Shows
CHAOSScastEpisode 119: Guest Episode - Sustain asks how Ecosyste.ms maps open source dependenciesThank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSSCast!
CHAOSScast – Episode 119
In this episode of CHAOSScast, we have a special episode from our friends at Sustain. Host Richard Littauer from Sustain is joined by guests Ben Nickolls and Andrew Nesbitt to discuss the ecosyste.ms project. They explore how ecosyste.ms collects and analyzes metadata from various open-source projects to create a comprehensive database that can help improve funding allocation. The discussion covers the importance of funding the most critical open-source projects, the existing gaps in funding, and the partnership be...
2025-09-1845 min
SustainEpisode 270: Ben Nickolls & Andrew Nesbitt on Ecosyste.msGuests
Ben Nickolls | Andrew Nesbitt
Panelist
Richard Littauer
Show Notes
In this episode of Sustain, host Richard is joined by guests Ben Nickolls and Andrew Nesbitt to discuss the ecosyste.ms project. They explore how ecosyste.ms collects and analyzes metadata from various open-source projects to create a comprehensive database that can help improve funding allocation. The discussion covers the importance of funding the most critical open-source projects, the existing gaps in funding, and the partnership between ecosyste.ms and Open Source Collective to create funding algorithms that support...
2025-05-2344 min
SustainEpisode 179: Maintainer Month with GitHub's Martin WoodwardGuest
Martin Woodward
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a special podcast and one of several in this series for GitHub’s Maintainer Month. We’re interviewing maintainers to ask them about their experience of open source and their experience of living as maintainers. We are super excited to talk to our guest, Martin Woodward, who’s the VP of Developer Relations at GitHub. Today, Martin explains the origin...
2023-05-2641 min
SustainEpisode 151: Announcement! Sustain Session @ State of Open Con 2023 in londonPanelists
Richard Littauer | Pia Mancini | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. This is a short episode today because we are headed to London in early February for a Sustain event. Why are we going to London? Well, it’s the State of Open Con 2023, February 7-8, an event that is all things open source, including legal, governance, technology itself, hardware, and data, put on mainly by Amanda Brock and Open UK, and funded by IEEE SA and ma...
2023-01-2707 min
SustainEpisode 143: Amanda Brock of OpenUK on Open Source Law, Policy and PracticeGuest
Amanda Brock
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we have an amazing guest and she’s been on this podcast before. Joining us is Amanda Brock, who’s the CEO of OpenUK, which is an industry organization about the business of open technology. She’s also a Board Member, keynote speaker, and author, with a new book coming out soon called, Open Source Law, Policy and Practi...
2022-10-2142 min
SustainEpisode 138: Ruth Cheesley, the Mautic Project Lead at Acquia, on Building and Growing Open Source CommunitiesGuest
Ruth Cheesley
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Ben Nickolls | Eriol Fox | Justin Dorfman
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we are excited to have as our guest, Ruth Cheesley, joining us from the UK. She is an open-source advocate and Project Lead for Mautic at Acquia. We invited Ruth on this podcast because we don’t seem to have enough talks from people who are part of an actual community of coders. Today, Ruth tells us...
2022-09-1639 min
SustainEpisode 136: Daniel S. Katz on the Research Software Alliance (ReSA)Guest
Daniel S. Katz
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Ben Nickolls | Amanda Casari
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We are very excited to have as our guest Daniel S. Katz, who’s Chief Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), Research Associate Professor in Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He’s also a Better Scientific Software (BSSw) Fellow and is one of t...
2022-09-0239 min
SustainEpisode 135: Tracy Hinds on Node.js's CommComm and PMs in Open SourceGuest
Tracy Hinds
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We are very excited with our guest today, Tracy Hinds, who’s currently the CEO and Founder of Crow & Pitcher and serves as a CFO and board director at the Open Source Initiative. She’s also a long-time open source practitioner, maker, creator, and a powerful woman of glory, and has founded tons of different communities. Tracy is also a non-profit lead...
2022-08-2635 min
SustainEpisode 134: Cornelius Schumacher on being an Open Source Steward at DB SystelGuest
Cornelius Schumacher
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We’re very excited to have as our guest, Cornelius Schumacher, who works as the Open Source Steward at DB Systel, helping teams to successfully use and contribute to open source. Today, we’ll have discussions with Cornelius about what it means to be an Open Source Steward at DB Systel, what it means for the world of open source, and how...
2022-08-1938 min
SustainEpisode 133: Sustain and CHAOSS: A Joint PodcastPanelists
Georg Link | Richard Littauer | Dawn Foster | Willem Jiang | Amanda Casari | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to CHAOSScast Community podcast, where we share use cases and experiences with measuring open source community health. Elevating conversations about metrics, analytics, and software from the Community Health Analytics Open Source Software, or short CHAOSS Project, to wherever you like to listen. Today’s episode is a shared podcast between Sustain and CHAOSS. We have six panelists to talk about maintaining open source and we’ll also do a quick update from a previous episode and...
2022-08-1240 min
CHAOSScastEpisode 62: Maintaining Open Source Projects - a joint episode with the Sustain PodcastHello and welcome to CHAOSScast Community podcast, where we share use cases and experiences with measuring open source community health. Elevating conversations about metrics, analytics, and software from the Community Health Analytics Open Source Software, or short CHAOSS Project, to wherever you like to listen. Today’s episode is a shared podcast between Sustain and CHAOSS. We have six panelists to talk about maintaining open source and we’ll also do a quick update from a previous episode and talk about what has changed and what maintaining open source looks like today. The panelists we have are Georg Link, Rich...
2022-08-1242 min
SustainEpisode 131: Bolaji Ayodeji on Open Source Community Africa (OSCA)Guest
Bolaji Ayodeji
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, our guest is Bolaji Ayodeji, who’s a Software Engineer, Content Creator, Community Engineer, and currently works as a Developer Advocate at Commerce Layer. Bolaji is a member of the Sustain community and has done so much with Open Source Community Africa (OSCA). Our conversations take us through learning how Bolaji got into open source, being a part of...
2022-07-2938 min
SustainEpisode 129: Per Ploug and the Spotify FOSS FundGuest
Per Ploug Krogslund
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Our guest today is Per Ploug Krogslund, who’s the Open Source Tech Lead at Spotify. He’s with us to talk in-depth about the FOSS Fund he’s setting up with Spotify, to pay maintainers of independent projects and give back to open source developers. Go ahead and download this episode now to hear more!
[00:01:30] Per tells us his...
2022-07-1542 min
SustainEpisode 128: Sustain Hosts: What Does Sustain Mean?Panelists
Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Ben Nickolls | Amanda Casari
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today’s episode is all panelists, no guests, and our conversations are focusing on the question, “What does sustaining open source actually mean?” Each of the panelists share their opinions, give feedback, and tell stories around sustaining open source. We’ll also learn the origins of SustainOSS, the definition of a “sustainer,” and we hear about the OSCA Sustain Community Report 2022 that recently came out and gave...
2022-07-0839 min
SustainEpisode 125: Astor Nummelin Carlberg of OFE on the Economic Impact of Open SourceGuest
Astor Nummelin Carlberg
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Amanda Casari | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. On this episode, we have joining us, Astor Nummelin Carlberg, who’s the Executive Director of OpenForum Europe. OFE works with open technologies and public policy. Today, Astor goes in depth about a report he co-authored with another team of economists, and we also find out Astor’s thoughts on what we should do to make open source more...
2022-06-1738 min
SustainEpisode 123: Colin Eberhardt of Scott Logic on Software SustainabilityGuest
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...
2022-06-0339 min
SustainEpisode 116: Álvaro Trigo of fullPage.js, on making a living using OSSGuest
Álvaro Trigo
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Amanda Casari | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Our guest today is Álvaro Trigo, who is an open source developer and maintainer of fullPage.js, which is an open source package that helps you figure out how to make a full-page website. He’s made this into a business. Álvaro shares his story of working as a full-stack developer, how fullPage.js came to fruition for him, thing...
2022-04-0837 min
SustainEpisode 113: Jon Gottfried and Mike Swift on the MLH Fellowship programGuest
Jon Gottfried | Mike Swift
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We have two amazing guests joining us, Jon Gottfried and Mike Swift, who are the Co-Founders of Major League Hacking (MLH). Today, we’ll learn about the MLH Fellowship program, the philosophy behind MLH, which every year, more than 100,000 developers from around the world attend these events to learn new technical skills by getting hands-on experience. Jon an...
2022-03-1847 min
SustainEpisode 111: Amanda Casari on ACROSS and Measuring Contributions in OSSGuest
Amanda Casari
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Ben Nickolls | Eric Berry
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We are very excited for today’s podcast. Our guest is Amanda Casari, who is a Developer Relations Engineer and Open Source Researcher at Google Open Source Programs Office (OSPO). Today, we learn about some open source work Amanda is doing with her research team at the University of Vermont Complex Systems Center, she tells us about a project ca...
2022-03-0443 min
SustainEpisode 107: Caroline Sinders on building healthy OSS CommunitiesGuest
Caroline Sinders
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox | Ben Nickolls
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we are very excited to have as our guest, Caroline Sinders, who is the Founder of Convocation Design + Research. She’s also a critical designer, researcher, and artist, and a lot of the work she does is on online gender-based violence, as well as community health and toxicity. She has a lot of expertise looking at what Codes of...
2022-02-0437 min
SustainEpisode 106: Rodrigo Mendoza on Quine and GitNFTGuest
Rodrigo Mendoza
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Ben Nichols | Eric Berry
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we have a really awesome guest to talk about some really cool stuff. Rodrigo Mendoza is the Founder and CEO of Quine, a data-driven professional network for software creators, as well as GitNFT, an NFT minting platform for GitHub commits. Rodrigo dives deep in Quine and tells us why he’s focusing on open source and so...
2022-01-2836 min
SustainEpisode 104: Duane O’Brien and Mandy Grover on Investing in Open Source: The FOSS Contributor FundGuest
Duane O’Brien | Mandy Grover
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Justin Dorfman | Ben Nichols
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. On today’s episode we have two excellent guests, Duane O’Brien and Mandy Grover. Duane is the Head of Open Source at Indeed and Mandy is a Technical Content Architect III, as well as manages a team within the Technical Content organization at Indeed. They are here to talk about the FOSS Fund and the recent...
2022-01-1440 min
SustainEpisode 100: Sustain #100: Only Hosts, on who we are, where we came from, and where we're goingGuest
Paul Bahr | DeAnn Bahr
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Allen “Gunner” Gunn | Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Pia Mancini | Eriol Fox | Ben Nichols
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Cue the horns and balloons folks because today’s episode is extremely special. We are celebrating our 100th episode!! Can you believe it? We are so fortunate to have everyone with us, including our editors, as our conversations takes us back to the origins of this podcast and how it...
2021-12-0337 min
SustainEpisode 99: Matt Mankins and giving Kudos to OSS maintainersGuest
Matt Mankins
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Ben Nichols
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we are very excited to have as our guest, Matt Mankins, joining us from Barcelona. He is a Fellow at Mozilla, currently working on advancing open monetization strategies for the web. He previously worked at the publisher Condé Nast, where he led global monetization engineering efforts for the company’s iconic brands and was the CTO of FastCo magazine. He’s als...
2021-11-2634 min
SustainEpisode 97: Anthony Ronda and the League of Extraordinary Foundry VTT Developers, games, and Open SourceGuest
Anthony Ronda
Panelists
Richard Littauer | Eric Berry | Ben Nickolls | Eriol Fox
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we have an amazing guest, Anthony Ronda, who is one of the leaders in the League of Extraordinary Foundry VTT Developers. Foundry Virtual Tabletop is a standalone application built for experiencing multiplayer tabletop RPGs, which helps you play games like Dungeons and Dragons and other games virtually. Anthony fills us in on the history of the...
2021-11-1234 min
SustainEpisode 88: Foundations Roundtable: From Maintain to SustainGuest
Ewa Jodlowska, Rachel Lawson, Leah Silen, Ben Nickolls, Jory Burson, and Karen Sandler
Panelists
Duane O'Brien and Richard Littauer
Show Notes
Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. Today, we’re doing something a little different with this episode. We are giving you the audio recording of a round table that was recently hosted by Duane O’Brien and Richard Littauer, about the role of foundations in open source. Our panelists today are Ewa Jodlowska, Rachel Lawson, Leah...
2021-08-0646 min
Sustain Our SoftwareSOS 012: Funding of open source communities with Benjamin NickollsEpisode Summary In this episode of the Sustain Our Software podcast, Benjamin Nickolls talks with the panelists about the potential for an open source community that is self-sustaining. Benjamin helped create Octobox, a notification system for GitHub, which helps filter messages that one receives through GitHub. Benjamin and his partner created Octobox hoping it would be a model of a sustainable open source project, and after 9 months of working on it full time they have been able to step away from it as it continues to pay for its own hosting and software development. The money that they received from...
2019-10-0148 min
SustainEpisode 12: Funding of open source communities with Benjamin NickollsEpisode Summary
In this episode of the Sustain Our Software podcast, Benjamin Nickolls talks with the panelists about the potential for an open source community that is self-sustaining. Benjamin helped create Octobox, a notification system for GitHub, which helps filter messages that one receives through GitHub.
Benjamin and his partner created Octobox hoping it would be a model of a sustainable open source project, and after 9 months of working on it full time they have been able to step away from it as it continues to pay for its own hosting and software development. The...
2019-10-0148 min
Sustain Our SoftwareSOS 012: Funding of open source communities with Benjamin Nickolls
Episode Summary
In this episode of the Sustain Our Software podcast, Benjamin Nickolls talks with the panelists about the potential for an open source community that is self-sustaining. Benjamin helped create Octobox, a notification system for GitHub, which helps filter messages that one receives through GitHub.
Benjamin and his partner created Octobox hoping it would be a model of a sustainable open source project, and after 9 months of working on it full time they have been able to step away from it as it continues to pay for its own hosting and software development. The...
2019-10-0148 min
Changelog InterviewsUntangle your GitHub notifications with OctoboxJerod is joined by Andrew Nesbitt and Ben Nickolls to talk Octobox, their open source web app that helps you manage your GitHub notifications. They discuss how Octobox came to be, why open source maintainers love it, the experiments they’re doing with pricing and business models, and how Octobox can continue to thrive despite GitHub’s renewed interest in improving notifications.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Rollbar – We catch our errors before our users do bec...
2018-12-131h 16The Changelog: Software Development, Open SourceUntangle your GitHub notifications with Octobox (Interview)Jerod is joined by Andrew Nesbitt and Ben Nickolls to talk Octobox, their open source web app that helps you manage your GitHub notifications. They discuss how Octobox came to be, why open source maintainers love it, the experiments they’re doing with pricing and business models, and how Octobox can continue to thrive despite GitHub’s renewed interest in improving notifications.
Join the discussionChangelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Rollbar – We catch our errors before our users do bec...
2018-12-131h 16