Hidden Infrastructure: The Foundations of Open Source - Joshua Simmons
Channel: All Things Open
Date: 2020-11-24

Presented by: Joshua Simmons, Salesforce + OSI
Presented at All Things Open 2020 - Nonprofits Track

Abstract: Modern software development wouldn’t be possible but for the work of countless nonprofits, yet we the benefactors of their work largely labor in blissful ignorance of this hidden infrastructure. I did too, for 15 years.

Linux, Git, Python, Drupal, Homebrew, Eclipse, Apache Web Server, and Kubernetes–these are just a few of the ubiquitous projects that rely on nonprofits. Even open source licensing itself relies on a nonprofit!

In this talk, we’ll survey the nonprofit ecosystem that undergirds our industry. We’ll answer questions, including:

- Who are these nonprofits?
- What do they do?
- Why does it matter?

We’ll explore why the future of open source, and our livelihoods, rests on the continued existence of these nonprofits. And lastly, we’ll answer the question: what is our role, as creators and consumers of open source software, in light of all this?