Navigating Risks and Building Open Source Communities with Dawn Foster

The Business of Open Source

Dawn Foster, Director of Open Source Community Strategy at VMware, joins me to chat about open sourcing and the potential risks to consider. With 20+ years of experience in business technology, Dawn lends great insight not only as a leader in the realm of open source, but as a champion for measuring project health.

In this episode, Dawn discusses key risks to consider when open sourcing a project and what startups and small companies should think about as they embrace open source technologies. We also explore trust as a currency of open source, donating to neutral foundations, the CNCF Project Health Measurement Guide, and more.

Highlights:

• What companies should consider when open sourcing a project. (00:24)
• Risks associated with open sourcing and the advantage of contributing projects to foundations. (03:59)
• Dawn explores the interrelation between using and contributing to an open source project. (07:26)
• A discussion about evaluating and prioritizing a large number of projects - and why smaller companies should be deliberate about the open source technologies they embrace. (11:49)
• A look at contributor risk with examples of how the risks can vary depending on the project. (17:09)
• The value of trust in the open source - and Kim’s final thoughts on measuring project health. (22:35)

Links:

Connect with Dawn:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawnfoster/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/geekygirldawn
• Fast Wonder Blog: https://fastwonderblog.com/
• VMware: https://www.vmware.com/