Episode 123: Colin Eberhardt of Scott Logic on Software Sustainability

Guest

Colin Eberhardt

Panelists

Richard Littauer | Ben Nickolls

Show ask: Fill out this Survey for OSS in Europe!

Link.

Show Notes

Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, joining us as our guest is Colin Eberhardt, who’s the CTO at Scott Logic, which is a UK based software consultancy, and a member of FINOS. Colin tells us about Scott Logic, the journey he’s been on there, and how his view of open source has changed over the years being in this industry. We learn more about a talk he did on “Why I Love Open Source” and he goes in depth of what marketing means to him. Also, Colin explains what he calls the “roll up your sleeves and help model,” and find out about Beyond the Hype, a podcast by Scott Logic, and what it’s all about. Go ahead and download this episode now to find out more!

[00:01:34] Colin tells us about Scott Logic and how he got interested in software sustainability.

[00:03:15] Colin explains how his view of open source has changed over time and more about the journey he’s been on with Scott Logic.

[00:06:04] Richard asks Colin if he sees donating money as an individual choice by the responsible members of the corporate environment or if there’s structural reasons to give back, and he tells us about a talk he did on “Why I Love Open Source.”

[00:08:37] How does open source make you better at marketing?

[00:12:12] Ben wonders how Colin sees the conversation happening on how organizations can sustain support, whether it’s open source work that they’re producing or consuming themselves. He explains what he calls the “roll up your sleeves and help model.”

[00:16:16] Colin brings up a survey they ran with Fintech Open Source Foundation and one of the results he found fascinating.

[00:17:54] Richard asks Colin if he’s thought about taxation, standards, or ways where people are required to contribute back to open source.

[00:21:03] Ben wonders if Colin is thinking at Scott Logic about how to involve some of those people who aren’t necessarily working in classic open source developer roles to get involved, and how he’s thinking about projects abilities to bring on those people.

[00:24:44] Colin tells us about the best data he’s seen by the Linux Foundation FOSS Contributor Survey, that’s targeted at maintainers and contributors.

[00:26:10] We hear Colin’s idea for a project he had that analyzed open source projects to try to measure their health.

[00:33:58] Find out where you can follow Colin online and his podcast.

Quotes

[00:09:04] “Generally speaking, most people create open source projects because they want others to use them. Learning how to market your creation, and I don’t mean adverts at marketing it. And for each one of them, if I can understand what the Unique Selling Points are of this project, that’s what I mean by marketing.”
[00:10:40] “You have to design the user journey.”
[00:21:39] “To me, sustainable, healthy open source involves a huge diversity of skills.”
[00:33:16] “Your best security policy is not to pay some third-party firm to do all these scans and checks. Your best security policy is to get involved with that project.”

Spotlight

• [00:35:58] Ben’s spotlight is Octobox.
• [00:36:51] Richard’s spotlight is Andrew Nesbitt.
• [00:37:31] Colin’s spotlight is a blog post, “On the weaponisation of open source.”

Links

• SustainOSS
• SustainOSS Twitter
• SustainOSS Discourse
• podcast@sustainoss.org
• Richard Littauer Twitter
• Ben Nickolls Twitter
• Colin Eberhardt Twitter
• Colin Eberhardt GitHub
• Colin Eberhardt Blog
• Beyond the Hype Podcast (Scott Logic)
• Scott Logic
• Colin Eberhard- Open Source Sustainablity through Corporate Social Responsibility-OS Leeds (YouTube)
• Colin Eberhardt: Why I Love Open Source (FINOS Community Blog)
• Sustain Podcast-Episode 32: What FOSS Responders Does with Megan Sanicki & Duane O’Brien
• Sustain Podcast-Episode 51: Working in Public: Nadia Eghbal and her new book about Making and Sustaining Open-Source Software
• Sustain Podcast-Episode 104: Duane O’Brien and Mandy Grover on Investing in Open Source: The FOSS Contributor Fund
• FINOS
• Open UK-State of Open: The UK in 2021 Phase Three, The Values of Open
• Report on the 2020 FOSS Contributor Survey
• World Happiness Report 2022
• Gross National Happiness
• Octobox Browser Extension-GitHub
• Octobox (Gitter)
• Andrew Nesbitt Twitter
• On the weaponisation of open source (Blog post)

Credits

• Produced by Richard Littauer
• Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
• Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound

Special Guest: Colin Eberhardt.

Support Sustain