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Latest Episodes:

Open Policy Agent with Torin Sandall Oct 07, 2020

Show notes

Eric Anderson (@ericmander) catches up with Torin Sandall (@sometorin), co-creator of Open Policy Agent (OPA), the open-source, general-purpose policy engine. By focusing on demonstrating OPA’s value through case studies, targeted interviews, and word-of-mouth, Torin and the folks at Styra were able to grow OPA into the emerging standard for unified policy enforcement across the cloud-native stack.

In this episode we discuss:

When Netflix stumbled across OPA and delivered its “Cinderella moment”
Why OPA was designed to be developer-centric
The value of demonstrating OPA’s use cases to the industry
How one user created an RPG engine with OPA

Links:

People mentioned:

Tim Hinrichs (@tlhinrchs)
William Morgan (@wm)
Kevin Hoffman (@kevinhoffman)

Other episodes:

Temporal with Maxim Fateev Sep 23, 2020

Show notes

Eric Anderson (@ericmander) and Maxim Fateev (@mfateev) trace the development of Temporal, an open-source workflow orchestration engine. At Uber, Maxim co-created the project’s predecessor, Cadence, but Temporal’s roots stretch farther back to include lessons learned at Amazon and Microsoft. In this episode, learn how 18 years of experience in asynchronous messaging and workflows culminated in the foundation of Temporal.

In this episode we discuss:

Why Maxim quit Uber to start his own company
Differences between Temporal and Cadence
How Uber is filling the position that Google once had incubating open-source projects
Maxim’s advice for aspiring open-source founders

Related Links:

People mentioned:

Jay Parikh (@jayparikh)

Xanadu with Nathan Killoran Aug 12, 2020

Show notes

Nathan Killoran (@co9olguy) guides Eric Anderson (@ericmander) through the cutting-edge world of quantum machine learning at Xanadu, a quantum computing company that is innovating with its use of photonics. Nathan is Xanadu’s Head of Software, Algorithms, & Quantum Machine Learning, and has detailed insight on their main open-source software projects, StrawberryFields and PennyLane. On today’s episode, Nathan explains how the barrier to contributing may be lower than you think, even if you don’t have a PhD in quantum physics.

In this episode we discuss:

Designing software for Xanadu’s unique approach to quantum computing
Machine learning, differentiable programming and more in the quantum domain
How even high school students can contribute to an open-source quantum computing project
Is there a road map for quantum machine learning?
Nathan’s “blue sky” interview questions

Links:

People mentioned:

Christian Weedbrook, CEO of Xanadu (@_cweedbrook)

Clickhouse with Alexey Milovidov and Ivan Blinkov Jul 29, 2020

Show notes

Eric Anderson (@ericmander) talks to Alexey Milovidov (@alexey-milovidov) and Ivan Blinkov (@blinkov) about their work on Clickhouse, an open source analytical database from the team at Yandex. Originally designed to support Yandex.Metrica, word of this powerful tool spread rapidly inside the company, and the idea was hatched to make Clickhouse into a truly open source project. Tune in to learn about how Alexey petitioned management to accept what initially seemed like a “crazy” idea - and how the risk paid off.

In this episode we discuss:

Differences between Clickhouse and similar products
Why some open source projects are more successful than others
The history of open source at Yandex
What makes a good open source developer
Building an international community

Links:

LinkerD with William Morgan Jul 15, 2020

Show notes

Eric Anderson (@ericmander) chats with William Morgan (@wm), CEO of Buoyant and a creator of the open source service mesh, LinkerD. As a former infrastructure engineer at Twitter, William leveraged his experience there to help develop what would become effectively the first service mesh. Listen to today’s episode to find out how the team at Buoyant originally coined the term, and are continuing to define the concept today.

In this episode we discuss:

Pioneering the very first service mesh
Why Buoyant rejected the open core model
How the industry is shifting away from the “nights and weekends” community
Rewriting LinkerD from scratch

Links:

Chef with Adam Jacob Jul 01, 2020

Show notes

Full show notes and transcript.

Eric Anderson (@ericmander) welcomes Chef co-founder Adam Jacob (@adamhjk) to talk about the popular open source service. He and co-founder Nathan Haneysmith originally started the company as a way to sell automation services to startups, but wanted to expand their abilities to serve more clients. From naming the company to governance and engaging with contributors, Adam dives into why it was important to him to go the open source route and how the business model works.

In this episode we discuss:

How Chef got started
The decision to be open source
What the business model looks like
Contributors and community members
Where Chef is today and where it’s headed

Links

Istio with Sven Mawson Jul 01, 2020

Show notes

Full show notes and transcript.

Eric Anderson (@ericmander) and Sven Mawson (@smawson) dive into the past, present and future of Istio, an open source service mesh born of collaboration between IBM and Google. Sven is a Senior Staff Engineer at Google and co-founder of the Istio project. In today’s episode, he shares the story of how two titans came together for a tool that anyone can use and contribute to.

In this episode we discuss:

How Google asked IBM to drop their Amalgam8 project
The involvement of Lyft, Envoy and Matt Klein (@mattklein123)
Making moves at QCon
A counter-intuitive marketing strategy
What work still needs to be done

Links

Envoy Proxy with Matt Klein Nov 14, 2019

Show notes

Full show notes and transcript.

Eric Anderson (@ericmander) and Matt Klein (@mattklein123) discuss the beginnings of Envoy Proxy, an open source proxy now governed by the CNCF. Matt is a software engineer at Lyft and creator of the Envoy. On today’s episode, Matt gives the inside scoop on the benefits and challenges of cultivating a self-sustaining open source community.

In this episode we discuss: