CHAOSScast

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSScast!

CHAOSScast – Episode 130

In this CHAOSScast episode, host introduces Rowland Mosbergen, a research software engineer at Australia’s WEHI, and discusses experiences in CHAOSS Asia and open source community connections. Rowland compares research labs to startups and explains that CHAOSS Asia’s regular online meetings help him engage with the broader open source ecosystem despite not traveling to conferences. They mention tools like the OSC DB directory for finding communities and discuss how Chaos Asia helps share events and CFPs. Rowland describes his “practical diversity and inclusion” approach: embedding inclusion into processes by centering marginalized people, sharing power, creating safe spaces, and offering online, non-exploitative open source internships that assess achievement relative to opportunity. He also describes organizing Research Software Asia Australia (RSAA 26) and supporting new Research Software Africa and Latino America conferences through shared documentation and a large, flexible volunteer committee to prevent burnout. They close with personal value-adds: Rowland’s family time and the host’s move to Bangkok.

00:00 Welcome to CHAOSScast

00:21 Meet Rowland

01:41 Startups and Research Parallels

03:04 Why CHAOSS Asia Matters

03:40 Finding CHAOSS Asia

07:03 Mapping Asian Communities

09:38 Practical DEI in Action

13:31 Internships as Micro PhDs

16:27 Conferences and Global Expansion

20:17 Building Inclusive Frameworks

25:09 Value Adds

28:03 Wrap Up and Call to Action

Panelists:

Leon Nunes

Guests

Rowland Mosbergen

Links

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

CHAOSS Slack

[email protected]

https://www.wehi.edu.au/

https://www.solo.io/

[https://equersa.org/]([https://equersa.org/) - Research software Africa and Latin America

https://developers.events/#/2026/calendar - OSCDB

https://chaoss.github.io/oscdb/

https://www.practicaldiversity.org/
Special Guest: Rowland Mosbergen.

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSScast!

CHAOSScast – Episode 129

In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Harmony Elendu is joined by Matt Germonprez and Johan Linåker to explore how Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) can use metrics to understand and demonstrate impact. The discussion centers around Chapter 6 of the TODO Group’s OSPO book and how organizations can systematically measure the value of their open source engagement.

[00:02:00] Introduction to OSPOs

Johan explains what an Open Source Program Office (OSPO) is: a center of excellence that supports organizations in adopting open source strategically, aligning culture, governance, and business goals.

[00:04:41] The Four Impact Areas

Matt outlines the four key impact dimensions OSPOs should measure:

Partner Impact

Community Impact

Ecosystem (Supply Chain) Impact

Organizational Impact

[00:06:29] Partner Impact

How to assess which companies are contributing to the same projects, their level of influence, and how agendas align or conflict.

[00:11:00] Community Impact

Measuring contributor influence, merged pull requests, leadership roles, and employee growth within open source communities.

[00:15:19] Ecosystem & Supply Chain Impact

Why organizations must evaluate upstream dependencies and long-term project viability, especially in light of regulations like the Cyber Resilience Act.

[00:23:00] Organizational Impact & Governance

Aligning open source strategy with business goals, managing risk, automating dependency health checks, and enabling developers to contribute upstream efficiently.

[00:29:31] Metrics Over Time (Not Snapshots)

Why there is no universal red/yellow/green metric set. Context matters, and observing trends over time is critical for meaningful health assessments.

[00:36:00] Resources & Working Groups

Introduction to CHAOSS practitioner guides, OSPO metrics working groups, and research publications.

Value Adds (Picks) of the week:

[00:39:25] Harmony’s pick is reflecting on old photos.

[00:36:10] Matt's pick is embracing the opportunity to do winter sports.

[00:37:54] Johan’s pick is to enjoy parenting moments.

Panelists:

Harmony Elendu

Matt Germonprez

Guests

Johan Linåker

Links

OSPO Book

TODO Group

CHAOSS Project

OpenSSF Scorecard

CHAOSS OSPO Metrics Working Group

Harmony Elendu website

Harmony Elendu LinkedIn
Special Guest: Johan Linåker.

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSSCast!

CHAOSScast- Episode 128

Check out the original GR-OSS OUT episode on the GR-OSS OUT podcast:

https://podcast.gr-oss.io/15-openssf-community

In this episode of CHAOSScast, we have a special crossover episode with the GR-OSS OUT podcast, hosted by Tabatha DiDomenico from G-Research and featuring special guest Stacey Potter, Community Manager at the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF).

Stacey shares her journey into open source, which started in software license compliance and marketing before she found her passion in community-building through projects like Weaveworks and the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) ecosystem. Her experience spans the full project lifecycle from early-stage incubation to graduation, giving her a unique perspective on how healthy, sustainable open source communities grow.

A central theme of the conversation is what makes open source communities truly welcoming. Stacey emphasizes the importance of clear documentation, accessible contribution guidelines, well-labeled “good first issues,” and, above all, kindness. Reducing the fear of “doing it wrong” is critical, especially for newcomers who may feel intimidated by contributing code in public. Creating psychological safety helps transform curiosity into long-term participation, and contributors feel mentored rather than judged. Community health, she notes, is fundamentally about people, not just processes or tooling.

The discussion also explores how marketing skills translate into community leadership. Stacey reflects on the difference between top-down messaging aimed at executives and bottom-up engagement with developers. Understanding your audience, meeting contributors where they are, and fostering authentic relationships are essential to building trust. At OpenSSF, she is helping shift perceptions so contributors understand that participation is open to everyone, not just member organizations. She also believes it's important to support education initiatives and strengthen developer experience across projects.

Finally, Stacey highlights several OpenSSF initiatives and projects that could benefit from broader community involvement, including Scorecard, Minder, and OpenVEX. She also previews upcoming events and a new ambassador program designed to make open source security more accessible, and even fun! The episode closes with encouragement for listeners to get involved, contribute to the projects they rely on, and help build secure, welcoming open source ecosystems.

Links:

CHAOSS

GR-OSS OUT podcast

G-Research

G-Research vacancies

Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF)

OpenSSF Training & Education

Linux Foundation

Scorecard

Sigstore

SLSA (Supply-chain Levels for Software Artifacts)

Minder

OpenVEX

Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)

Flux

Kubernetes

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America

OpenSSF Community Day Korea
Special Guests: Stacey Potter and Tabatha DiDomenico.

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSScast!

CHAOSScast – Episode 127

In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Alice is joined by Matt Trifiro from the Commercial Open Source Startup Alliance (COSSA) and Daniel Izquierdo, CEO of Bitergia and co-founder of the CHAOSS Community. The discussion delves into the importance of open source community health metrics in shaping successful commercial strategies for startups. Matt shares COSSA's mission to support the growth of venture-funded open source projects by fostering collaboration among founders, investors, and customers. Daniel discusses how community health can influence the sustainability and innovation of projects. They also explore the future goals of COSSA, including establishing a working group to develop standardized metrics for evaluating community contributions and business value. Press download now to hear more!

[00:00:29] Matt and Daniel introduce themselves and their backgrounds.

[00:01:56] Matt explains COSSA’s mission.

[00:02:58] Matt cites evidence that community health can correlate with business outcomes and that investment can improve community indicators, and there’s a discussion on moving beyond vanity metrics like GitHub stars.

[00:05:13] Daniel shares his perspective from the Open Compliance Summit (Tokyo) and the supply chain/corporate lens: organizations want confidence the software will be safe and still maintained years from now, and he talks about measuring health via collaboration networks.

[00:08:34] Matt breaks value into two buckets: Distribution and IP/innovation to explain how open source communities create startup value. Daniel adds that open source and can reduce procurement friction.

[00:12:23] They touch on open source as a path to standards.

[00:14:50] Matt describes how COSSA supports the startups: education, best practices, and measurement and his goal is to “convert community metrics into dollars.” Daniel notes the need for a baseline framework, then customization by industry.

[00:19:38] What’s next for COSSA? Matt shares COSSA is being bootstrapped, received initial Linux Foundation support, and is pursuing seed style funding. His planned membership structure is investors, founders, and customers.

[00:20:36] Daniel and Matt discuss making the metric framework transparent, likely anchored via CHAOSS, and the goal to building a “Rosetta Stone” between investors and community.

[00:25:49] There’s a conversation on rug pulls, incentives, and lack of a shared framework.

[00:28:21] Matt describes the “covenant” concept.

[00:30:34] Alice wraps with mentioning COSSA’s direction is clear, and a working group could be on the ramp for broader community participation.

Value Adds (Picks) of the week:

[00:31:20] Alice’s pick is visiting outdoor Christmas light displays after dark.

[00:32:27] Matt’s pick is his oldest son’s finishing his first semester in college.

[00:32:58] Daniel’s pick is his son finishing his first quarter at primary school and going to the Open Compliance Summit and thanking Shane Coughlan for all his work for many years running this event.

Panelist:

Alice Sowerby

Guests:

Matt Trifiro

Daniel Izquierdo

Links:

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

[email protected]

Alice Sowerby LinkedIn

Matt Trifiro LinkedIn

COSSA

Daniel Izquierdo LinkedIn

Bitergia

Christmas Lights at Stourhead

Rapturous Delight: after-dark Worcester, Worcestershire

The State of Commercial Open Source 2025 (The Linux Foundation)
Special Guest: Matt Trifiro.

Thank you to the folks at Sustain for providing the hosting account for CHAOSScast!

CHAOSScast – Episode 126

On this episode of CHAOSScast, host Alice Sowerby introduces a special episode welcoming Leon Nunes as the new host for the CHAOSS Asia podcast. Leon shares his background in customer success, his work with CNCF, and hardware hacking, along with his role in growing the CHAOSS Asia chapter. Together, Alice and Leon talk about the current state of the Asia community, Leon’s curiosity-driven approach to podcast hosting, the stories he wants to surface from across Asia, and how listeners can get involved or pitch episode ideas. Hit download now to find out more!

[00:00:35] Leon shares his background.

[00:01:24] Leon explains his customer success role, supporting customers running software in production, and his many side interests.

[00:02:48] We learn how Leon started with Raspberry Pi in college, building a motion triggered music stand, being inspired by GitHub badges, and shares a recent side project assembling RGB LED Christmas tree kits and gifting them to people.

[00:05:52] How did Leon find CHAOSS? He traces his path into CHAOSS Asia via a friend doing lots of outreach, and his desire to join open source communities beyond just code contributions. He also helps maintain CHAOSS Asia’s LinkedIn and Twitter.

[00:09:03] Alice asks what drew him to hosting a podcast. Leon shares his love of talking to people and using conversations to understand people.

[00:10:48] Alice connects Leon’s curiosity and his love of talking with podcast hosting, and reviews CHAOSScast episode types.

[00:11:51] What kind of stories does Leon want to tell from Asia? He wants to explore how other communities handle challenges like participation and growth and then apply those learnings to CHAOSS Asia. He suggests inviting active CHAOSS Asia contributors to share their experiences on the podcast.

[00:13:55] Alice agrees on a more exploratory approach, using conversations with active members to both document and strengthen the Asia chapter.

[00:14:48] Find out where you can contact Leon on the internet.

Value Adds (Picks) of the week:

[00:15:30] Alice’s pick is looking at a way to make Christmas crackers that are reusable.

[00:18:04] Leon’s pick is doing a lot dancing, like Lindy Hop, and his 3D printer.

Panelist:

Alice Sowerby

Guest:

Leon Nunes

Links:

CHAOSS

CHAOSS Project X

CHAOSScast Podcast

CHAOSS YouTube

[email protected]

Alice Sowerby LinkedIn

Leon Nunes Website

Leon Nunes LinkedIn

Leon Nunes X

CHAOSS Community Chapters

Most recent CHAOSS Asia Chapter meeting- November 13, 2025 (YouTube)

What are Christmas crackers? (YouTube)

Whiteys Lindy Hoppers - Hellzapoppin (YouTube)