peace of mind knowing that A key pieces key pieces of technology that you rely on as a business that you're building your value on top of That those things are going to be healthy, right? I mean the days are long gone of, you know building a technology stack soup to nuts where You know, you can you have complete control of everything The business reality now is that you can't afford from an engineering and business perspective to build everything yourself So with that knowledge, you are relying on a ton of things that are being built by Partners potentially being built by your competitors, right? And we haven't talked about that but that's a really good reason to have an open source program office Is because the understanding is that a lot of your competitors that are working in these open source projects That are benefiting you and them they're there if you don't have a good strategy from the beginning about how you engage with that Open source project What's going to happen if your competitors decide to take that open source project in a different direction That's counter to what you need in your organization if you are not contributing you don't have a seat at the table You don't have a voice in how those projects get managed. So really understanding that It's not just a luxury, right? I think once your company gets to a certain size and again It's depends on where you are in the evolution of your your journey in open source But without an open source program office It's really difficult to Cohesively get a seat at the table for these open source projects and technologies that you rely on So it's I think um in some cases. I would just view it as table stakes at this point for effective You know use of of open source technology And I think the other thing I would leave your viewers with is it's it's long since passed just the use of open source technology I mean the the number of people that in organizations that I still run into that that have this false sense of security of Oh, we're only ever going to consume open source It just you know the I've seen it and it's not just me But we've all seen it time and time and time again that you know If you're sitting on the sidelines just consuming you're missing a whole bunch of opportunity to make your business uh more valuable and to and to safeguard sort of your business and and your technology Against you know changes that may happen without your ability to influence them guys Thank you so much for not only writing this course But also your contribution to the open source world But also talking to me today for a long after a long time. So thank you and I look forward to talk to you again Sounds good. Thanks. Well, great to see you. Take care