So, please join me in welcoming Adi Gerard.
Adi is going to be closing us out today with her presentation become a hero.
And Adi has no bio.
Okay, well then I'm just going to talk about nice things I know about Adi.
So, Adi and I met a couple of years ago at an open source event in Ireland and
became well-quainted and fast friends for many reasons.
She is an expert in inner source marketing and communications and she has recently started
a new role as an open source program office lead for a medical device startup.
And I will leave it to Adi to say other amazing things about herself as she wishes to do so.
So, I'm going to hand the mic over to you.
You should say great things about you because there are many.
And then we're going to do the traditional, its form, its past, its past, its past, its past.
You'll form a welcome with flaws and invite our speaker to continue from her.
How are you?
Great.
Thank you Leslie.
I'm excited to be in the community room and talk to you guys about becoming a hero.
So, who here has read, so crashed by Neil Stevenson, show of hands.
Okay?
Good.
If you have it, it's okay.
I will do my best to describe the scenarios and characters.
I highly recommend it.
It's a cyberpunk classic and it's super, super fun.
And so, when I was reading show crash, I was struck by some similarities between
our scenario today and open source.
And I believe that open source as a practice is at a crossroads.
A very significant one that will determine whether or not
and how open source will proceed in the future.
And so, I'm going to use examples from so crash and also from history to try and illuminate
that.
The main character in the story so crash is hero protagonist, which is a nod to Joseph Campbell's
book from 1949 entitled, a hero with a thousand faces.
And in it, he talks about the hero's journey.
A hero's journey includes transformations.
It includes challenges, but ultimately what it does is it brings back a benefit to the entire
community.
And of course, an open source.
We know exactly what that is because we're here because of the heroes before us.
So, let's take a moment and look at where we come from.
We know that in the 1940s and 50s, software collaboration was open and free and people
were just talking about different ideas and there was a lot of excitement around it.
And then something changed.
Companies began selling machines and software became business.
There was money to be made.
And so, what was what's freely talked about and looked at became ported by companies.
And this is where we meet our first hero, Richard Stomen.
Richard Stomen was an MIT programmer.
And he had a vision for the future that we could have free software.
That was his vision.
And so, with that, he launched the GNU project.
And his motivation, when you ask him about it, was he wanted to reinvent
a cooperative spirit among computer users.
And I think that that is a very, very important thing for us to consider today
as well as in our future.
He launched the GNU project and then in 85 he released the bulletin,
which contained the four freedoms of software.
Sure, you all know them, but we'll just repeat him for the sake.
The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
The freedom to study, modify the program.
The freedom to distribute, redistribute copies.
The freedom to redistribute modified versions.
Right? Those four freedoms of the principles for open source,
to open software.
Free software, open source.
Right? Those are the principles.
That's why we exist.
And it was an exciting time, right?
The freedom software foundation created licenses that protected free software.
Companies started doing patents, so they could hold it.
Very lively moment.
And they realized really quickly they needed an operating system.
And so, the young finished student minus,
who, as we know, contributed the Linux kernel to the world.
Huge moment, right? Huge moment for free software.
And so, the struggle continued.
They wanted companies to start doing this.
And so, they needed more heroes.
So, people came out of the woodwork.
Right? They had, did these Cooper at Sun System,
who fought on the inside of an organization
to tell them about the principles of free software.
Right? She eventually started the hospital
that helped corporations have a structure
that helped them understand what is free software.
And why is it valuable to us as a company?
Huge work, right?
Simon Fipps continued that work.
Who's read the Cathedral in the Bazaar?
Big moment, Eric Raymond and Bruce Piers,
co-founded the open source initiative.
That organization, that institution in our world,
is fundamental and has been fighting for the rights of open source
for as long as this practice has been alive.
It's wonderful, right?
But they weren't alone.
Free software was really not palpable to business owners.
They couldn't free software. This doesn't work.
And so, Tim O'Reilly and others gathered together in California
and they discussed rebranding.
That's the term open source came onto the scene, right?
Another big moment where companies were like,
hey, you know what? This could work.
We can use this.
Michelle Baker, right?
The release of the NetScape Browsing Code,
huge pivotal moment.
Brian Bellendorf and the original eight,
the Apache Way, all of these heroes and many more fought
to bring us to today.
And where is open source today, right?
Open source is in open code is in 97% of code bases.
80% of code bases have between 1 to 200 open source
dependencies. According to a study in Harvard,
the demand side value of open source is 8.8 trillion.
For the last couple of years at the United Nations,
leaders around the globe for open source and
osmos have been discussing how osmos and open source
is critical to driving forward the sustainable development goals
that will help the world.
Open source is on the global stage.
That's where we're at.
And do you know why?
Do you know why we're on the global stage?
Because we've created something valuable.
Incredibly valuable.
And when you create something valuable,
the powers that be take interest.
Take interest.
Let's go into Snowcrash for a minute.
When you hear, when you look at the environment in Snowcrash,
they talk about the streets being franchiseed owned.
Do you know what that means?
It means a couple of really powerful people owned streets.
In fact, in that story, there is Mr. Lee Hong Kong,
who owns franchises.
There is Uncle Enzo, who's the head of the mafia,
and he also owns franchises.
You have Baudel Reich, who's a telecommunications mogul,
and he owns the technical infrastructure of the world in Snowcrash.
They own the spaces.
The communities are fragmented into birdclaves,
which basically create their own rule of law,
and it sits a pretty chaotic place.
At the beginning of the story,
we meet Hero,
and he is a pizza delivery guy.
He works for Uncle Enzo.
And he is trying to get a pizza to a destination on time.
And as he does that, things go awry.
Lots of things.
One thing, after another thing,
after another thing, and everything he tries,
he's not able to get that pizza there on time.
It eventually crashes the car.
Right?
Can't not get there.
No wonder what he does.
I think there's some parallels to that,
because open source, free software,
has had struggles since the beginning.
We have had lurking challenges
that we have not addressed,
that are problems in our practice.
And over the years, they have compounded.
Let's talk about them.
Who here, personally, has experienced burnout
or no someone who has?
Raise your hand.
Nobody who has?
Keep your hands up.
Let's take it around the room.
What we call this is a systemic problem.
And think about across this university,
and across the globe,
how many other people would have their hands up to.
Do you know how you solve sustainability?
You have people to support your project,
and you have money.
That's how you solve sustainability.
Nobody wants another XZ Utilis instance.
Another working problem that we have
is security risks and dependencies.
Dependency vulnerabilities.
I hope you've read the sign-ups,
2024 report.
If you haven't, I'm going to go through a couple of data points for you right now.
88% of hardware and semi-conductor industries contain
high-risk open source vulnerabilities.
87% of manufacturing, industrial, and robotics industries
contain high-risk open source vulnerabilities.
67% of AI, B-I, ML, big data contain high-risk open source vulnerabilities.
And the shocking fact is that at the time of those vulnerable component downloads,
96% of them have a safer alternative.
Nobody wants another heart-bleed moment,
or a log J for J moment.
Nobody wants that, right?
We get a bad rep for that.
This is a problem.
And of course, we're all familiar with the corporate issue
where by people come, they take the code,
they use the code, and they contribute.
Nothing back, right?
Nothing financial, they don't give their time,
they don't donate bug solutions, nothing.
And so, when you look at that,
and you look at where open source is today,
we've created kind of a digital commons,
a tragedy of the commons of sorts.
Not exactly, but sort of.
I'll give you a couple of other examples.
How many of you have seen a company say,
we are open source?
And they're not.
Right?
I know.
I've seen it.
They're not open source.
And as a consequence of some of these problems,
you see articles where they say,
you know what?
You shouldn't use open source.
It's not secure.
It's not compliance.
Could be in a brass situation.
You have to go with commercial.
You just can't use it.
Right?
That doesn't help us.
That's not what we want to have happened.
And what sad is.
It's kind of true.
So, Oström won a Nobel Prize for her work in 1990,
for something called governing the commons.
And she postulated that there are three ways
to prevent this situation.
Number one, community management.
Work here.
So we'll move past.
Privateization.
Obviously, we're not for that one.
Can anyone guess the third?
Regulation.
The European Union has just created the CRA.
The Cyber Resiliency Act is going to change
the way open source is practiced.
There are now four areas of requirements
that we are going to have to adjust.
Documentation.
Risk assessments.
Conformity assessments.
And vulnerability reporting within 24 hours
of finding that vulnerability.
Open source isn't staying the way it has been.
Those who are non-compliant
could be fined up to 15 million euro.
Open source is changing.
And how that regulation is put into effect
will impact what happens to open source.
In Snowcrash, the bad guy, Bob Rife,
he pushes this virus called Snowcrash.
And he pushes it out because he wants power to control.
It's what he wants.
And he pushes it out to the people
who could or would fight back.
That's who he goes after.
The GDP of the globe is 110 trillion.
It's 110 trillion.
The value, the demand side of open source,
is 8.8 trillion.
That's a pretty valuable asset.
And the person who gets to control that.
That's a lot of power in it.
That's a lot of power.
I think we're in a place where we need to ask ourselves
what can we do?
And I suggest there are four things.
One, when people say something is open source,
please don't say, no, it's not.
Please.
Everyone in this room understands what open source is.
We are the advocates for that practice.
You know who doesn't know what open source is?
The entire globe.
No, they're not open source.
Does not help the world understand what we practice
or what we fight for on a daily basis.
You know what does?
You know what?
That's not open source.
Let me tell you why.
They do XYZ.
Open source is ABC.
Herein lies the problem.
And see it pleasantly.
So people want to talk to you about it.
Right?
The second thing that we need is we have to communicate
the value of open source better.
And I think we need to start communicating that value
especially within corporations.
Now, there are a couple of organizations that do that really
really well and help equip people to do it.
In our source commons is one of them.
The two-due group is another one.
But unless we are able to express why open source
is something they should do, we might lose ground.
We might lose ground.
Number three.
We have to advocate and start working
at collecting the value of our contribution
and distributing that back to those people
who are doing the work,
the maintainers, and the contributors.
There are several organizations that do a very good job
of this open collective.
And I'll net the sovereign tech fund.
Is it enough?
Absolutely not.
But it's a start.
And we need to do more of it.
We need to do more of it.
Because we have a fiscal problem.
Lastly, we have to engage in policy and regulation.
Half-two.
Regulation is not going to slow down or stop.
It's going to speed up.
We have to engage with the policy makers.
And I'm excited to say that the open regulatory compliance
working group, that the eclipse foundation
is hosting, welcomes people to join and talk about that.
And they are engaging with policy makers.
That happened on Thursday.
On Friday, the open forum Europe had a policy summit
where they got together with the policy makers and the open source.
And they started talking.
We have to have this dialogue.
Other organizations that are great for this
is yoga.
Open solutions for government.
Right?
Teach the government why they should adopt open source solutions
as opposed to the alternative.
Help them get on board with that.
There are a couple of historical stories.
I want to tell really quickly in my last couple minutes.
And a couple of historical references that I think are applicable.
As a globe, we faced COVID.
And the medical professionals and practitioners and equipment makers
are very highly proprietary group.
And they couldn't really innovate.
And they didn't really work together to make sure
that the populist was OK.
And as a consequence, a lot of people did not do so well.
It was a very tough time.
Now, a lot of medical people made a lot of money.
But we didn't come together to solve that challenge that we faced.
Right?
I worked for an organization that was in Biotech.
And I'm really excited because we are open sourcing technology that will enable people to
detect the transmission of disease through breath.
And it's open source, which means everyone in the globe can take this and be able to
decide and determine whether or not they've been exposed.
That's a big deal.
You know how you fight a virus?
You have to know where it is.
Because new ones come up and it's a risk.
There was a...
In the 1700s, there was a situation that's a lot like this.
And I want to talk to you about it.
I want to introduce to you a gentleman, a young war chief,
by the name of Takamsa.
Takamsa was a war chief for the Great Shawnee Nation.
And the Great Shawnee Nation had a problem.
They had this beautiful hunting ground.
Beautiful, lush, rich with resources.
It was their home.
They respected it, and they protected it.
It was wonderful.
And just like anything of value, somebody came and they said,
you know what?
We'd like to take that.
So the Shawnee Nation got together and they asked themselves,
what do we do?
It's powerful entity is coming and they're going to take it from us.
What do we do?
And to comes and stood up, and he said this,
any child can snap with ease the single hair of a horse's tail.
But not the strongest man nor the wildestalian can break the woven hair
that makes a rope.
The ending for the Shawnee Nation is a sad one.
You see, they didn't come together.
And that powerful entity pushed them out,
and they ended up on a reservation where they were told what they could do,
and how they could do it, and where they could do it.
The lesson of to come, sir, was that he went out,
not just to his own tribe, but to all the tribes.
He went to the Cherokee, and he went to the Chippewa,
and he went to the Delaware, and he went to all of them,
to tell them, we must become the rope.
The rope that can withstand the powerful who have come to take away
what is precious and sacred.
That which creates freedom and sustains those things which are good.
And in this time, we, too, each one of you and all of us together
must become like to come to our own community and to our own tribe.
We must stand for the freedoms.
So that, in the generosity of that spirit,
the good things of open source can continue on.
Because in the absence of that spirit,
there is only a desire for profit and control,
and the ends and the consequences of that is paying and suffering
as we've learned today.
And so I say to each of you,
we must now.
Now is the time for us all to become the hero.
And that is my speech. Thank you very much.