Episode 166: Thomas Steenbergen & Josep Prat at FOSS Backstage 2023

Guests Thomas Steenbergen | Josep Prat Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Richard is at the FOSS Backstage 2023 that’s held in Berlin every year. On this episode, Richard has two guests joining him. His first guest is Thomas Steenbergen, co-founder and organizer for the TODO Group Europe and Head of the Open Source Program Office at EPAM Systems. Thomas talks about his current workshop, OSS Review Toolkit, his background as a software developer, and the three important aspects of open-source software: consuming, compliance, and contributing back. Richard’s next guest is Josep Prat, who’s the Open Source Engineering Director at Aiven. Aiven provides software as a service including Kafka and Cassandra with around 500 employees, and despite its size, it has an open-source program office that focuses on employing people to work full-time on open-source projects. Josep talks about the importance of hiring people with the right mentality, and they look for people who care deeply about open source and communities and are not just in it for the fame and glory of open source. Also, he talks about the importance of diversity in open-source projects, as well at the Plankton program at Aiven for people who want to do contributions in their free time. Download this episode to hear much more! Links SustainOSS SustainOSS Twitter SustainOSS Discourse [email protected] Richard Littauer Twitter FOSS Backstage 2023 Thomas Steenburgen Twitter Thomas Steenburgen GitHub EPAM OSS Review Toolkit I am not a supplier- by Thomas Depierre Josep Prat Twitter Josep Prat GitHub Aiven Credits Produced by Richard Littauer Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound Special Guests: Josep Prat and Thomas Steenbergen.