 Well, hello everybody and welcome. I hope you're enjoying today the OpenShift Commons gathering here We're really thrilled that you've decided to join us for the day and participate in this event And I'm really pleased today to bring this next panel together More of a conversation than a panel. Hopefully we'll have today We've invited Priyanka Sharma and Todd Moore Priyanka is the general manager at CNCF the cloud native computing foundation and Todd Moore is the VP of open technology IBM developer and developer advocacy at IBM and what we wanted to try and do today is Have a bit of comfort bit of a conversation about how to empower the end users and talk a little bit about the changing role of end users in Open-source initiatives ecosystems and projects So I'm really pleased because Priyanka coming from The foundation point of view Todd having a really extensive background in open-source program office and open-source advocacy bring a whole ton of experience to this Conversation and insight so I'm really thrilled and pleased to have them there and if you don't know me I'm Diane Mueller. I am the director of community development and the organizer and founder and person behind the scenes at OpenShift Commons and Working through the okd working group as well to do that open-source project so I'm going to ask each of the organizers and we can turn it over to Everybody's picture showing now if you don't mind there you go there are my Lovely and handsome and wonderful folks Perhaps Priyanka if you could Introduce yourself and talk a little bit about what your role is now at CNCM Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me Diane. Hi everybody I'm Priyanka Sharma and I am the general manager for the cloud native computing foundation which hosts Critical infrastructure technology products such as Kubernetes, Prometheus, Envoy, etc today we are 70 plus projects and The end users in our ecosystem are a key to our growth We actually enjoy the largest end user community of any software foundation and we're very proud of that So that's a little bit about me. If you want to learn more about CNCF or want to reach out anytime It's an open-door policy find me on Twitter I spend way too much time there and I will I have open DMs and anybody can tweet at me with that said Thank you so much for having me Diane excited to talk about end users in open source Todd how about you tell everybody what you do? Yeah, thank you Diane and thank you for having me as well I've worked in open source for IBM on and off over the last 20 some odd years Spent quite a bit of time setting up organizations such as the CNCF. I was chair of the board there at one point and Have you know watched organizations grow especially those organizations who have embraced end users and bringing them in Each of the organizations that I've participated in I've always been a strong advocate for end users I also have IBM's open source project office underneath my organization And I spent quite a bit of time working with clients just helping them understand how to set up their own how to get going in open source One of the things that we embraced a long time ago was that you know as we brought in more folks into into the open source world they would Of course benefit from being able to directly input their changes and their requests into the communities and It's exciting to see all of the businesses that we work with these days have strong contingents of open source consumption and many many many of them out there now working to Be contributors as well too So I'm gonna queue up a slide here And I'm gonna also give a great shout out Priyanka One of the impetuses for this conversation was the talk the keynote that you gave back at KubeCon EU and you talked about something called the virtuous end user cycle And I don't know whether you coined that phrase or whatever, but you certainly put a spotlight on it so I was gonna share this slide next slide here and So people would see this and this is my MS paint version of the beautiful thing that you had maybe share What you meant by the virtuous end user cycle a little bit here and that would help pick off this conversation Yes, absolutely. So As we've all discussed just now end users are very critical to open source and we all believe that When CNCF started four or five years ago It was it brought in these amazing technology projects that were going to effectively help if if you're moving to cloud If you're doing cloud computing here's a cloud native way that leverages containers, which You know just made things more streamlined for you to utilize external resources computer resources as all that happened in the first few years, we were very focused on Education because the Delta between The folks who came up with the modern technology stack and the larger like Fortune 5,000 out there was quite big The Fortune 5,000 was much more focused and of course, there's amazing examples out there that were much ahead of their time But I'm speaking generally folks were They want they needed to learn the basics, you know cloud native 101 and over time what we have seen is that Enterprises have done a phenomenal job of Understanding what it means to modernize your technology stack so that you can be more responsive to your customers in a resilient way What has that meant they have gone all in on containers. They've gone all in on Kubernetes. They have gone super far to Become an agile fast Technology shop everywhere as that's happened. They've gotten more and more Experienced into what are the problems when you deploy cloud native technologies? So they have a very unique perspective that is critical for any project creator for any Enhancer and when I think of enhancer, it's companies that build value at Products on top of the open source projects that we host So the feedback from the end user becomes a really critical because now the end user is in the Has the information asymmetry in their advantage right where they know more than us what they exactly need where the problems are Etc. So number one is in this virtuous cycle of empowering the end user is That when you give end users a formal seat at the table when you really may empower them to be part of the conversation They're guiding the projects that he sharing what should what they would like to see in the roadmap or giving feedback On what they tried and didn't work That's one level then the second is Sometimes they may identify a gap large or complex enough that they may create a project and contribute it to open source There's plenty examples like that. I mean Envoy from Lyft and Yeager from Uber are Graduated projects in the CNCF that came from these end user companies and then are now Values by a lot of people are like established as very Looked up to open source projects. So that's the second piece right and then when these projects exist There are folks who may build enhancements on top of that and have Value add services on top and so when you involve the end user Basically, this virtuous cycle starts where projects get good feedback Projects then meet end user needs if they don't end users start contributing and building projects themselves Then enhancers come in and offer value add services Which then get consumed by end users and the cycle continues So this is the age of the end user in open source and they are now guiding us towards the best solutions Does that help? Yeah, that is perfect because I think the epiphany I had when you did that On on the screen at the in the keynote was That there's a changing feature Of the end user's role in open source initiatives and the way that I think of it is historically Like if I go back eight or nine years Often on an enterprise or an enterprise organization end user would get the vendor red hat Maybe IBM to put in the bug fix for them or put the bugzilla note in And I'll just skate that was actually them using the open source and so there's this whole Arc that has happened Over the past, you know, I'd say it's escalated or we're almost hitting this tipping point now where we're now changing the dynamic from vendors doing it for their enterprises to Collaborating in the open source world together. And so I think I saw this virtuous cycle here as something A very nice way to illustrate that and also Made me think that we have maybe hit a change changing in the role of the end user from Feedback giver and insights onto their workload giver to actually working with us side by side in most of these projects so as you pointed out yeager and Yeager from uber or lifts on Or this morning I did a Or a while When we recording this probably when I I did a talk with ericsson who's doing a lot of work around metal cube And so you see this huge amount of effort from enterprises going into these projects now and we're side by side So it kind of changes the nature a little bit of how vendor relations are with end users And I think it's a good thing. I think it's it but it's also it's we're watching the dynamics Change a lot and I think some of the things that you've done with the cnc f from the toc adding end users onto the toc And representation into the board Have really helped things Immensely empowering them to have the voice and give away that podium So I know Todd um a lot of The other things that we've been seeing too. Um, and maybe from your perspective these these things we call oscosis or open source program offices are sprouting up at places like apple and other ones and They we've used that That um department in Africa shall we say or bit that section of our companies to help coach them But it's also changing it's becoming a vital piece of these new companies and organizations And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about the role of open source program offices and and how to encourage And explain the business value of open source into the enterprise Yeah, very very good. And you know the it's it's It's something that we started a very very long time ago in ibm So we've got you know a 20-plus year history of having an open source project office because as we got going in linux We found that um, you know, we wanted to be able to manage our contributions But then as we got more and more into other open source projects It became apparent that you had to really keep track of what was going on out there You have to make sure that you're using code that's licensed correctly has the right ip rights, etc So so it became just sort of ingrained in in how we did things and um, and I think most of the other Providers vendors out there at you know at some point or another adopted the same sort of thing in structure within their companies But but the change now that's come about is that general businesses people who are our partners um in things people who are our clients um have have latched on to Open source and have become great consumers of it But then they really found that if they started Contributing and could you know be on that leading edge They could gain velocity Versus their competition and as a result of that They were being much more disruptive in their industries. They were gaining market share They they were able to be on that leading edge and it had some sense of control and And therefore they also needed to monitor what they were doing what they were contributing licenses, etc Right. So um, so developers got very engaged and the project offices, you know started to spring up and what we've found is that Every large fortune 500 at some point or another now is is on this path at some place They've either been consumers or they're out contributing In some small ways maybe or maybe just coming up with you know a comment or an issue And then some of them are full-fledged in there going in and contributing code You know, I think about kubernetes and the things I watched as we were building kubernetes Let's say sales force scheduler work. I know they work with my scheduler folks controller enhancements GM documentation, you know Documentation is the unsung hero of all the open source projects that we have going on out there And and some of the the first thing I ever got involved in my life was writing The documentation for a satellite tracking program out in an open project, right? So, you know, it's a way to get engaged and get started in it. Get your feet wet Bloomberg, right? Here's would you expect bloombergs out there doing two command line enhancements, right? Huh, gee Kind of strange Who would have ever thought that blueberg, uh, you know, uh financial sector, you know, that industry would be Open participants in collaborations and getting permission to participate in these things. And so I think Often what what we see is what and I think you hit the nail on the head with the documentation story too is What we're seeing is a redefining of what it means to be a community member And I I saw someone jokingly refer to like if you're reading this documentation, then you are a community member Right, it's not just writing it. It's like if you're watching this video and you're in this Open shift commons event. You are a part of this community You're hearing this, you know this talk you're getting this feedback We're going to ask you for feedback on it and someday we're going to make you talk on one of these podiums as well, so it's I think what um one of the the things around empowering end users that that I'd like to tease out to is how we're changing The definition of who's in the community as well and and coach and how to coach people And I think this is what I've used ospo An open source initiatives like everybody from inner source commons to chaos and other groups how to coach Enterprises to enable and who allow their end user to participate because historically That hasn't been an easy thing for people and still for a number of folks And there are the fortune 500s, you know who have wonderful ospo They have too many lawyers The gate to to the participation and Even though i'm not a lawyer and I don't play one on tv I I do go out and spend time often just talking to people's legal teams And I've even brought in some of the ibm folks who wrote some of the licenses like the apathy version to license to go Talk to lawyers within Organization so that they could understand the implications of what was going on there Because that tends to be the first stumbling block There's other stumbling blocks like security and and other things that people start to get concerned about But i've always found that the legal team seems to be the first ones that you got to kind of get around And convince as you go through this The compliance and risk Are usually that prianka who are the first ones for you I Well, so I would say there are two aspects right that are very important when you're trying to encourage Contribution and as as Todd said, there's there's always going to be stumbling blocks when it comes to you know People whose job it is to make sure everything's okay with like lawyers compliance teams risk teams, etc The two things I think is one as as you said dan every contribution matters I think that Has always been true, but it's only now being recognized so When we talked about documentation documentation is critical We and cnc have helped all our projects as much as we can with docs writers with connecting them with other Enhancers who can help them. It's it's like an active part of the job But that's actually like if you think about it The folks who are setting up this event the events organizer They're doing a pretty massive service when you think about The people listening they are spending the time trying to understand so they're everyone's becoming part of the larger community And the more they see themselves as somebody who can step in and be like hey I have a suggestion for how to do this event or I have a suggestion for how that You know, maybe we reword this documentation or here's a typo or here's an issue, etc The more people understand that it's an open dialogue The more they do things which at the early stages may not even require legal approval, right? And that's the best case scenario Because then you start building that grounds well. So that's one aspect. That's really important understanding that every contribution is important and creating like ways for people to kind of come into the various channels and Talk about what they think should be done differently The second piece is to especially for projects open source projects to create official Sort of roles and responsibilities for end users so And the cncf what we have done As you folks both know very well is uh, you know the technical oversight committee which decides with projects get in They have end user representatives and that's required like you need to have x number of end users Same for the governing board same for various other avenues and what that does it creates that awesome energy of top-level engagement As well as the grounds well that we just talked about that comes from every contribution matters So with the combination of that it becomes that much easier to convince Legal teams and anyone in compliance and risk that look this is a industry-wide thing that's happening this is not just like Priyanka is really excited about doing something that she does for fun and getting paid for it Right. It just like changes the dynamic and I think Thinking about that like structure the open source end user in and value everything they bring in is what Really make moves the needle forward I think one of the things that um that the kubernetes community has done really nicely And so I shot out to paris pitman and and josh bergus and the folks in the kubernetes strategy Is they they have a concept of the contributor ladder? and really One of the things for the projects um and envoys a good example of this as is porter and a number Really clearly well defined ladders for how to become you know How to contribute and then how to become a maintainer So there's steps in the progress. So making that really clear Is he's been a huge help and so that's one of the the best practices I could shout out at every project You know and and some of the ones that I work on aren't the best Documenting that but I think that's something that um clearly the contributor sig Um the strategy sig has done some great work around as well to help people. Yeah Excellent And that was you know, and that was really by design is as we built the organization as we grow You know the bylaws and stood things up that we wanted to make sure there was a clear path in each of the projects to Um get to be a maintainer That's that's you have to have that that equal playing field that ability that well defined path in order to for people to Really want to be out there and contributing But you know a lot of the stumbling blocks initially that that I see with people first trying to get out there Is it's kind of daunting right you're putting yourself on the line There's this you know first, you know First pull requests that you know gee and like doing it right and you know so People get nervous and oftentimes what we do is especially internally or even within the company For for folks who haven't been engaged in open sources We run a process where we call it a dojo And and we help them and and we get them to get their first pull requests in and then We mentor them for a period of time to help them and and understand how to interact with people in open source It's different than than doing product You know product is really well defined top-down driven You know your managers micromanaging you over the top sometimes right and and open source isn't like that And and I guess the other thing that I would say that people getting started is make sure you're you're really out there helping the team to just go and examine code and Do to do diligence on on all the code that's that's coming in you know there's You you you can be involved in that part of the process Even before you're out there trying to get a pull request in right And and that's that's helped you to do those code reviews and it helps the projects and And then if there's people who are eminent in the community that you look up to Work with them help them get the work done that they're trying to do And while you're doing that you you know of course and you're doing the code reviews. You're helping them with code It will help you accelerate your way Towards becoming a committer or maintain around a project. So It can be very fulfilling and and it's not too hard And the rules are out there You know kind of sort of there's lots of places to look IBM offers suggestions on how to be a good contributor as does red hat And others and as as does the cncf. So just get involved And and work with your company and if you have issues getting going In open source because you have roadblocks in the company There's so many of us that have gone down that path. Just ask for help will help you You know With the argument you need to convince people to get engaged Yeah, I hundred percent agree and particularly what you said, uh, sorry Particularly what you said thought about, you know, like it's work with people If there is someone who is trying to get something done like support them and that way like your journey becomes further So open source just like any other place. It's all about the people The difference is yes, you can reach out to them online and they will reply to you They don't need to meet you two three times to do like work with you. It's very open anyone open open source Anyone can like knock on any door and get entry and I think that's the beauty of it And I hope people see that over time that more and more people see that that this is actually the one place where You want to make an effort? There are lots of people who could take that effort and guide your journey along the way It's all about people but you can build a relationship with anyone that you want to So one of the things I just you talked about some of the things that are daunting Todd You know making your first pull request Well, one of the things that we even Long-time community people Find daunting is the growing complexity of the the entire ecosystem So whereas in the past you maybe we were focused on a single project or You know trying to get people to contribute to our upstream project and or get feedback for ourselves Now what we see it especially like in the cncf is all these interdependent projects that have multiple complexities and so um I think one of the really daunting things for newbies coming into the cncf and even people who are trying to You know find out when the next release is for you know Prometheus and how brahana interfaces with that and then oh i'm using something and i'm using something in telemetry But the alignment of all of those rubik's cube and three-dimensional Chest games is really very daunting for folks. And so No, go ahead dad that I was just curious what you thought of How we can help people navigate that and where where the role is for Different parts of the cncf for ospos and other places to do that I I think the Obviously, I always advocate start simple again things like documentation finding the the the niche where There's a place where you feel comfortable Um contributing but then there's a need in it as well too. Um, so many of the projects are really dying to have people come and join them and and good Developers will be embraced and handed the keys to the kingdom to help them in their journey Promoting their code and and moving it forward So, you know, I always always find an area that i'm interested in most and and go dig into that because i'll be happy doing it And and you know look for a community that's vibrant, right? One that really has good solid level contributors has that clear path to how you become a maintainer is is running an open governance so that you you know, there's no single vendor in control of it and You know works completely out in the open It's the transparency that makes this work so much that you know You don't want things running around in the background in secret You know where other people are making the decisions and suddenly some piece of code shows up You hadn't seen before and it kind of blows everybody away You know one of the things you see in in projects is they gain so much velocity sometimes that the original folks Who are the contributors of the base code don't even recognize what's there as they go away from Because it's all just changed right and and so it's staying up with that. It's tough. So It there are there are tons of dependencies and you've got a trust and work with those dependencies And if you've got a problem get a hold of the folks who are working in that, you know Sometimes it can be super daunting. I've seen projects that have 2000 dependencies to get pulled in with them That's that's tough, right? So You know start small work your way in is is and do it on something that's exciting to you Yeah, so what I would say Go for it. You'll go for it. Oh may I So first of all 100 percent agree with Todd and second of all something I've seen work quite effectively for people is if you're an engineer or You know an engineer or technical person of any sort right docs writer product manager, etc. anywhere You are probably consuming or utilizing an open source library project Many of those you're probably consuming and utilizing like a lot of them and so You are very close to some of the in your daily work And they can be a really great place to start because there you're the end user So, you know how that particular project is performing for you. You know what the issues are You know what you would like to see change. So you start with A knowledge advantage and so that can be those projects can be a really good place to just start getting your feet wet In terms of you know, like checking out docs commenting Maybe eventually having a pull request and at that point you've become pretty Conversant in how does this whole open source thing work? And in that moment, then you can kind of decide. Hey, do I like this here? Or am I interested in this other adjacent technology or I'm looking for a project that does Distributions differently and has a different vibe, you know, because it's a community at the end of the day So that can also be a good way to kind of get started is like pick something that you're really familiar with and you use in your Daily work and that can take you quite far So I'm good. We're almost to the end of our time, but I'm going to ask one more question. I'm going to ask you Are we at a tipping point where we're going to see more of these projects driven by the end users Then they are vendor driven So how about closing on that note? Have we hit that tipping point or are we still in the stage of having to enter, you know Engage and nurture new end users to come on board I'll I'll start Yeah, you go for it I'll go first I think momentum is building I believe that we're seeing The start of of the real ramp. I think it's going to be an exponential ramp I think the tipping point is still a few years away So, you know, I think we're we're we're there in terms of buy-in that open source can be much better quality code much better security in a lot of ways and now They can find people who will engage and do a good job within their their companies And I think that you'll see the end users take a very significant role in the near future, but but It's not the tipping point where they'll be the ones just running the show. Yeah, I don't think How are you Priya? Yeah, I agree with Todd. I feel like I've agreed with Todd a hundred percent on this panel You're right nothing wrong with that Um, and I would say that yeah, we're not at the tipping point by any means This is just the beginning this like while we enjoy the largest End user community for any open source foundation. It's only a hundred forty plus people There's a fortune five thousand over there and that's just the top five thousand companies, right? So there's a lot of ground to cover. That's number one second is I do think that It won't ever be that oh the end users took over and like the vendors are like, I don't know off doing something else somewhere I I think that the definitions of what's an end user? What's an enhancer or render? What's a part project contributor open source project? Everything's going to get more blurry Which is also a good thing because if you're an end user and you start using a project That's open source and then you start commenting on it And you slowly start doing more contributions Then you're in the contributor bucket if we are to go with buckets and then let's say you get hired by An enhancer who's building a great product on top of it and then suddenly moved over there But you're the same person with all those unique experiences So I think that that diversity if experience in one individual is going to grow And that's awesome. That's really good because that changes the story of us versus them to Everyone together everyone team cloud native in the case of cncf. So Those are my two cents on what I think the Where we are in terms of whether the end users have taken over or not I I think it's I think you both hit the nail on the head. I We're going to keep saying we 100 agree with each other. I think there's Closer to the tipping point and I think for from my perspective from the OpenShift Commons What we're really trying to do is empower the end users to be part of this greater peer-to-peer network so that they're sharing best practices and lessons learned and they're hearing it from each other as opposed to from You know vendors and foundation folks and the more we can do to nurture and engage those relationships across Industries And between end users with different and shared workloads the more we're going to get, you know Much better innovation driven back into these projects and I'm really I I don't think we'll ever hit a tipping point Where as you put it it's all end user driven or all you know or some other variation I think people's it's going to get blurry. I think it's already a little blurry And I think one of the wonderful things about This ever-changing universe that we live in And the cloud native team that we're all part of is is that collaborative nature And the willingness of people to share their stories and as long as we keep giving people the space and the podium To share their stories and to give them clear contributor ladders to get their contributions in and coaching from folks like Todd and Priyanka to Coach their organizations to let them participate. We're going to have an amazing future for open source. So With that, I want to thank both of you for everything that you do to make the cncf an awesome space to work in as well as People to collaborate with so thank you very much today for your participation here and Going to let you go back to your day jobs and we'll hear you in chat. Hopefully sometime during kubcon. So Thanks again guys Yeah, see you kubcon Thank you so much. See you kubcon New kubcon tomorrow. Take care guys