Getting Involved: Making the First Move in Open Source

Amber Graner shares her experiences in the open source community, beginning with her early days in open source, her experiences with Linux New Media, and her eventual role at Canonical. She emphasizes the importance of community, documentation, and the non-code contributions that are essential for project success. 

00:00 Introductions 00:44 The Evolution of Women in Open Source 05:14 Beyond Coding in Open Source 12:49 The Ongoing Journey Towards Inclusivity 16:15 Fostering a New Generation of Open Source Enthusiasts 21:02 The Power of Community and Mentorship in Open Source 26:30 Navigating Challenges and Leadership in Open Source 30:26 The Critical Role of Transparency and Trust 36:24 Contributing Beyond Code: Expanding the Definition of Technical

Guest:

Amber Graner’s personal open source journey started in 2009 when she started blogging about Ubuntu. Since then she’s written for Ubuntu User Magazine, co-authored The Official Ubuntu Book (6th & 7th edit.) and served as a technical reviewer for Jono Bacon’s Art of Community. She was the first Community Manager for Linaro (Linux on ARM) and went on to help architect and manage the Open Compute Project (OCP) Foundation Community where she later became the Operations Director from there she went to Corelight to become the Director of Community for the Zeek Project and later was the VP of Community and Marketing at Arrikto Inc. Currently, Amber is the Open Source Evangelist and Community manager at HPE, for the Ezmeral software products. 

Amber actively mentors new leaders in open source on how to build their community or project of interest and encourages everyone around her to participate, support, and learn about Kubeflow and Open Source software and hardware. With a smile and a sense of humor, Amber reminds people that there is a place for everyone in an open source community – regardless of technical skill level (or lack thereof). She is constantly looking for people, places, and events within open source communities that help inspire others to communicate, collaborate and contribute to those communities.