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What changes when the projects you maintain are cornerstones of security? Filippo Valsorda elaborates on his experience as a cryptographer, his work in Go, and how his approach to maintainership might be a bit different from the average maintainer.

Nic Steenhout recounts how barriers to access led him to getting involved in the open source community, reflects on challenges that accessibility advocates face in the ecosystem, and gives some advice to projects on how to prove their commitment to...

What is open source design? Eriol dives into how designers contribute to open source, resources for designers looking to contribute to open source, and how incorporating design work into open source projects benefits the contributors and community using it.

Why should open source have all the fun? Clare Dillon shares her experience in the wonderful world of innersource, the application of open source practices within organizations. Collaboration is just too exciting not to share!

Open source is people and people are open source. Duane O'Brien talks about what he's learned about supporting, connecting with, and caring for the critical human infrastructure of open source.

In a conversation looking at multiple meanings of open source governance and project health, Shauna Gordon-McKeon shares with Open Source Stories views of how investing in project culture can build virtuous cycles of inclusion and contribution. From reducing the number...

Russell talks with julia about his open source origin story, how he became involved in his first project, and what he sees as current issues with maintainership in open source.

Joe Beda shares with Julia and Amanda about his multigenerational family history with computers, his changing experience with open source since submitting the first commit to Kubernetes, and how the future of open source contains both 'danger and opportunity'.

Elana Hashman recounts her first contribution to open source, the ecosystem’s potential, how norms have changed over the years, and what keeps her involved and contributing.

When you focus more on connections than commit-ments in open source, what do you say yes to? Richard talks about open source as an evolving collective and commons unbounded by strict definitions, working in the open with creativity and joy,...

Josh Simmons, Amanda Casari, and Julia Ferraioli talk about open source representation, transformative moments that led to increased participation, and hopes for the future.

Free and open source software is, or can be, a public good. But, VM Brasseur finds that for some, it may have gotten disconnected from its open culture roots. In this open source story, VM talks about motivations behind FOSS,...

John Minnihan walks through the creation of Freepository, the first hosted source control service, how it paved the way for lowering the barrier to participation in open source, and evolution of version control systems.

How does one pick up the maintainership baton? Turns out that you can ask for it! Jessica Tegner tells the story of how she went from contributing to pypandoc to being the maintainer of it, and the pressures that come...

Open source, the public domain, and various freedoms take center stage in the story behind Standard Ebooks. Learn about Standard Ebooks, a project founded by Alex Cabal to solve one particular problem, and how it brought together contributors with diverse...

Emma Irwin explores a nuanced view of open source maintainership in today’s landscape, digging into what characteristics good maintainers cultivate, what role mentoring plays in maintainership, and how history influences who becomes a maintainer.

Measuring community health reveals challenges people experience in contributing. Anita Ihuman explains how to build awareness and leverage existing solutions for greater belonging in open source. What you measure, you can see and change!

Samson talks with Amanda about his lifelong journey in open source, why growing a culture of sharing is so important, and how his early experiences influenced where and how he has directed his energy into re-centering the nexus of open...

Aaron Patterson talks with Julia and Amanda about installing Linux for the first time, the story behind first patch, initial hesitancy around forking, and shares some advice for fellow programmers. Features plenty of bad puns from everyone. Transcript: https://www.opensourcestories.org/stories/2021/aaron-patterson/

How do we incorporate ethics into open source and software development at large? Dawn Wages describes some of the ways that she embraces ethical open source engineering, including exploring her guiding principles around how she makes technology decisions. Learn about...