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PODCAST

Sustain

Sustain brings together practitioners, sustainers, funders, researchers and maintainers of the open source ecosystem. We have conversations about the health and sustainability of the open source community. We learn about the ins and outs of what ‘open source’ entails in the real world. Open source means so much more than a license; we"re interested in talking about how to make sure that the culture of open source continues, grows, and ultimately, sustains itself. Newsletter

technology

All Episodes

45:23

Episode 294: Carol Willing & Hugo Bowne-Anderson on...

Sustain ·

2026/10/02

GuestCarol Willing | Hugo Bowne-Anderson Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes Richard is joined by guests Carol Willing and Hugo Bowne-Anderson for a conversation about AI, open source, and what happens to communities when generating code and content becomes nearly effortless. They discuss how AI is changing the maintainer experience, the importance of human expertise and collaboration, local and community-driven models like Satyrn, and whether open source itself may shift from

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37:56

Episode 293: Daniel Roe and Matias Capeletto of npmx

Sustain ·

2026/08/21

GuestDaniel Roe | Matias Capeletto Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard Littauer sits down with Daniel Roe and Matias “Patak” Capeletto to talk about npmx, the community-built alternative interface for exploring the npm registry. They dive into how a small idea exploded into hundreds of contributors and thousands of pull requests, why the project intentionally puts people and community ahead of nonstop productivity, and how they’re approaching

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35:58

Episode 292: Vlad-Stefan Harbuz: Launching the...

Sustain ·

2026/08/07

GuestVlad-Stefan Harbuz Panelist Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox | Abby Cabunoc Mayes Show Notes “Today we’re launching the Software Stewardship Lab.” - Vlad-Stefan In this episode, Richard, Abby, and Eriol welcome Vlad-Stefan Harbuz - University of Edinburgh PhD student, Executive Director of the Software Stewardship Lab, and Director of the Open Source Pledge - to talk about the Open Source Pledge and the newly launched Software Stewardship Lab. They discuss how companies can better

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29:27

Episode 291: Chelsea Finnie on PythonNZ

Sustain ·

2026/07/24

GuestChelsea Finnie Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard talks with Chelsea Finnie, Chairperson of Python New Zealand and a Senior Network DevOps Engineer at REANNZ, about the serious behind-the-scenes work required to keep open source communities alive. Chelsea shares how they moved from Python conference volunteer to community leader, then walks through Python New Zealand’s financial crisis after discovering improper use of funds, the legal and

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16:10

Episode 290: Andrew Nesbitt on AI, Transitive...

Sustain ·

2026/07/20

At UN Open Source Week in New York, Richard hosts a short, on-the-fly Sustain mini-episode from IBM’s offices with Andrew Nesbitt of Ecosyste.ms, a registry-of-registries built from dependency data across 300 million repositories. Nesbitt explains how that data is being used to prioritize security scanning with new AI models, revealing that many heavily used but dormant transitive dependencies—often unseen and unaudited—are high risk; in his testing of about 3,000 critical, abandoned

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30:58

Episode 289: Courtney Miller on Maintainer Burnout...

Sustain ·

2026/06/12

GuestCourtney Miller Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard welcomes back Courtney Miller to unpack her PhD research on one of open source’s most overlooked problems: what happens when widely used software is abandoned. Courtney explains why abandonment is not always simple, or even always bad, but can create real risks for the developers and projects that depend on it. From npm package research and downstream impact to Abandabot, AI-assisted

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33:48

Episode 288: Uni students and OSS with Jeff Young &...

Sustain ·

2026/05/15

GuestJeff Young | Daniel Shown Panelists Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard Littauer and Eriol Fox talk with Jeff Young from Georgia Tech and Daniel Shown from Saint Louis University (SLU) about how academic OSPOs are bringing students into open source in meaningful, sustainable ways. They discuss experiential learning, research software engineering, near-peer mentorship, student motivation, maintainer burnout, and how universities can help

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39:51

Episode 287: Alan Rubin on MaveDB

Sustain ·

2026/04/17

GuestAlan Rubin Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes On this episode of Sustain, Richard Littauer sits down with computational biologist Alan Rubin to explore how open source software supports scientific research, clinical genetics, and cancer-related data infrastructure. Their conversation centers on MaveDB, a project that began as a way to organize hard-to-find variant data from research papers and has since evolved into a valuable resource for both scientists and clinicians. Along

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40:05

Episode 286: Jack Skinner of PyCon AU and Regional Confs

Sustain ·

2026/03/13

GuestJack Skinner Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer talks with Jack Skinner, PyCon AU organizer and freelance consultant/fractional CTO, to explore why regional conferences matter so much to the long-term health of open source communities. Their conversation looks at how events like PyCon AU do far more than host talks, they create local connections, nurture future leaders, support first-time speakers, and help sustain the broader

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44:11

Episode 285: Miranda Heath on Altruism & Burnout in...

Sustain ·

2026/03/06

GuestMiranda Heath Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer is joined by PhD student Miranda Heath to discuss her research on altruism and maintainer burnout in open source, and specifically her report on burn out in open source maintainers. Miranda shares insights from her study on what motivates people to act altruistically and how these behaviors manifest in open source communities. She delves into the common issues maintainers face,

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28:29

Episode 284: Devconnect 2025 with Trent Van Epps

Sustain ·

2026/02/27

GuestTrent Van Epps Panelists Eriol Fox | Victory Brown Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown are at the Devconnect Conference in Buenos Aires with Trent Van Epps, an organizer of Protocol Guild and member of the Ethereum Foundation. They discuss the vital role of Protocol Guild in funding core protocol developers, addressing systemic issues of under-compensation in open-source projects. Trent also explores the similarities and differences

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17:33

Episode 283: Devconnect 2025 with Nuno Loureiro

Sustain ·

2026/02/20

GuestNuno Loureiro Panelists Eriol Fox | Victory Brown Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown are live with Nuno Loureiro, Lead Designer at the Ethereum Foundation, at Devconnect Conference in Buenos Aires. Nuno shares his journey in digital design and discusses his role in focusing on ethereum.org. He highlights the challenges of designing for open source platforms, including the difficulty of onboarding and collaborating with designers. He

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21:13

Episode 282: Devconnect 2025 with Lucas Fada

Sustain ·

2026/02/13

GuestLucas Fada Panelists Eriol Fox | Victory Brown Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown speak with Lucas Fada, the head of partnerships at Drips Network. Lucas shares insights from his over a decade of experience in early-stage startups, focusing on making open source software projects financially sustainable through strategic partnerships. They discuss the methodologies Lucas employs to secure funding for open source projects, the types

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23:07

Episode 281: Devconnect 2025 with Devansh Mehta

Sustain ·

2026/02/06

GuestDevansh Mehta Panelists Eriol Fox | Victory Brown Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown are at Devconnect Conference in Buenos Aires with Devansh Mehta from the Ethereum Foundation, to unpack one of the hardest problems in open source: how to fund the public good infrastructure that everything else depends on fairly, ethically, and at scale. They dig into quadratic funding, “credit assignment,” dependency graphs, Goodhart’s Law, and

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19:12

Episode 280: Devconnect 2025 with Nixo Rokish

Sustain ·

2026/01/30

GuestNixo Rokish Panelists Eriol Fox | Victory Brown Show Notes In this live episode of Sustain from Devconnect in Buenos Aires, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown sit down with Nixo Rokish, Protocol Support Lead at the Ethereum Foundation, to unpack how Ethereum’s deeply decentralized governance actually works in practice. They dive into the nuts and bolts of coordinating 100+ core contributors across 11+ client teams, why neutral facilitation is crucial, how Ethereum’s

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23:58

Episode 279: Devconnect 2025 with Shubhranshu Choudhary

Sustain ·

2026/01/23

GuestShubhranshu Choudhary Panelists Eriol Fox | Victory Brown Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown speak with Shubhranshu “Shu” Choudhary. They delve into his work with Democratic Media and its connections to open source technology. Shu discusses the aristocratic nature of current media, the importance of democratizing journalism, and the potential role of open source and decentralized technologies like Web3 and blockchain in making media

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25:06

Episode 278: Devconnect 2025 with Mário Havel

Sustain ·

2026/01/16

GuestMário Havel Panelists Eriol Fox | Victory Brown Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Eriol Fox and co-host Victory Brown are live at Devconnect Conference in Buenos Aires, with Mário Havel, protocol support at the Ethereum Foundation and co-founder of the Bordel Hackerspace in Prague. Mário shares his experience working in protocol support, contributing to the evolution and scalability of Ethereum. He dives into the significance of the Hackerspace 'Bordell' in Prague, discussing its

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38:57

Episode 277: Rynn Mancuso, Maryblessing Okolie & Mo...

Sustain ·

2025/12/19

GuestsRynn Mancuso | Maryblessing Okolie | Mo McElaney Panelist Richard Littauer | Eriol Fox Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard and Eriol talk with members of the Organization for Ethical Source (OES), Rynn Mancuso, Maryblessing Okolie, and Mo McElaney, about how ethics, licensing, and codes of conduct intersect in open source. They unpack the origins and challenges of the Hippocratic License, the community driven overhaul of Contributor Covenant 3.0, what it really takes to collaborate

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44:16

Episode 276: Dawn Wages and Loren Crary on funding...

Sustain ·

2025/12/12

GuestsDawn Wages | Loren Crary Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, Richard Littauer talks with Dawn Wages, former Chair of the Python Software Foundation board and Loren Crary, Deputy Executive Director of the PSF, about how the PSF sustains Python and its community, governance, fundraising, and events like PyCon US, and why they ultimately turned down a $1.5M NSF grant rather than accept new anti-DEI conditions. They walk through what the grant was for, how the

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31:03

Episode 275: Richard J. Acton on Research Software...

Sustain ·

2025/06/27

GuestRichard J. Acton Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer speaks with Richard J. Acton, a research data outputs manager at the Human Developmental Biology Initiative based near Cambridge. He discusses his involvement with open source software through bioinformatics and his development of a comprehensive checklist for researchers producing code. This checklist aims to guide researchers in making their software outputs more citable, reproducible, and

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279 results

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