Community Over Code CFP 2023 Submissions

Speaker Bio

Shane has been volunteering at the ASF since 1999, serving on multiple projects and roles including VP, Brand Management, a many-term Director, Vice Chair of the Board, as well as speaking at (and running one!) ApacheCon / Community Over Code.

Outside of the ASF, Shane works to improve open source sustainability and coordinating communities with academic researchers.

Otherwise, Shane is a father, husband and friend. Oh, and we have cats! Find me on socials at ShaneCurcuru.

The Practical ASF Way

The Apache Way is a set of behaviors and techniques that will help everyone - organizations and individuals alike - work more effectively in distributed communities. These behaviors turn plain old open source into a truly open governance project, that can keep growing for the long term.

This session is a highly interactive review of the core behaviors that help keep Apache projects healthy and productive. Many behaviors are required at the ASF, but they are also valuable to any collaborative project where the contributors are distributed across companies, continents, and experiences.

Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of practical actions they can take to help improve their own open source experience, and how to help their communities succeed together. Lessons learned are tied back directly to relevant community and PMC documentation at the ASF, including the latest edits and updates in our docs.

The behaviors you can use to succeed at Apache.

Who Pays For FOSS Foundations?

Have you ever wondered how open source organizations get funded? Not just developers, but the ecosystem of major open source projects at Foundations or organized projects?

Many software projects we rely on are hosted at Foundations like Apache, Eclipse, Linux, or Software Freedom Conservancy. Foundations provide a wide variety of support to project communities, like legal and licensing assistance, trademark management, event support, and more. As non-profits, these foundations rely on donors and sponsors for funding. So who funds these foundations?

Come find out the companies behind the popular open source foundations, and who’s paying for the support work like keeping the servers running, press releases coming, and license compliance working. Surprises are guaranteed; I know I was surprised when I realized how many different FOSS projects that Microsoft is an annual sponsor for, what projects a few other companies supported with their cash, and how big one foundation has gotten.

Practical Trademark Law AMA

Are you trying to build a brand for your community-led project? Is your community struggling to keep vendor marketing teams out of your project’s governance? Do you need a lawyer before you can “trademark” something, or can you do it yourself? (Tip: you can do it yourself!)

This AMA is here to help answer basic trademark law questions in practical, everyday terms for FOSS projects and the companies that contribute to them. Legal advice can only come from your own lawyer - but most community questions have practical answers that can get you started without a lawyer. Trademarks are all about the public’s association of a brand with a product - and most of that happens in the real world, not a lawyer’s office.

Bring your simple community questions about how trademarks work, and we’ll try to get you some practical advice on what to do. Similarly, corporate questions are welcome - for how you can effectively partner with a Foundation or community-led project without stepping on toes.

Key resource links included, to get you started with actionable and practical information for FOSS.

Shane is founder of Punderthings℠ LLC consultancy, helping organizations find better ways to engage with the critical open source projects that power modern technology and business. He blogs and tweets about open source governance and trademark issues, and speaks at open source conferences like ApacheCon, OSCON, All Things Open, Community Leadership Summit, and Ignite. More about the author →