August 21, 2023 • 44 mins
Ever wondered if open source could be the secret sauce to the success of your business? Felicity Brand hosts a conversation between Jeffrey A Maguire and Mathias Bolt Lesniak about this very issue. We share remarkable insights from Mathias's recent DrupalCon presentation, 'The Big Impact of Open Source', that triggers thought-provoking questions. Together, we dig into the correlation between open source and business, its role in societal improvement, and the personal gains it offers. Experience first-hand our open source journey as we ponder the worth of open source for business and society. We also shed light on the diversity within open source communities that leads to more informed outcomes and a strong ROI.
We move past the conventional understanding of open source being merely about software creation. We discuss the pivotal role of the TYPO3 Association in using open source as an effective tool for international aid and development. We connect the dots between open source and democracy to form self-organizing communities. We also lay out the potential for governments to adopt open source software for open data platforms. We wrap up with a stimulating debate on the need for collaboration and marketing within the open source realm and the necessity for unity among its communities. Tune in for a mind-opening dialogue on the far-reaching impacts of open source.
Show notes
- Mathias at DrupalCon Pittsburgh 2023: The Big Impact of Open Source
- Aiden Dean Dunn’s article in the Drop Times: Open Source as a Humanitarian Opportunity
- Mathia’s micro podcast: Open Source Utopia
- Catch Jam and Mathias at DrupalCon Lille, October 2023: Defend FOSS: From innovation to positive change, we need to remind the world what we're about
- TYPO3 Report: Open Source Standardization of Government Websites in Rwanda
Welcome to the Open Strategy Partners podcast, "Communicate, Connect, Grow!" At Open Strategy Partners, we specialize in strategic product communication. We help you communicate the value of what you do, connect you with the people who need to know about it, and grow.
To get in touch with us, follow what we’re doing, or learn about our Writer Enablement Workshops, you can:
- Go to our website
- Email us at hello@openstrategypartners.com
- Hit us up on Twitter
- Subscribe to our podcast wherever you listen to podcasts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Carl Richards (00:07):
Hi, I'm Carl from OSP and this is Communicate
Connect Grow, the OSP podcast.
In this episode, we're talkingabout the value and impact of
open source At OSP.
We do a lot of thinking aboutwhat makes for effective,
consistent communication.
In this podcast, we want toshow you how we translate
(00:28):
between technical complexity andbusiness value to create
strategic product communicationat OSP and we want to learn more
from you and our guests.
This episode is part of ourGrow series on the podcast.
Grow episodes cover strategicapproaches to understanding and
expressing the value of what youdo.
Today, OSPeas Felicity Brand,Jeffrey A Maguire and Mathias
(01:08):
Bolt Lesniak discuss an articlethat was written in response to
Matthias's recent DrupalConpresentation the Big Impact of
Open Source.
The article was published inthe Drop Times and raised some
unanswered questions that thegroup have fun exploring.
Please enjoy this conversationabout the Big Impact of Open
Source.
Felicity Brand (01:28):
G'day everyone.
I'm Felicity Brand,communications consultant at OSP
.
Today I'm joined by my boss,Jeffrey A Jam Maguire and my
colleague, Mathias Bolt Lesniak,and today we're talking about
open source ethos and free andopen source software, also
(01:49):
called FOSS.
So both Jam and Matthiasrecently attended and presented
at DrupalCon, Pittsburgh.
Drupal is a massively popularopen source CMS and you are both
interested in specifically theimpact of open source on
business and society.
So, Matthias, your talk wascalled the Big Impact of Open
(02:11):
Source, and Jam, I know you area FOSS evangelist and have
recently given a presentationcalled Open Source Impact from
innovation to positive change.
So I'm going to let you bothspeak in a moment, but I just
wanted to frame thisconversation.
After DrupalCon, the Drop Times,which is a Drupal newsletter,
(02:34):
published an article written byAiden Dean Dunn, who said that
Matthias's presentationcontained some unanswered
questions, and Aiden went on toask some unanswered questions of
his own.
So today we want to talk aboutsome of those questions and some
of those answers.
The way I see it, there arethree broad topics that we
(02:55):
should touch on today.
One is business and open source.
The other is business and thebetterment of society and
thirdly, the benefits toindividuals of open source.
So let's kick off with our opensource experience and
credentials Jam.
Would you like to introduceyourself?
Jam (03:16):
Thank you, felicity.
I would For me that you calledme your boss out loud.
I don't hear that every day.
I co-founded Open StrategyPartners with Tracy Evans and
really proud and happy of whatwe do here.
I have an open sourcebackground that goes back to
about 2005 and my first opensource project was, in fact,
(03:39):
drupal.
I've been involved centrally orperipherally in a bunch of
other projects and communities.
My day to day work is creatingstrategically relevant
communications for technologyorganizations and, as the name
kind of hints at, open StrategyPartners specializes especially
(04:04):
in helping agencies, productcompanies, open source projects
who use, build, work with andsell the fruits of open source
software.
Felicity Brand (04:15):
Wonderful, great to have you here today, Mathias
.
You are on the board of theTYPO 3 Association, a large open
source CMS, and you are alsothe creator of the podcast, open
Source Utopia.
Would you like to introduceyourself?
Mathias (04:30):
Yes, so I am Mathias Bolt Lesniak, I am a board
member of the Association and Ialso make the podcast, the Open
Source Utopia, which isactually a micro podcast, just
to correct you there for amoment and also to just draw the
line.
I mean, you talked about theboss and stuff, and if we're in
Super Mario, then of courseFelicity is Super Mario and Jam
(04:56):
is the boss and I am the magicmushroom in this constellation,
I guess.
Jam (05:02):
Now, Mathias, it's not the size of the podcast.
It's what you do with itExactly.
Felicity Brand (05:07):
All right.
Well, let's make some magichere today.
So one of the things that Aidenspoke about in his article is
business and open source, and hesays if you were speaking to a
business who cared only abouttheir business, not about
morality and societal ethics,how would you convince them to
(05:28):
join Open Source?
Is this a valid question?
What do we think about this?
Jam (05:33):
I want to say first off that if I were speaking with a
company that truly didn't careabout morality and ethics, I
think it would be a very shortconversation for me.
First of all, I think that itis a legitimate motivation to
want to make money and I ampleased to be in a position
where my company is makingenough money and providing
(05:55):
services so that we help ourclients, who are friends and
colleagues from my open sourcepath, and help everyone keep
their rent paid.
I was thinking about thisquestion and there's a really
interesting parallel.
It's pretty clearly understoodand accepted among many people
that diversity withinorganizations creates better
(06:17):
outcomes, more differentperspectives from geography,
background, age, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera
please fill in all of the blanksgenerally leads to better
informed outcomes, and there aremany reports out there, as I
understand it, that indicate hey, you can make more money with
(06:39):
better teams and you can makebetter products with better
teams, and so on.
Diversity is not about beingnice to people and letting
people in because of somethingelse.
There's really hard businessreasons for it.
If you want to be responsibleabout your investment in your
(07:02):
technology stacks to produce abetter return on investment over
time, more custom tailored,better, more interesting
products.
There is a large swath of areaswhere open source, free and
open source software andapplications are going to give
(07:22):
you and by the by interestingly,free and open source software
communities tend to be open anddiverse too You're building on a
very broad basis.
I don't think there's a moralquestion to any of that.
I think it makes good businesssense.
Felicity Brand (07:39):
It's more than just the obvious point of open
source software is generallyfree.
You're not paying a per seatlicense to a proprietary company
.
That is better for yourbusiness.
Anyway, Matias, please chime inhere.
Mathias (07:56):
I think it's a very interesting observation that I
can make around what Jan justsaid.
That is, I think, really thecrux of the matter here.
I mean, jan didn't talkanything about business.
He actually talked about peopleand humans.
I think that is really theimportant thing here that
companies don't have a will oftheir own.
(08:17):
If you talk to a company, youactually talk to people.
If there is a company that isso thoroughly rotten that it
doesn't care about it humans atall you're going to have a
really hard time turning thatcompany around.
But as soon as you can actuallytalk to the people, I think
it's a totally differentconversation.
Felicity Brand (08:39):
Indeed, do you think we need to be convincing
businesses to join Open Source?
Jam (08:46):
Yes, absolutely Tiny bit of backstory about our two
presentations that you mentionedin the introduction.
They both stem from the sameconversation and the same
impulses over the course of 2022and 2023.
(09:06):
Matthias and I have noticed abunch of things going on and
came to the conclusion that, infact, there was less open source
evangelism going on than wethink we need, and we is the
open source communities, opensource businesses, open source
projects, and we postulatedseveral reasons for that.
(09:29):
And I find it very interesting,out of the same set of notes
and the same bullet points, wewent off and independently
created very differentpresentations which have both
been very successful at severalevents, and in September,
october we're actuallyco-presenting.
We're going to get merge all ofthose two presentations into
(09:50):
each other and see what we cando at Drupal Con in Lille in
France.
So that's really interesting.
I feel like, starting with thefinancial crisis of 2008,
projects like Drupal and TYPO 3really flourished.
Content management is a littlebit easier to explain than some
other kinds of software andpeople were looking at their
(10:11):
bottom line really, really hardmore than ever, and just being
able to say, hey, it's freequote, unquote, of course was a
huge argument I've got to saybefore we go any further open
source is not free.
You are free to use it, andthere's a lot more that we can
(10:33):
go into about that.
But that was a reallycompelling, easy argument and
since then, open source softwareunderpins most of the internet.
Open source software is inevery single computerized
automobile, is in every singleairplane, is in every single
smartphone, and open source kindof won.
And the tech stack underneaththe internet is, I don't even
(10:55):
know 90% open source, but halfof the websites that we can see
and visit online are built onopen source community projects,
right.
So we kind of won.
And then, if you're not lookingat the video, I'm doing giant
air quotes.
We won and I have friends andagencies who have been at 120%
(11:18):
capacity since 2008.
And they don't need toevangelize and they don't need
to think and they don't need towork very hard to do great and
do good things in the worldRight.
But I think because we had anincredible decade and now
getting onto 15 years since thefinancial crisis 2008, it's been
(11:38):
really easy not to worry andwe've forgotten to tell people
why we're special, why we'redifferent, how an economy of
plenty is fundamentallycompletely different to economy
of scarcity, how you, you knowall of the business things about
open source, redirecting yourbudget to features, not licenses
, adding more features, not, youknow, not going cheaper, going
(11:59):
better, and so on and so on andso on.
And I think, because we've doneso well, we've gotten quite
complacent and I there have beenseveral tenders in the last
year that have gone to non opensource projects where there was
a really good reason for it tobe open source.
And there are more coming upand Matias and I agreed that it
was time to go out and tellpeople.
(12:20):
So, yes, absolutely we need togo talk about it.
Mathias (12:23):
Yeah, and I think the interesting thing as well with
our two presentations is that wetake a different approach to
the urgency.
I think jam has a much urgentmessage than what I have.
I am more of an idealist and Iguess evangelism is can be done
(12:44):
at both those levels.
But the thing that is, I thinkthat we actually forgot, is that
open source is actually not achoice for everybody.
We've made open source sopopular that it has become
products, and people arechoosing products without
(13:06):
thinking about the deeperphilosophy behind it.
So one of the big messages thatI am trying to give out when I
have my presentation is reallythat when you talk about you
know open source contentmanagement systems like Drupal
and and WordPress and andJoomla, well, we have to stop
(13:28):
talking about them.
What we have to do is we haveto convince the client that open
source is the right choicefirst.
Then the customers will have tochoose the open source system
that is best for them, that hasthe features that are best for
them, and finally, which is veryimportant, they don't just
choose the system.
(13:48):
They also choose the agency orthe partner that has the
expertise that is necessary intheir roles, and that's a
process that we've very muchforgotten about, and that means
talking about open source as awhite label technology is really
, really important.
If we don't talk about it thatway, the choice will always be
(14:11):
between some brand and another,without really giving the client
the opportunity To making theright choice from the get go.
Jam (14:22):
That was a really interesting point that you came
up with, matthias, running intopeople who say Open source I
tried that 10 years ago and itdidn't work for me or open
source we had that once in myprevious company and I hated it.
And in our communities, youknow, we have the tendency to be
like oh wordpress, oh Drupal,oh, and at this very navel
(14:46):
gazing level between styles ofprojects and interfaces and so
on, when other people arethrowing every single project
into one giant bucket andsticking a big sticker on it.
And it came out when I went toseveral conferences when I was
working on my presentation anddid birds of a feather sessions,
did discussion sessions abouthey, what are your impressions
(15:07):
of the situation and what wouldyou like to do.
And it came out many times thatyou know people don't know that
if you're going to make opensource the big brand, right, if
we represent big open source,there's tens to hundreds of
thousands of people working onthis and working with this every
(15:28):
day and making it better everyday.
And even Apple, adobe, ibm, like, none of them, are as big as
that.
Right, none of them are doingas many projects or working as
hard on features and testing andreliability and deliverability
and usability for regular peopleand it's a superpower and a lot
(15:49):
of people were saying to melike hey, we got to figure out
how to make it a brand and ofcourse then it dissolves into a
lot of bike shedding about.
Well, there's the ApacheFoundation and yes, but this and
the Linux Foundation wassupposed to, and so that's.
But that's all like, not thepoint of today.
But we think at this perproject, per website level, per
(16:10):
community level and lessinformed people who could
benefit from our technologiesdon't, yeah, and it's something
we don't learn in school.
Mathias (16:19):
Most people are really far off thinking that we're
using an open source.
I mean, open source is reallyabout just getting something
away and not even expectingsomething back.
You just have a notion thatmaybe somebody picks up what
you're sharing them and can helpmake it better, and that is
(16:40):
very, very different.
But one thing that you pointout there, jam, is also this
fact that open source isactually bigger than the biggest
tech giants today, and I thinkthat illustrates in a way that,
yes, open source is successful.
This isn't really about justgenerating endless profits.
It's about what you do with theNANRs that you put into the
(17:04):
system.
It's about what you do inaddition to the actual projects,
and I think open sourceprojects have a much bigger task
than just creating software.
Felicity Brand (17:17):
I think that's segues nicely into the second
topic that we wanted to covertoday, which is business and the
betterment of society.
So in his article, aiden raisedthis point there is a way to
achieve the double bottom lineof profitability and the
betterment of society.
But until you can present thespecific details of how to make
the change, the big conceptsremain concepts.
(17:40):
I mean, I guess he has a point.
I guess he wants us to spell itout for him.
What ideas have we got here?
Jam (17:49):
Well, I was rubbing my hands gleefully in the
background.
The one group of people who Ihave found incredibly inspiring
over recent years is the Type 03Association and the Type 03
community in general.
I will start with the Type 03Association and the Type 03
(18:13):
community have either created orcertainly advanced a form of
international aid anddevelopment help that is only
possible with open source and isonly possible because we are
free to share, study, modify anddistribute the software and the
(18:37):
changes in software.
The government of Rwanda got intouch with the Type 03
Association and said we've got abunch of websites and the error
messages say Type 03 on themand we don't know how to get
into them and we don't know howto update them.
And we're making a digitalpolicy and we're working on our
economy and please help and theassociation and didn't just like
(18:59):
call its top five partneragencies or something and say,
hey, you know, sure, thegovernment of Rwanda, no problem
, how many millions can youafford?
The association said we aregoing to look at your
infrastructure, we're going totell you what the situation is.
We are going to help youupgrade to current software in a
(19:21):
sustainable way, while traininggovernment employees and local
agencies and young people fromthe economy to do it for
yourselves.
So the Type 03 Associationessentially gave a digital
phishing poll to Rwanda and theRwandan government now has more
than 250 Type 03 sites onup-to-date, secure versions and
(19:46):
there's more of the digitalvalue iceberg exposed there.
And there's this incrediblepower when it only costs the
cost of a video call now, today,to train somebody, to have a
conversation with them, to dosupport right, and we can enable
them to do so.
So very much with that Createeconomic opportunity, create
(20:09):
educational opportunity and,matias, I'd like you to segue
into how open source anddemocracy come together this way
.
Mathias (20:17):
Yeah, I can do that.
Let me just say first, becausethere is a really important
thing here about how open sourceworks, because open source is
not driven first and foremost byfinancial gain.
We talked about that a littlebit earlier as well, and that
means that the real successindicator for an open source
(20:39):
project is not how much moneythe founder of the project earns
.
The success indicator isactually the size of the
community.
The bigger the community is,the greater the success of the
project is, and that is becauseof the reciprocals process,
where you give something out andsomebody else picks it up and
(21:01):
improves it and allows you toget it back and improve on it
further, and it creates thiswhole synergy where more and
more people can contribute andwork on the system.
And of course, I mean, if youthink about it in a well, say it
a bit in an ugly way maybe youcould say that that is anarchy.
(21:24):
But it isn't anarchy, becauseone of the core things of open
source projects that aresuccessful is that they have a
governance structure.
It's not only about lots ofpeople doing lots of things,
it's about organizing all ofthese contributions into a
fruitful system that reallydevelops the product and that
(21:47):
way of working together issomething that happens between
people, usually under theauspices of some kind of
membership, organization ornot-for-profit.
That helps that process comeabout and that means that there
is this is a self-organizingcommunity where people take up
(22:10):
the responsibility that isneeded for the success of the
greater software product or thegreater good, and that is very,
very similar to what it actuallyis, something that we see in
all healthy societies, and thatis a civil society.
(22:30):
Civil society plays a reallystrong role in every healthy
society in organizing peoplearound interests, but also
organizing people in free speechand democratic training.
We could call it.
It is a training platform forworking together and making
(22:52):
decisions and, well, peacefulcoexistence.
So by working with open source,you're also strengthening the
foundations of any democracy.
And then you can come at thatand say, well, a government that
doesn't choose open source is agovernment that does not
support its own foundations indemocracy.
Jam (23:14):
And we said that we were going to prove that there are
pragmatic aspects to this and itjust doesn't have to be about
ideas.
But yeah, there are wonderfulexamples, for example, now in
many countries where governmentsbuild open data platforms with
open source software and, as anexample, it's a few years ago
(23:35):
and I believe it's not relevantanymore, but the government of
the city of New York opens, opensourced, the data around the
metropolitan transit authoritiestimetable and at one point
there were 100 or 130 New Yorksubway apps available in the app
(23:56):
store that enabled people tofeed their families and pay
their rent and make a living,and it's not exactly open source
.
But this idea of spend publicmoney on public code right, if
my taxes are creating a datastore, I would like that to be
publicly, generally publiclyavailable as well, and so on.
So, yeah, there's a lot ofthere's a lot of pragmatism as
(24:20):
well as this other side thissoftware that helps so many
people.
So, the very, very pragmaticfacts, like this software
enables us to found agencies anddo client business and pay the
rent I'll come back to that fromcross border, transparent, open
communities who practice the tobeing their best selves and the
(24:43):
best sorts of communication anddemocracy or consensus based
decision making out in the opento arrive at the best results
that we can at the time right,and those things power better
businesses that deliver betterROI right.
So for me it comes back.
(25:04):
I mean it goes right fromdiversity to international
cooperation and community drivenprojects, into legitimate
business interest too, whatyou're talking about now as well
, is well that.
Mathias (25:17):
That's true for developed countries and
developing countries alike.
But if you look at developingcountries or global south
countries that still have a wayto go to to reach those human
development and Economic goalsthat are necessary, one of the
reasons why those countries arewhere they are today is because
(25:42):
of exploitation and colonialism,and that's in many cases the
fault of the developed nations.
The developed nations havedeveloped with the help of of
the global south, stillcontinuing that process of
exploiting poorer countries, andopen source can actually play a
(26:06):
role in Leveling the playingfield there, because open source
does not have the built-inDependency that very many
proprietary software solutionshave.
For example, with open source,you don't have to pay a license
fee, you don't have to pay amonthly fee to have access to
(26:27):
your data.
That means that anyone canstart a business around an open
source product and that opensource product can earn the
money from day one.
And instead of you first havingto Find money maybe borrow it
from someone, maybe borrowborrowing it from from overseas
(26:48):
even and then Starting to paymoney to someone else in order
to be able to do your business,and that means that well, it's
leveling the playing fields, butit's also not exploitative in
any way.
It's actually just giving youopportunities that you can take
up if you want to, and On top ofthat again, it is building a
(27:13):
situation where you mightactually be able to have an
expertise that might beinteresting for you to both sell
to your local community butalso export to other countries.
Felicity Brand (27:24):
Yes, beautiful summary and jam.
You mentioned earlier a digitalfishing rod, and I assume what
you mean by that is From the oldsaying give a man a fish, you
feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, you feedhim for a lifetime, and I I
think that's a really beautifulanalogy, especially around the
really cool project and workthat type o3 have been doing.
(27:45):
Well, I mentioned the projectthat they did in Rwanda and your
type o3 is also looking toreplicate and Continue those
good works in other developingnations.
Jam (27:55):
So we will link to the PDF of that Report about that
project in the show notes herevery interesting.
Felicity Brand (28:03):
Now let's move on to the final topic for our
conversation, which is thebenefits of open source to
individuals.
So, aidan said, the open sourcesoftware community as a whole,
I guess, must be prepared toexplain to the wider world of
users Exactly how open sourcecan benefit them and why they
(28:25):
are at a loss without it.
So when I first read that, Iwas a bit taken aback, but I
have thought about it and havesince come into some
interactions where it's obviousto me that I'm in an echo
chamber you know, I'm drinkingthe open source Kool-Aid, so I'm
already convinced.
But I still encounter peopleevery day who are new to open
(28:46):
source.
So so we do need to keeptelling people what it is, why
it's good, how it can benefitthem.
And there has been a recentexample of, I suppose, one group
of open source communitiesgetting together, and that is
the cross community meetingbetween several open source
(29:07):
CMS's Drupal, type o3, wordpressand Juma and they specifically
were getting together to respondto the cyber resilience act in
Europe.
But as I understand it, that isa group that's going to
continue meeting and talkingtogether, and so can you think
of other examples, though?
Jan, you mentioned earlierLinux foundation and do we need
(29:30):
a broader body that representsopen source Holistically, or is
that never gonna happen?
You know how do we respond to ano.
Jam (29:38):
There's a word in German called faeinsmaier I and it is
how people behave when they joinclubs, and Club life in Germany
is, surprise, surprise,relatively bureaucratic, and you
have to have a constitutingdocument and you have to have an
annual general meeting and youhave to have a secretary and a
treasurer and so on, and somepeople live for this activity of
(30:04):
of being in the club right, andWhile some people just want to
do the hobby right, there are abunch of organizations and
foundations out there and I havea lot of trouble saying yes, of
course we should just gettogether and elect a chairman.
And I've seen over the years,whether in government or in
(30:27):
business, fear.
I've seen lots of planning toplan and Preparing to prepare.
So I would say, having beenpart of the process of preparing
that, the letter to theEuropean Parliament and
Commission, and having attendedthat webinar, I think we should
be talking with each other and Ithink it was really incredible
(30:50):
to see all of those people inthe same virtual room, having
clearly spent time together andand come to the conclusion that
we need to be a brand speakingas one voice.
And Do you know what theEuropean I'm not sure
politicians, bureaucrats, peopleactually listened and that
group got meetings when theypresumably have the chance to
(31:13):
influence the course of thisparticular decision.
So that proves the point thatwe need a brand.
That proves the point that ifwe get together and act with
some level of coordination, wecan move the needle, which is
amazing.
It's my home base, but I kindof wonder if we need some sort
(31:33):
of a marketing Group.
You know, for example, over inPHP land we have PHP fig which
has done Some incredible thingsfor software compatibility.
That's awesome.
That works.
As far as I'm concerned, apatchy foundation has done great
work.
Great work and the idea thatyou can have an open source
project and be absorbed intothat so that they can take care
(31:54):
of the Non-profitness and all ofthat kind of stuff and
promotion and and so on.
That's really cool.
The Linux foundation has goneback and forth with its own
problems.
I don't know that I really wantto walk into that to try and do
something else, right, butwe've got a bunch of great
stories and we've got we didn'treally touch on it yet but the
work in Rwanda.
(32:16):
There are other countrieslooking at it and there is the
chance to develop a Digitalgovernment standard as an open
source standard and then helppeople implement it right.
And I think there's wonderfulmessaging to do and wonderful
ways where we could packageDistributions to be like here's
your Drupal government startedpack, here's your type of three
government started pack, here'syour API whatever, and like we
(32:38):
could do so much together on atechnical level.
Or and Right, we could just putthe messaging together to say
like hey, really, really, opensource is a great way to make a
living, a great way to improvethe world, and here's a bunch of
like, here's why open source.
You know, cms garden in Germanydoes Quite a good job at parts
(33:04):
of this, but it's remained a bitof a niche effort and in in
Germany.
So so you know, I'm not sureit's the model I would suggest,
but like yeah, I think amarketing something.
Mathias (33:19):
Well, we definitely, you know.
I think we definitely have toget better at explaining open
source.
That is a fundamental truth, Ithink.
And yes, we can createorganizations and Collaborate as
a sort of ecumenical whateveryou want to call it Between
(33:41):
different, different open sourceinitiatives, but to me, it's
actually much deeper than thanactually organizing us when
we're already a project.
I think this is something thatneeds to go into the educational
system.
As I mentioned, this isn'tsomething we're learning in
school.
People are learningold-fashioned, traditional
(34:04):
economy, and open source is notlike that.
It is very, very foreign toanything that you learn in
school today.
And I would say that I think ifyou speak about open source to
quote, unquote, normal peoplewho haven't heard about it
(34:25):
before they will have a realdifficulty understanding how you
earn money with it.
Yes, and that is something weneed to address, and on a very
fundamental level Right, it'scounterintuitive and weird.
Jam (34:42):
And, to my point from earlier, we have forgotten that
it's weird, right, and we'veforgotten that it's incredibly
special and powerful that wehave conferences where competing
agencies who literally arepitching the same clients.
(35:03):
They want to do the same work,they're in the same cities or
regions, the competing with eachother 50 weeks of the year
right, go to two conferences, ortext code sprints through the
year and all these things andliterally sit next to each other
and literally work out how tomake the technology that they
(35:23):
both use better together, sharecode, share their best ideas,
tell their stories to each other.
And there are ugly words likeco-opetition and something, but
like the fact that we dared togive away our best idea one time
, trusted enough to try that,and that thing came back better
(35:46):
because one or 1,000 people sawit and they're like, oh, I
needed that, thank you, that'sawesome.
And, by the way, I also addedthis other button that makes the
thing green, because you onlyhad blue and red and like you
get your code back, your idea,back your business model back
with improvements for free,right, it's incredible.
(36:07):
It's incredible.
And, in that vein, back togovernments for a second.
Not only is it non-exploitative.
If you say, here's this codethat you can use and here's all
of our documentation, doanything you want with it, and
here's a Slack channel full offriends that you can ask for
help, right, people can run withthat as far as they want to you
(36:30):
.
Also, instead of sending moneyout of your country to pay the
big three or five or six techcompanies for licenses to do a
thing, you can pay local serviceproviders to provide you
services locally, and that meansthe tax money goes back into
the economy and generates morerevenue.
You can employ local people touse exactly the same tools that
(36:54):
people everywhere else at thehighest levels of industry or
government or education oranything.
You can use the same tools,right, and that's amazing.
So I'm getting this super vibe.
That TS's micro podcast opensource utopia is super
idealistic and it's really weirdand interesting and everybody
should definitely listen to it.
One, it doesn't take very long.
(37:15):
Two, but TS blew my mind whenhe showed me the concepts before
he recorded them, and they arenew and different open source
stories that I had never heardbefore, after having been
evangelizing open source for 15years.
I think that we could do onthis podcast.
I think that we could do.
(37:35):
I don't want to call it opensource 101, but all of these
base concepts that are deeplyweird the economy of plenty,
giving away your best ideas andso on and so on I think that
they would be really, reallybrilliant like pragmatic
concepts that would complementthe open source utopia ideas
quite nicely.
I would love to contribute that.
Felicity Brand (37:56):
That sounds fantastic and I'm really hoping
to speak with members from agroup called the Open
Organization, open AWOG, and Ithink they are a group who are
looking to take concepts fromopen source and applying them
into different domains, likeeducation, like business.
So I find that deeplyinteresting.
(38:18):
I think we've covered a lot ofground here.
We've answered a lot ofquestions.
Is there anything that?
Any final thoughts from eitherof you before we wrap up?
Mathias (38:29):
Yeah, I can add to what Jam said about government's
investment and local agencies,and that is that what happens
when you put that money intoyour local workforce is that
you're also developing localexpertise and that expertise can
be used to create new businesswithin the country as well, and
(38:52):
not to forget that you can alsocreate a business that goes
across borders and thatcollaborates with other
countries and that is generallycreating peace.
And the second thing I can sayis we need to really get down to
basics when I do mypresentations.
Now I did one yesterday for arotary club and I mean, one of
(39:16):
my favorite slides that I'musing now are actually cookie
based.
So I'm talking about cakes andI'm talking about gingerbread
and I'm really taking it down tothe most basic level of how do
you think when you do opensource.
Jam (39:33):
I'm really looking forward to seeing those new slides.
Felicity Brand (39:35):
Yeah, I hope there's recipes.
Jam (39:38):
My big conclusion from this conversation and responding to
the Drop Times article, is thatthis is not a moral, ethical
question.
It doesn't have to be at all.
Pragmatically, there are reallygood reasons to use open source
(39:59):
a lot of the time and it is aclear winner on quality of
technology, security, ease ofuse and, in the end, on return
on investment for a lot ofapplications.
And yet, at the same time, wehave this halo around the
(40:21):
pragmatic stuff.
That is also real.
We're building internationalcommunities of understanding
People who are motivated towardssimilar outcomes tend to
interact, learn to interact witheach other peacefully and
constructively, and we do havethe ability to spread the
(40:43):
benefit of what we do.
And yet I still don't feel likeI have to make some moral case
to tell you to believe in opensource.
Mathias (40:51):
And if you're an evangelist, it can't be a halo.
It has to be a story.
Felicity Brand (40:58):
Well, I think that wraps it up.
I would like to say thank youto Aidan Dean Dunn for writing
that article in the drop timesbecause, although it is
disappointing, one gives apresentation in a public
conference that not everyresponse is.
That was amazing.
Thank you, you know.
It's good.
This has given us anopportunity to respond to some
(41:22):
interesting points that heraised and we're going to
continue this conversation andkeep talking about it, keep
evangelizing, because we believein the power of open source and
we want to tell people about it.
So thank you very much for yourtime Today, both of you.
Carl Richards (41:56):
We hope you enjoyed listening to Felicity's
conversation with Jam andMatthias.
If you have questions, head onover to the show notes, where
you'll find links and referencesto the material mentioned today
, and feel free to reach out tous as well via Twitter at open
underscore strategy, or email.
Hello at open strategy partnersdot com.
(42:17):
Thanks to everyone whocontributed to this podcast all
the P's and OSP.
Thanks to our clients whobelieve in us.
Shout out to Patrick O'Maw forour high energy maple syrup
flavored theme music and to MikeSnow for additional horn
arrangements.
Thank you for listening andsubscribing.
(42:37):
About our three themes on thepodcast you'll hear from
different members of the OSPteam hosting episodes over time.
Communicate All things.
Communication we share how wetackle writing, editing, word
choices, formats, processes andmore.
Connect In-depth conversationswith interesting, smart people
(42:58):
about who they are, what they doand how they approach their
life and work as communicators,technologists and leaders grow.
We cover strategic approachesto understanding and expressing
the value of what you do,including tools, templates and
practical applications.
We also feel strongly aboutbuilding a mindful, positive,
(43:21):
human first culture at work.
That's bound to pop up fromtime to time too.
This podcast is us figuring out, communication, connection and
growing together.
Subscribe now on YouTube, applePodcasts or the podcast channel
of your choice.
Follow us, suggest guests andtopics, ask us questions.
(43:42):
On social media, we are at OpenUnderscore Strategy on Twitter
Until next time.
Thanks for listening toCommunicate, connect, grow the
OSP podcast.
Hi, I'm Carl from OSP and this is Communicate
Connect Grow, the OSP podcast.
In this episode, we're talkingabout the value and impact of
open source At OSP.
We do a lot of thinking aboutwhat makes for effective,
consistent communication.
In this podcast, we want toshow you how we translate
(00:28):
between technical complexity andbusiness value to create
strategic product communicationat OSP and we want to learn more
from you and our guests.
This episode is part of ourGrow series on the podcast.
Grow episodes cover strategicapproaches to understanding and
expressing the value of what youdo.
Today, OSPeas Felicity Brand,Jeffrey A Maguire and Mathias
(01:08):
Bolt Lesniak discuss an articlethat was written in response to
Matthias's recent DrupalConpresentation the Big Impact of
Open Source.
The article was published inthe Drop Times and raised some
unanswered questions that thegroup have fun exploring.
Please enjoy this conversationabout the Big Impact of Open
Source.
Felicity Brand (01:28):
G'day everyone.
I'm Felicity Brand,communications consultant at OSP
.
Today I'm joined by my boss,Jeffrey A Jam Maguire and my
colleague, Mathias Bolt Lesniak,and today we're talking about
open source ethos and free andopen source software, also
(01:49):
called FOSS.
So both Jam and Matthiasrecently attended and presented
at DrupalCon, Pittsburgh.
Drupal is a massively popularopen source CMS and you are both
interested in specifically theimpact of open source on
business and society.
So, Matthias, your talk wascalled the Big Impact of Open
(02:11):
Source, and Jam, I know you area FOSS evangelist and have
recently given a presentationcalled Open Source Impact from
innovation to positive change.
So I'm going to let you bothspeak in a moment, but I just
wanted to frame thisconversation.
After DrupalCon, the Drop Times,which is a Drupal newsletter,
(02:34):
published an article written byAiden Dean Dunn, who said that
Matthias's presentationcontained some unanswered
questions, and Aiden went on toask some unanswered questions of
his own.
So today we want to talk aboutsome of those questions and some
of those answers.
The way I see it, there arethree broad topics that we
(02:55):
should touch on today.
One is business and open source.
The other is business and thebetterment of society and
thirdly, the benefits toindividuals of open source.
So let's kick off with our opensource experience and
credentials Jam.
Would you like to introduceyourself?
Jam (03:16):
Thank you, felicity.
I would For me that you calledme your boss out loud.
I don't hear that every day.
I co-founded Open StrategyPartners with Tracy Evans and
really proud and happy of whatwe do here.
I have an open sourcebackground that goes back to
about 2005 and my first opensource project was, in fact,
(03:39):
drupal.
I've been involved centrally orperipherally in a bunch of
other projects and communities.
My day to day work is creatingstrategically relevant
communications for technologyorganizations and, as the name
kind of hints at, open StrategyPartners specializes especially
(04:04):
in helping agencies, productcompanies, open source projects
who use, build, work with andsell the fruits of open source
software.
Felicity Brand (04:15):
Wonderful, great to have you here today, Mathias
.
You are on the board of theTYPO 3 Association, a large open
source CMS, and you are alsothe creator of the podcast, open
Source Utopia.
Would you like to introduceyourself?
Mathias (04:30):
Yes, so I am Mathias Bolt Lesniak, I am a board
member of the Association and Ialso make the podcast, the Open
Source Utopia, which isactually a micro podcast, just
to correct you there for amoment and also to just draw the
line.
I mean, you talked about theboss and stuff, and if we're in
Super Mario, then of courseFelicity is Super Mario and Jam
(04:56):
is the boss and I am the magicmushroom in this constellation,
I guess.
Jam (05:02):
Now, Mathias, it's not the size of the podcast.
It's what you do with itExactly.
Felicity Brand (05:07):
All right.
Well, let's make some magichere today.
So one of the things that Aidenspoke about in his article is
business and open source, and hesays if you were speaking to a
business who cared only abouttheir business, not about
morality and societal ethics,how would you convince them to
(05:28):
join Open Source?
Is this a valid question?
What do we think about this?
Jam (05:33):
I want to say first off that if I were speaking with a
company that truly didn't careabout morality and ethics, I
think it would be a very shortconversation for me.
First of all, I think that itis a legitimate motivation to
want to make money and I ampleased to be in a position
where my company is makingenough money and providing
(05:55):
services so that we help ourclients, who are friends and
colleagues from my open sourcepath, and help everyone keep
their rent paid.
I was thinking about thisquestion and there's a really
interesting parallel.
It's pretty clearly understoodand accepted among many people
that diversity withinorganizations creates better
(06:17):
outcomes, more differentperspectives from geography,
background, age, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera, et cetera
please fill in all of the blanksgenerally leads to better
informed outcomes, and there aremany reports out there, as I
understand it, that indicate hey, you can make more money with
(06:39):
better teams and you can makebetter products with better
teams, and so on.
Diversity is not about beingnice to people and letting
people in because of somethingelse.
There's really hard businessreasons for it.
If you want to be responsibleabout your investment in your
(07:02):
technology stacks to produce abetter return on investment over
time, more custom tailored,better, more interesting
products.
There is a large swath of areaswhere open source, free and
open source software andapplications are going to give
(07:22):
you and by the by interestingly,free and open source software
communities tend to be open anddiverse too You're building on a
very broad basis.
I don't think there's a moralquestion to any of that.
I think it makes good businesssense.
Felicity Brand (07:39):
It's more than just the obvious point of open
source software is generallyfree.
You're not paying a per seatlicense to a proprietary company
.
That is better for yourbusiness.
Anyway, Matias, please chime inhere.
Mathias (07:56):
I think it's a very interesting observation that I
can make around what Jan justsaid.
That is, I think, really thecrux of the matter here.
I mean, jan didn't talkanything about business.
He actually talked about peopleand humans.
I think that is really theimportant thing here that
companies don't have a will oftheir own.
(08:17):
If you talk to a company, youactually talk to people.
If there is a company that isso thoroughly rotten that it
doesn't care about it humans atall you're going to have a
really hard time turning thatcompany around.
But as soon as you can actuallytalk to the people, I think
it's a totally differentconversation.
Felicity Brand (08:39):
Indeed, do you think we need to be convincing
businesses to join Open Source?
Jam (08:46):
Yes, absolutely Tiny bit of backstory about our two
presentations that you mentionedin the introduction.
They both stem from the sameconversation and the same
impulses over the course of 2022and 2023.
(09:06):
Matthias and I have noticed abunch of things going on and
came to the conclusion that, infact, there was less open source
evangelism going on than wethink we need, and we is the
open source communities, opensource businesses, open source
projects, and we postulatedseveral reasons for that.
(09:29):
And I find it very interesting,out of the same set of notes
and the same bullet points, wewent off and independently
created very differentpresentations which have both
been very successful at severalevents, and in September,
october we're actuallyco-presenting.
We're going to get merge all ofthose two presentations into
(09:50):
each other and see what we cando at Drupal Con in Lille in
France.
So that's really interesting.
I feel like, starting with thefinancial crisis of 2008,
projects like Drupal and TYPO 3really flourished.
Content management is a littlebit easier to explain than some
other kinds of software andpeople were looking at their
(10:11):
bottom line really, really hardmore than ever, and just being
able to say, hey, it's freequote, unquote, of course was a
huge argument I've got to saybefore we go any further open
source is not free.
You are free to use it, andthere's a lot more that we can
(10:33):
go into about that.
But that was a reallycompelling, easy argument and
since then, open source softwareunderpins most of the internet.
Open source software is inevery single computerized
automobile, is in every singleairplane, is in every single
smartphone, and open source kindof won.
And the tech stack underneaththe internet is, I don't even
(10:55):
know 90% open source, but halfof the websites that we can see
and visit online are built onopen source community projects,
right.
So we kind of won.
And then, if you're not lookingat the video, I'm doing giant
air quotes.
We won and I have friends andagencies who have been at 120%
(11:18):
capacity since 2008.
And they don't need toevangelize and they don't need
to think and they don't need towork very hard to do great and
do good things in the worldRight.
But I think because we had anincredible decade and now
getting onto 15 years since thefinancial crisis 2008, it's been
(11:38):
really easy not to worry andwe've forgotten to tell people
why we're special, why we'redifferent, how an economy of
plenty is fundamentallycompletely different to economy
of scarcity, how you, you knowall of the business things about
open source, redirecting yourbudget to features, not licenses
, adding more features, not, youknow, not going cheaper, going
(11:59):
better, and so on and so on andso on.
And I think, because we've doneso well, we've gotten quite
complacent and I there have beenseveral tenders in the last
year that have gone to non opensource projects where there was
a really good reason for it tobe open source.
And there are more coming upand Matias and I agreed that it
was time to go out and tellpeople.
(12:20):
So, yes, absolutely we need togo talk about it.
Mathias (12:23):
Yeah, and I think the interesting thing as well with
our two presentations is that wetake a different approach to
the urgency.
I think jam has a much urgentmessage than what I have.
I am more of an idealist and Iguess evangelism is can be done
(12:44):
at both those levels.
But the thing that is, I thinkthat we actually forgot, is that
open source is actually not achoice for everybody.
We've made open source sopopular that it has become
products, and people arechoosing products without
(13:06):
thinking about the deeperphilosophy behind it.
So one of the big messages thatI am trying to give out when I
have my presentation is reallythat when you talk about you
know open source contentmanagement systems like Drupal
and and WordPress and andJoomla, well, we have to stop
(13:28):
talking about them.
What we have to do is we haveto convince the client that open
source is the right choicefirst.
Then the customers will have tochoose the open source system
that is best for them, that hasthe features that are best for
them, and finally, which is veryimportant, they don't just
choose the system.
(13:48):
They also choose the agency orthe partner that has the
expertise that is necessary intheir roles, and that's a
process that we've very muchforgotten about, and that means
talking about open source as awhite label technology is really
, really important.
If we don't talk about it thatway, the choice will always be
(14:11):
between some brand and another,without really giving the client
the opportunity To making theright choice from the get go.
Jam (14:22):
That was a really interesting point that you came
up with, matthias, running intopeople who say Open source I
tried that 10 years ago and itdidn't work for me or open
source we had that once in myprevious company and I hated it.
And in our communities, youknow, we have the tendency to be
like oh wordpress, oh Drupal,oh, and at this very navel
(14:46):
gazing level between styles ofprojects and interfaces and so
on, when other people arethrowing every single project
into one giant bucket andsticking a big sticker on it.
And it came out when I went toseveral conferences when I was
working on my presentation anddid birds of a feather sessions,
did discussion sessions abouthey, what are your impressions
(15:07):
of the situation and what wouldyou like to do.
And it came out many times thatyou know people don't know that
if you're going to make opensource the big brand, right, if
we represent big open source,there's tens to hundreds of
thousands of people working onthis and working with this every
(15:28):
day and making it better everyday.
And even Apple, adobe, ibm, like, none of them, are as big as
that.
Right, none of them are doingas many projects or working as
hard on features and testing andreliability and deliverability
and usability for regular peopleand it's a superpower and a lot
(15:49):
of people were saying to melike hey, we got to figure out
how to make it a brand and ofcourse then it dissolves into a
lot of bike shedding about.
Well, there's the ApacheFoundation and yes, but this and
the Linux Foundation wassupposed to, and so that's.
But that's all like, not thepoint of today.
But we think at this perproject, per website level, per
(16:10):
community level and lessinformed people who could
benefit from our technologiesdon't, yeah, and it's something
we don't learn in school.
Mathias (16:19):
Most people are really far off thinking that we're
using an open source.
I mean, open source is reallyabout just getting something
away and not even expectingsomething back.
You just have a notion thatmaybe somebody picks up what
you're sharing them and can helpmake it better, and that is
(16:40):
very, very different.
But one thing that you pointout there, jam, is also this
fact that open source isactually bigger than the biggest
tech giants today, and I thinkthat illustrates in a way that,
yes, open source is successful.
This isn't really about justgenerating endless profits.
It's about what you do with theNANRs that you put into the
(17:04):
system.
It's about what you do inaddition to the actual projects,
and I think open sourceprojects have a much bigger task
than just creating software.
Felicity Brand (17:17):
I think that's segues nicely into the second
topic that we wanted to covertoday, which is business and the
betterment of society.
So in his article, aiden raisedthis point there is a way to
achieve the double bottom lineof profitability and the
betterment of society.
But until you can present thespecific details of how to make
the change, the big conceptsremain concepts.
(17:40):
I mean, I guess he has a point.
I guess he wants us to spell itout for him.
What ideas have we got here?
Jam (17:49):
Well, I was rubbing my hands gleefully in the
background.
The one group of people who Ihave found incredibly inspiring
over recent years is the Type 03Association and the Type 03
community in general.
I will start with the Type 03Association and the Type 03
(18:13):
community have either created orcertainly advanced a form of
international aid anddevelopment help that is only
possible with open source and isonly possible because we are
free to share, study, modify anddistribute the software and the
(18:37):
changes in software.
The government of Rwanda got intouch with the Type 03
Association and said we've got abunch of websites and the error
messages say Type 03 on themand we don't know how to get
into them and we don't know howto update them.
And we're making a digitalpolicy and we're working on our
economy and please help and theassociation and didn't just like
(18:59):
call its top five partneragencies or something and say,
hey, you know, sure, thegovernment of Rwanda, no problem
, how many millions can youafford?
The association said we aregoing to look at your
infrastructure, we're going totell you what the situation is.
We are going to help youupgrade to current software in a
(19:21):
sustainable way, while traininggovernment employees and local
agencies and young people fromthe economy to do it for
yourselves.
So the Type 03 Associationessentially gave a digital
phishing poll to Rwanda and theRwandan government now has more
than 250 Type 03 sites onup-to-date, secure versions and
(19:46):
there's more of the digitalvalue iceberg exposed there.
And there's this incrediblepower when it only costs the
cost of a video call now, today,to train somebody, to have a
conversation with them, to dosupport right, and we can enable
them to do so.
So very much with that Createeconomic opportunity, create
(20:09):
educational opportunity and,matias, I'd like you to segue
into how open source anddemocracy come together this way
.
Mathias (20:17):
Yeah, I can do that.
Let me just say first, becausethere is a really important
thing here about how open sourceworks, because open source is
not driven first and foremost byfinancial gain.
We talked about that a littlebit earlier as well, and that
means that the real successindicator for an open source
(20:39):
project is not how much moneythe founder of the project earns
.
The success indicator isactually the size of the
community.
The bigger the community is,the greater the success of the
project is, and that is becauseof the reciprocals process,
where you give something out andsomebody else picks it up and
(21:01):
improves it and allows you toget it back and improve on it
further, and it creates thiswhole synergy where more and
more people can contribute andwork on the system.
And of course, I mean, if youthink about it in a well, say it
a bit in an ugly way maybe youcould say that that is anarchy.
(21:24):
But it isn't anarchy, becauseone of the core things of open
source projects that aresuccessful is that they have a
governance structure.
It's not only about lots ofpeople doing lots of things,
it's about organizing all ofthese contributions into a
fruitful system that reallydevelops the product and that
(21:47):
way of working together issomething that happens between
people, usually under theauspices of some kind of
membership, organization ornot-for-profit.
That helps that process comeabout and that means that there
is this is a self-organizingcommunity where people take up
(22:10):
the responsibility that isneeded for the success of the
greater software product or thegreater good, and that is very,
very similar to what it actuallyis, something that we see in
all healthy societies, and thatis a civil society.
(22:30):
Civil society plays a reallystrong role in every healthy
society in organizing peoplearound interests, but also
organizing people in free speechand democratic training.
We could call it.
It is a training platform forworking together and making
(22:52):
decisions and, well, peacefulcoexistence.
So by working with open source,you're also strengthening the
foundations of any democracy.
And then you can come at thatand say, well, a government that
doesn't choose open source is agovernment that does not
support its own foundations indemocracy.
Jam (23:14):
And we said that we were going to prove that there are
pragmatic aspects to this and itjust doesn't have to be about
ideas.
But yeah, there are wonderfulexamples, for example, now in
many countries where governmentsbuild open data platforms with
open source software and, as anexample, it's a few years ago
(23:35):
and I believe it's not relevantanymore, but the government of
the city of New York opens, opensourced, the data around the
metropolitan transit authoritiestimetable and at one point
there were 100 or 130 New Yorksubway apps available in the app
(23:56):
store that enabled people tofeed their families and pay
their rent and make a living,and it's not exactly open source
.
But this idea of spend publicmoney on public code right, if
my taxes are creating a datastore, I would like that to be
publicly, generally publiclyavailable as well, and so on.
So, yeah, there's a lot ofthere's a lot of pragmatism as
(24:20):
well as this other side thissoftware that helps so many
people.
So, the very, very pragmaticfacts, like this software
enables us to found agencies anddo client business and pay the
rent I'll come back to that fromcross border, transparent, open
communities who practice the tobeing their best selves and the
(24:43):
best sorts of communication anddemocracy or consensus based
decision making out in the opento arrive at the best results
that we can at the time right,and those things power better
businesses that deliver betterROI right.
So for me it comes back.
(25:04):
I mean it goes right fromdiversity to international
cooperation and community drivenprojects, into legitimate
business interest too, whatyou're talking about now as well
, is well that.
Mathias (25:17):
That's true for developed countries and
developing countries alike.
But if you look at developingcountries or global south
countries that still have a wayto go to to reach those human
development and Economic goalsthat are necessary, one of the
reasons why those countries arewhere they are today is because
(25:42):
of exploitation and colonialism,and that's in many cases the
fault of the developed nations.
The developed nations havedeveloped with the help of of
the global south, stillcontinuing that process of
exploiting poorer countries, andopen source can actually play a
(26:06):
role in Leveling the playingfield there, because open source
does not have the built-inDependency that very many
proprietary software solutionshave.
For example, with open source,you don't have to pay a license
fee, you don't have to pay amonthly fee to have access to
(26:27):
your data.
That means that anyone canstart a business around an open
source product and that opensource product can earn the
money from day one.
And instead of you first havingto Find money maybe borrow it
from someone, maybe borrowborrowing it from from overseas
(26:48):
even and then Starting to paymoney to someone else in order
to be able to do your business,and that means that well, it's
leveling the playing fields, butit's also not exploitative in
any way.
It's actually just giving youopportunities that you can take
up if you want to, and On top ofthat again, it is building a
(27:13):
situation where you mightactually be able to have an
expertise that might beinteresting for you to both sell
to your local community butalso export to other countries.
Felicity Brand (27:24):
Yes, beautiful summary and jam.
You mentioned earlier a digitalfishing rod, and I assume what
you mean by that is From the oldsaying give a man a fish, you
feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish, you feedhim for a lifetime, and I I
think that's a really beautifulanalogy, especially around the
really cool project and workthat type o3 have been doing.
(27:45):
Well, I mentioned the projectthat they did in Rwanda and your
type o3 is also looking toreplicate and Continue those
good works in other developingnations.
Jam (27:55):
So we will link to the PDF of that Report about that
project in the show notes herevery interesting.
Felicity Brand (28:03):
Now let's move on to the final topic for our
conversation, which is thebenefits of open source to
individuals.
So, aidan said, the open sourcesoftware community as a whole,
I guess, must be prepared toexplain to the wider world of
users Exactly how open sourcecan benefit them and why they
(28:25):
are at a loss without it.
So when I first read that, Iwas a bit taken aback, but I
have thought about it and havesince come into some
interactions where it's obviousto me that I'm in an echo
chamber you know, I'm drinkingthe open source Kool-Aid, so I'm
already convinced.
But I still encounter peopleevery day who are new to open
(28:46):
source.
So so we do need to keeptelling people what it is, why
it's good, how it can benefitthem.
And there has been a recentexample of, I suppose, one group
of open source communitiesgetting together, and that is
the cross community meetingbetween several open source
(29:07):
CMS's Drupal, type o3, wordpressand Juma and they specifically
were getting together to respondto the cyber resilience act in
Europe.
But as I understand it, that isa group that's going to
continue meeting and talkingtogether, and so can you think
of other examples, though?
Jan, you mentioned earlierLinux foundation and do we need
(29:30):
a broader body that representsopen source Holistically, or is
that never gonna happen?
You know how do we respond to ano.
Jam (29:38):
There's a word in German called faeinsmaier I and it is
how people behave when they joinclubs, and Club life in Germany
is, surprise, surprise,relatively bureaucratic, and you
have to have a constitutingdocument and you have to have an
annual general meeting and youhave to have a secretary and a
treasurer and so on, and somepeople live for this activity of
(30:04):
of being in the club right, andWhile some people just want to
do the hobby right, there are abunch of organizations and
foundations out there and I havea lot of trouble saying yes, of
course we should just gettogether and elect a chairman.
And I've seen over the years,whether in government or in
(30:27):
business, fear.
I've seen lots of planning toplan and Preparing to prepare.
So I would say, having beenpart of the process of preparing
that, the letter to theEuropean Parliament and
Commission, and having attendedthat webinar, I think we should
be talking with each other and Ithink it was really incredible
(30:50):
to see all of those people inthe same virtual room, having
clearly spent time together andand come to the conclusion that
we need to be a brand speakingas one voice.
And Do you know what theEuropean I'm not sure
politicians, bureaucrats, peopleactually listened and that
group got meetings when theypresumably have the chance to
(31:13):
influence the course of thisparticular decision.
So that proves the point thatwe need a brand.
That proves the point that ifwe get together and act with
some level of coordination, wecan move the needle, which is
amazing.
It's my home base, but I kindof wonder if we need some sort
(31:33):
of a marketing Group.
You know, for example, over inPHP land we have PHP fig which
has done Some incredible thingsfor software compatibility.
That's awesome.
That works.
As far as I'm concerned, apatchy foundation has done great
work.
Great work and the idea thatyou can have an open source
project and be absorbed intothat so that they can take care
(31:54):
of the Non-profitness and all ofthat kind of stuff and
promotion and and so on.
That's really cool.
The Linux foundation has goneback and forth with its own
problems.
I don't know that I really wantto walk into that to try and do
something else, right, butwe've got a bunch of great
stories and we've got we didn'treally touch on it yet but the
work in Rwanda.
(32:16):
There are other countrieslooking at it and there is the
chance to develop a Digitalgovernment standard as an open
source standard and then helppeople implement it right.
And I think there's wonderfulmessaging to do and wonderful
ways where we could packageDistributions to be like here's
your Drupal government startedpack, here's your type of three
government started pack, here'syour API whatever, and like we
(32:38):
could do so much together on atechnical level.
Or and Right, we could just putthe messaging together to say
like hey, really, really, opensource is a great way to make a
living, a great way to improvethe world, and here's a bunch of
like, here's why open source.
You know, cms garden in Germanydoes Quite a good job at parts
(33:04):
of this, but it's remained a bitof a niche effort and in in
Germany.
So so you know, I'm not sureit's the model I would suggest,
but like yeah, I think amarketing something.
Mathias (33:19):
Well, we definitely, you know.
I think we definitely have toget better at explaining open
source.
That is a fundamental truth, Ithink.
And yes, we can createorganizations and Collaborate as
a sort of ecumenical whateveryou want to call it Between
(33:41):
different, different open sourceinitiatives, but to me, it's
actually much deeper than thanactually organizing us when
we're already a project.
I think this is something thatneeds to go into the educational
system.
As I mentioned, this isn'tsomething we're learning in
school.
People are learningold-fashioned, traditional
(34:04):
economy, and open source is notlike that.
It is very, very foreign toanything that you learn in
school today.
And I would say that I think ifyou speak about open source to
quote, unquote, normal peoplewho haven't heard about it
(34:25):
before they will have a realdifficulty understanding how you
earn money with it.
Yes, and that is something weneed to address, and on a very
fundamental level Right, it'scounterintuitive and weird.
Jam (34:42):
And, to my point from earlier, we have forgotten that
it's weird, right, and we'veforgotten that it's incredibly
special and powerful that wehave conferences where competing
agencies who literally arepitching the same clients.
(35:03):
They want to do the same work,they're in the same cities or
regions, the competing with eachother 50 weeks of the year
right, go to two conferences, ortext code sprints through the
year and all these things andliterally sit next to each other
and literally work out how tomake the technology that they
(35:23):
both use better together, sharecode, share their best ideas,
tell their stories to each other.
And there are ugly words likeco-opetition and something, but
like the fact that we dared togive away our best idea one time
, trusted enough to try that,and that thing came back better
(35:46):
because one or 1,000 people sawit and they're like, oh, I
needed that, thank you, that'sawesome.
And, by the way, I also addedthis other button that makes the
thing green, because you onlyhad blue and red and like you
get your code back, your idea,back your business model back
with improvements for free,right, it's incredible.
(36:07):
It's incredible.
And, in that vein, back togovernments for a second.
Not only is it non-exploitative.
If you say, here's this codethat you can use and here's all
of our documentation, doanything you want with it, and
here's a Slack channel full offriends that you can ask for
help, right, people can run withthat as far as they want to you
(36:30):
.
Also, instead of sending moneyout of your country to pay the
big three or five or six techcompanies for licenses to do a
thing, you can pay local serviceproviders to provide you
services locally, and that meansthe tax money goes back into
the economy and generates morerevenue.
You can employ local people touse exactly the same tools that
(36:54):
people everywhere else at thehighest levels of industry or
government or education oranything.
You can use the same tools,right, and that's amazing.
So I'm getting this super vibe.
That TS's micro podcast opensource utopia is super
idealistic and it's really weirdand interesting and everybody
should definitely listen to it.
One, it doesn't take very long.
(37:15):
Two, but TS blew my mind whenhe showed me the concepts before
he recorded them, and they arenew and different open source
stories that I had never heardbefore, after having been
evangelizing open source for 15years.
I think that we could do onthis podcast.
I think that we could do.
(37:35):
I don't want to call it opensource 101, but all of these
base concepts that are deeplyweird the economy of plenty,
giving away your best ideas andso on and so on I think that
they would be really, reallybrilliant like pragmatic
concepts that would complementthe open source utopia ideas
quite nicely.
I would love to contribute that.
Felicity Brand (37:56):
That sounds fantastic and I'm really hoping
to speak with members from agroup called the Open
Organization, open AWOG, and Ithink they are a group who are
looking to take concepts fromopen source and applying them
into different domains, likeeducation, like business.
So I find that deeplyinteresting.
(38:18):
I think we've covered a lot ofground here.
We've answered a lot ofquestions.
Is there anything that?
Any final thoughts from eitherof you before we wrap up?
Mathias (38:29):
Yeah, I can add to what Jam said about government's
investment and local agencies,and that is that what happens
when you put that money intoyour local workforce is that
you're also developing localexpertise and that expertise can
be used to create new businesswithin the country as well, and
(38:52):
not to forget that you can alsocreate a business that goes
across borders and thatcollaborates with other
countries and that is generallycreating peace.
And the second thing I can sayis we need to really get down to
basics when I do mypresentations.
Now I did one yesterday for arotary club and I mean, one of
(39:16):
my favorite slides that I'musing now are actually cookie
based.
So I'm talking about cakes andI'm talking about gingerbread
and I'm really taking it down tothe most basic level of how do
you think when you do opensource.
Jam (39:33):
I'm really looking forward to seeing those new slides.
Felicity Brand (39:35):
Yeah, I hope there's recipes.
Jam (39:38):
My big conclusion from this conversation and responding to
the Drop Times article, is thatthis is not a moral, ethical
question.
It doesn't have to be at all.
Pragmatically, there are reallygood reasons to use open source
(39:59):
a lot of the time and it is aclear winner on quality of
technology, security, ease ofuse and, in the end, on return
on investment for a lot ofapplications.
And yet, at the same time, wehave this halo around the
(40:21):
pragmatic stuff.
That is also real.
We're building internationalcommunities of understanding
People who are motivated towardssimilar outcomes tend to
interact, learn to interact witheach other peacefully and
constructively, and we do havethe ability to spread the
(40:43):
benefit of what we do.
And yet I still don't feel likeI have to make some moral case
to tell you to believe in opensource.
Mathias (40:51):
And if you're an evangelist, it can't be a halo.
It has to be a story.
Felicity Brand (40:58):
Well, I think that wraps it up.
I would like to say thank youto Aidan Dean Dunn for writing
that article in the drop timesbecause, although it is
disappointing, one gives apresentation in a public
conference that not everyresponse is.
That was amazing.
Thank you, you know.
It's good.
This has given us anopportunity to respond to some
(41:22):
interesting points that heraised and we're going to
continue this conversation andkeep talking about it, keep
evangelizing, because we believein the power of open source and
we want to tell people about it.
So thank you very much for yourtime Today, both of you.
Carl Richards (41:56):
We hope you enjoyed listening to Felicity's
conversation with Jam andMatthias.
If you have questions, head onover to the show notes, where
you'll find links and referencesto the material mentioned today
, and feel free to reach out tous as well via Twitter at open
underscore strategy, or email.
Hello at open strategy partnersdot com.
(42:17):
Thanks to everyone whocontributed to this podcast all
the P's and OSP.
Thanks to our clients whobelieve in us.
Shout out to Patrick O'Maw forour high energy maple syrup
flavored theme music and to MikeSnow for additional horn
arrangements.
Thank you for listening andsubscribing.
(42:37):
About our three themes on thepodcast you'll hear from
different members of the OSPteam hosting episodes over time.
Communicate All things.
Communication we share how wetackle writing, editing, word
choices, formats, processes andmore.
Connect In-depth conversationswith interesting, smart people
(42:58):
about who they are, what they doand how they approach their
life and work as communicators,technologists and leaders grow.
We cover strategic approachesto understanding and expressing
the value of what you do,including tools, templates and
practical applications.
We also feel strongly aboutbuilding a mindful, positive,
(43:21):
human first culture at work.
That's bound to pop up fromtime to time too.
This podcast is us figuring out, communication, connection and
growing together.
Subscribe now on YouTube, applePodcasts or the podcast channel
of your choice.
Follow us, suggest guests andtopics, ask us questions.
(43:42):
On social media, we are at OpenUnderscore Strategy on Twitter
Until next time.
Thanks for listening toCommunicate, connect, grow the
OSP podcast.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com