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Some of the topics we dive deep into include: - Microsoft’s best practices for managing an open source program office - What Stormy has been working on at Microsoft in the last year - Innersource and the key to growing company-backed open source projects - How to give back to open source software projects you rely on - And much more...

Some of the guests that we've had on the show (and will be releasing the podcasts soon) include:

- Gil Yehuda, used to be the Senior Director of Open Source at Verizon Media

- Guy Martin, Director at OASIS

- Jono Bacon, author of People Powered: How Communities Can Supercharge Your Business, Brand, and Teams

- Patrick Masson, used to be the General Manager of the Open Source Initiative (OSI)

- Nithya Ruff, Head of Open Source at Comcast

- Joseph Jacks, Founder of OSS.Capital

- Stormy Peters, Director of the Open Source Program Office at Microsoft

- Paul Chen, Manager of Open Source Enablement & Compliance at Synopsys

- Wenjing Chu, Head of Open Source & Research at Futurewei Technologies

- Hong Phuc Dang, Founder of FOSSASIA

We launched this podcast because we want to help enterprises better manage their open source software technologies.

Why? We believe that with the right corporate participation and involvement, OSS can thrive!

You can also watch/listen to the podcast on: - YouTube: --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcfHi5zCTKM&list=PLA7hukZmf3... - Spotify: --> https://open.spotify.com/show/1Him9218GEeAGc4J3yN2Lu?si=fxXh... - PCA: --> https://pca.st/5z9jsva3 - Google Podcasts: --> https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8...

Please leave a review letting us know what you think!

Thanks for your great questions! Please find the live video recording by clicking here.

Travis ended up answering the following questions (I've timestamped the answers for y'all so you can find them):

[8:00] OpenTeams' mission: to help companies build and grow their open source businesses

[8:56] Where do you see the next big opportunities to extend python related to its use in data science and Fintech?

[13:00] How do you see boutique businesses working? What kind of products or services lend to that model?

[17:00] How do you find customers for that kind of consulting you talked about with the boutique businesses?

[19:18] What is OpenTeams trying to do?

[20:26] What is Dask and does it fit in with the future development plans for Python and PyData?

[22:38] How do you feel when you think your software is used all over the world in everything from beginner projects to helping in scientific labs?

[31:55] What python library for machine learning/data science is under-appreciated or you want to put out there?

[33:51] How’s the EPython library going?

[38:50] Do you have any advice for grad students trying to start a software-based company?

[41:30] How close is conda to becoming a purely SAT-based dependency resolver?

[41:50] Is there any hope of seeing a unification of all of the tensor libraries?

[43:28] What do you see as the future for opensource technology in the post-covid era? How can we use the long experience of numpy and other projects to help inform the debate over opensource medical hardware. Do you personally have any involvement on the hardware side of opensource and if so, can you comment on what that community could be doing better?

[44:00] Why open source is going to grow in an economic downturn

[45:50] How can we use the long experience of numpy and other projects to help inform the debate over open source medical hardware?

[47:15] What tips do you have regarding continuous integration setups with large codebases?

[49:04] What color is your toothbrush?

[49:10] Have general-purpose open source projects received much government funding?

Travis answers your question at the timestamp [31:55]. Check the video recording: https://twitter.com/openteamsinc/status/1250924987969449986?...

Thanks Sudoaza, great question! I'll share the answer after Travis goes live!

Ask any questions you have here and I'll share with you the answers!

I can't explain the number of times my mom has asked me to explain what open source is.

I wrote this fun, short article so that you can easily explain what open source is to anyone by using this analogy.

I'd love feedback!

We will be taking a 10% cut on the funding which will go to further development of the platform.

The OpenPartner's are responsible for creating the product roadmap in liaison with the development team. This includes a clear budget for where the money is going, just as you described.

Thank you for this fantastic feedback. We will discuss all of these points as a team.

Really appreciate it!

Thank you for this feedback. I'll be sending this info back to the dev team. We really appreciate it!

Great question! Thank you.

OpenTeams' vision is to become THE platform for open source innovation.

OpenCollective uses a donation-based model. On the other hand, OpenTeams is creating a marketplace that connects open source software consuming companies to open source consulting and development companies who are proposing fundable roadmaps for new features and maintenance of critical open source software.

I really appreciate the suggestions. They are very insightful and I'll make sure I discuss them all with the team - thank you so much.

In practice, a project needs funding. They create an Initiative on our platform with a product roadmap and outline of what they are going to do (maintenance or a new feature). Companies/individuals that use the project go to the website and provide funding. A contract is formed by the OpenPartner (similar to a general contractor) whereby the project only gets the money once certain requirements are fulfilled. The OpenPartner hires contributors to work on the project and those contributors get to work and are paid as they provide deliverables. Everyone then gets to use the updated software.

We will be working on our messaging so thank you for the feedback.

Great question!

We focused on building out the contributor side of the marketplace first. However, we are now focusing on building out both sides of the marketplace in parallel.

Thank you for your detailed comment. We really do appreciate your feedback - it will help us to get better!

Our KickStarter style funding events are called Initiatives. Please visit our early Initiatives page and you will find two projects we are already helping to get funding. We say it is a KickStarter for open source projects because it is a marketplace where companies that use open source software can connect with companies/individuals that will commit on a commercial basis to advance project roadmaps and maintenance. This is similar to KickStarter in the sense that the public (one side of the market place) is funding the project (other side of the marketplace) in return for a promise to use a product/service in the future when it is available.

Unlike Closjure, the projects that start an Initiative will be open source. Additionally, the feature/maintenance that the project releases as a result of the Initiative will also be open source.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and many other large companies donate to open source software for a number of reasons. Typically, it is to fund a new feature or to help maintain the project. We are creating a platform for these companies to better fund the projects they rely on (and already fund).

These projects aren't restricted to one Initiative. They can start as many Initiatives as they desire. Of course, the success of the Initiative is dependent on the supply of funding.

With regards to ongoing funding, projects can create an Initiative for maintaining the project which, while it is a lump sum, can be distributed to the maintainers over time (under contract). In this sense, it is similar to the world of startup funding: when you've run out of money, you ask for more and continue to grow.

We agree that a KickStarter style of funding is the best way to succesfully fund a project as it has many benefits. For example, funding companies mitigate risk by sharing the burden of cost.

Check out our early Initiatives page and you'll find two early projects we are currently working with to get funding.

Thanks for your awesome comment!

We understand that creating a successful startup is difficult. But we are determined!

While KickStarter might be useful to get funding for an open source project, we are aiming to become THE platform for open source innovation. OpenTeams is a marketplace that connects open source stakeholders with organizations to facilitate funding for new development and maintenance.

Unlike KickStarter which only provides funding, we're enabling project leaders, contributors working on the funded project, funders themselves, and OpenPartners (middlemen 'general contractors) to collaborate and get the work done in the best way possible.

Thanks for the feedback! We really appreciate it.

Our competition is companies that help open source contributors to be hired or paid in one way or another. Additionally, any companies that help open source projects get funding would be considered competition.

Competition includes: * Bounty-based companies like Gitcoin, BountySource, and IssueHunt * Donation-based companies like Github Sponsors, Liberapay, and Patreon * Subscription-based companies like Tidelift

However, there is no direct competitor creating a marketplace that connects open source stakeholders with organizations to facilitate funding for new development and maintenance.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll be bringing this up with the team.

Don't apologize! We really do appreciate the feedback, so thank you.

Thank you for such an insightful comment.

This is exactly the approach we are taking to launch OpenTeams. By having a small "closed" group focus on launching key features, we believe that our new business model will become the default approach to helping open source projects become sustainable.

With the founders heavily involved in open source, the notion of giving back is one of the OpenTeam's core values.

Thank you for your suggestion. We could not agree more with you!

We are big fans of Liberapay. They are a great solution working towards making open source sustainable. Our model is very different though.

Instead of a recurring donation based system, we are creating a marketplace that connects open source software consuming companies to open source consulting and development companies who are proposing fundable roadmaps for new features and maintenance of critical open source software. The KickStarter idea comes from the fact that any person or company can fund the project so that in the future, they can use the software.

The deep social reputation database generated by the OpenTeams’ social reputation network will provide the foundation for proposers to demonstrate their ability to deliver on a fundable project's goals and grant the prospective funders the ability to validate the composition of the team proposed.

We really appreciate your feedback, thank you!

Thank you for your feedback. I empathise with your concern, but the only thing we are interested in is supporting OSS. Travis has been in the industry for over 20 years and his life is open source software. This is where his interests lie.

The sole purpose of this company is to bring together organizations using open source software with creators and maintainers of the software to facilitate and grow funding opportunities. This is needed so that open source can become sustainable. In order to achieve this mission, revenue is needed to make sure that we are actually capable of supporting OSS.

One of our main goals at OpenTeams is to channel more funding and resources into community-driven projects, to support transparency in their governance, and keep the communities around them healthy and accelerate their development. We do this in a way that keeps the community in charge of its destiny.

Thank you for sharing your concerns. We will not be an unmoderated platform and I will look into the GPL license, thank you.

We are at the very beginning of our journey and so there are many features to come.

I cannot agree with you more. We are working on making open source software sustainable so that people view open source software as a real career. People should be paid to work on the projects that they love and care so much about! We have had many discussions around becoming open source in the beginning. However, in order to ensure that we achieve the aforementioned mission, we believe that is it best to start off as a proprietary company for a number of different reasons. In the future, we will be looking to become open source. Thank you for your feedback!

The discussion about being open source has been extensively debated. In order to change the economics of open source, we believe you need to do things differently. At the moment we are not open source because we need to get the project off the ground. We believe that in order to grow to a suitable level where we can talk about becoming open source, we need to have the control and swiftness of a proprietary startup to be able to first establish a marketplace that proves this new business model. Please note that we are all for becoming open source in the future.

After 20 years of working in open source, Travis Oliphant, the co-creator of Numpy, Scipy & Numba and the founder of PyData, NumFOCUS, & Anaconda, decided the economics of open source needed to change.

Organizations are disconnected from the communities and lack support and maintenance from the open source projects they depend on. Open source teams are burned out, underpaid, underrepresented. These problems have made open source software difficult to maintain.

This is the reason Travis started OpenTeams, a marketplace to connect open source communities with organizations. On one side of the marketplace, we connect companies with teams to help fund project development and maintenance. On the other side, we create a way for open source contributors to showcase their work, help them get recognized for their work and hired to work on projects they care about. Put simply, it’s like a KickStarter for open source projects and a LinkedIn for open source contributors.

Please give us feedback to help make open source software sustainable.

Thank you!