1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:03,280 It's, it's been years since I actually created the resume. 2 00:00:03,480 --> 00:00:07,080 Most of the jobs or companies I've now worked for was true. 3 00:00:07,120 --> 00:00:09,920 Folks approached me on get up. I think the bigger problem for 4 00:00:09,920 --> 00:00:13,200 open source is at the moment, it's sort of being killed with 5 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:16,800 kindness and a lot of slop from people that are trying to 6 00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:18,440 contribute. I look for like active 7 00:00:18,440 --> 00:00:21,200 contributors, Then I look for their pull requests and I feel 8 00:00:21,200 --> 00:00:24,000 they're on the ones that are merged and I just try and sort 9 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,240 of copy their style. It reduces the cognitive load 10 00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:30,360 for a reviewer to understand what you're actually proposed if 11 00:00:30,360 --> 00:00:32,840 you speak their language. I don't want to lose my 12 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:35,760 identity. True using agents, but I think 13 00:00:35,920 --> 00:00:38,160 you should use them. But just don't let it sort of 14 00:00:38,160 --> 00:00:40,720 steal your identity. Don't outsource your thinking to 15 00:00:40,720 --> 00:00:42,080 it. Yeah, that's how you maintain 16 00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:44,040 ownership. If you've ever thought about 17 00:00:44,040 --> 00:00:46,680 contributing to open source but you haven't actually started, 18 00:00:46,680 --> 00:00:50,440 then this episode is for you. I'm joined by Bruno Scott Sperka 19 00:00:50,440 --> 00:00:54,120 and he is an open source legend. We discuss how open source has 20 00:00:54,120 --> 00:00:57,920 shaped his career, what the impact is of Agentic on open 21 00:00:57,920 --> 00:01:01,400 source, how to make it easy for yourself to start and for the 22 00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:05,080 maintainers to actually merge your pull requests, and much, 23 00:01:05,080 --> 00:01:06,440 much more. So enjoy. 24 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:12,840 I think open source is one of the coolest things we have 25 00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:15,760 within this industry, specifically in tech and haven't 26 00:01:15,760 --> 00:01:18,480 been in any other industry. So it's easy to say, but I 27 00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:21,080 wonder what role open source has played throughout your career. 28 00:01:21,480 --> 00:01:23,080 Yeah, it's pretty much shaped my career. 29 00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:28,720 It's a form of escapism for me. So usually after my 9 to 5 30 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:32,240 different customers, I find myself working on projects. 31 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:36,640 Terraform has been a huge sort of ecosystem as well as the tool 32 00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:39,360 itself that I contributed to which event. 33 00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:43,200 Eventually they ended up me leaving Zbia, where I'm 34 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:46,920 currently employed at, to work for Hashicorp, which was quite 35 00:01:46,920 --> 00:01:49,560 cool. So part of my career I would say 36 00:01:49,560 --> 00:01:53,520 I thank to to open source. And it's that form of, like I 37 00:01:53,520 --> 00:01:57,560 said, escape escapism. I get to I'm, I'm quite of an 38 00:01:57,560 --> 00:02:00,080 introvert person. I like to put my headphones on, 39 00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:03,240 get some solo time. And instead of reading, like 40 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:08,759 instead of reading fiction or watching a movie, I quite enjoy 41 00:02:08,759 --> 00:02:13,280 sort of shaping as if you were a chef, shaping the kitchens and 42 00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:16,000 pans and pots you work with. I get these shapes sort of the 43 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:18,520 tools that many of my colleagues work with. 44 00:02:19,520 --> 00:02:21,400 It's quite rewarding in that sense. 45 00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:26,880 And it has allowed me to build up a lot of confidence in the 46 00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:30,280 pride I take in the work we do and the artifacts that I 47 00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:34,760 produce. As an engineer, I, and when I 48 00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:40,920 mentioned that is I really value the artifacts that I produce. 49 00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:44,360 So the code that I write is is just part of it, but also how I 50 00:02:44,360 --> 00:02:48,760 propose it to a team or a project where and how I write A 51 00:02:48,760 --> 00:02:51,920 blog about it. A lot of people that I work with 52 00:02:51,920 --> 00:02:54,200 or that have seen my contributions will see that 53 00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:56,640 sometimes in GitHub you can see how many times you edited a 54 00:02:56,640 --> 00:02:59,400 message. I sometimes find myself working 55 00:02:59,400 --> 00:03:03,720 on a PR for an hour and I spent about two hours or three hours 56 00:03:03,720 --> 00:03:08,080 on the actual proposal or sort of the PR description and I it's 57 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:10,880 added it like 15 times because I'm trying to find the right 58 00:03:11,080 --> 00:03:13,960 right works for it. Why is it specifically open 59 00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:16,120 source contributions? Why aren't these just personal 60 00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:17,520 projects? Because I know a lot of people 61 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:21,200 that do projects and they they really work in their own kind of 62 00:03:21,200 --> 00:03:23,840 sphere. But you continuously work and 63 00:03:23,840 --> 00:03:27,040 you provide, I mean, you Polish tooling is what you mentioned. 64 00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:28,800 Yeah. It's the it's the gift I provide 65 00:03:28,800 --> 00:03:29,960 for the community. Well. 66 00:03:29,960 --> 00:03:32,600 Why is that? If you look at how some 67 00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:36,280 companies approach this open core model is where they get 68 00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:39,400 sort of rapid feedback and free test users. 69 00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:44,280 I like to produce code, share it with colleagues, but also get 70 00:03:44,280 --> 00:03:47,120 feedback on the things I do. I think it has a feedback loop, 71 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:51,760 yeah. And have you, because typically 72 00:03:51,760 --> 00:03:54,840 what I've heard my colleagues, for example, they want to 73 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:58,040 contribute to open source, but then their PR gets stale or it 74 00:03:58,040 --> 00:03:59,520 stays open for a long, long time. 75 00:03:59,520 --> 00:04:02,640 And then when they get feedback, it's like maybe nitpicking or 76 00:04:02,640 --> 00:04:04,680 maybe the whole solution direction was just wrong. 77 00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:07,840 So that investment, not just the time investment, but also like 78 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:10,920 emotional investment, people want to close their PRS, They 79 00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:13,000 want their changes to be merged. That's the feeling of 80 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:14,680 fulfilment. When it stays open for a long 81 00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:17,040 time, I feel like they'll lose it and they probably won't 82 00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:19,560 contribute any more. How do you accommodate for that? 83 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:22,760 Yeah. That's a very common problem, I 84 00:04:22,760 --> 00:04:27,720 would say in open source. I had the exact same experience 85 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:31,560 when I started out as anyone that tries to contribute to a 86 00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:34,200 project for the first time is sort of trying to find its way, 87 00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:36,960 right. Just writing the code is one 88 00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:40,280 thing, but the way how you create your PR, how you, what 89 00:04:40,280 --> 00:04:46,120 kind of title you use, what kind of commit message you use, all 90 00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:48,240 of those are sort of part of your contribution. 91 00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:52,640 And how I at some point navigated that is I just in 92 00:04:52,640 --> 00:04:55,640 GitHub, there's a great way to figure out who contributes the 93 00:04:55,640 --> 00:04:59,240 most to, to the repo. So I look for like active 94 00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:02,360 contributors, then I look for their pull requests and I filter 95 00:05:02,640 --> 00:05:05,760 on the ones that are merged and I just try and sort of copy 96 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:10,360 their style off of the maintainers that are proposing 97 00:05:10,360 --> 00:05:15,160 those PRS or merging things in. It reduces the cognitive load 98 00:05:15,160 --> 00:05:18,640 for a reviewer to understand what you're actually proposing 99 00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:21,920 if you speak their language, if you do something that's 100 00:05:21,920 --> 00:05:25,040 completely the opposite. Usually when I review PRS on my 101 00:05:25,040 --> 00:05:28,040 projects or projects that contribute to that are not 102 00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:31,960 confirmed to style or the documentation we've published, I 103 00:05:31,960 --> 00:05:35,640 don't want to say that I, I would say I sort of mentally 104 00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:40,000 parked them until I get some, some time to sort of dig into, 105 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,680 into their proposal. Lowering that cognitive load for 106 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:45,960 maintainers is something I think is, is really important. 107 00:05:47,080 --> 00:05:50,160 It worked for me, and it worked for for those who I advised to 108 00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:52,440 do so. This is really like knowing your 109 00:05:52,440 --> 00:05:55,560 audience, which is for me it's a bit counter intuitive because 110 00:05:55,560 --> 00:05:58,440 sometimes I've had conversations with people and I was also like 111 00:05:58,440 --> 00:06:01,200 this, This is the way I like to structure my commits. 112 00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:03,280 This is the way I like to structure my PRS. 113 00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:06,560 It's very personal, but you are offering something that gets 114 00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:10,000 merged into a greater whole. So your audience is the people 115 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:12,440 that are going to review this that are like the the gate 116 00:06:12,440 --> 00:06:15,120 between you and the merging. So accommodating for that. 117 00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:16,680 It does make a lot of sense, yes. 118 00:06:16,680 --> 00:06:17,800 I've never thought of that though. 119 00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:21,360 OK, it's really cool. Hereby I would say try it out, 120 00:06:21,520 --> 00:06:23,400 yeah. Yeah, So then that makes the 121 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:26,480 process a lot easier for me, especially when I think about 122 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:28,840 contributing to open source. It's open. 123 00:06:28,960 --> 00:06:31,600 I feel like I'm a little bit naked, which also means that 124 00:06:31,760 --> 00:06:34,560 especially early in career, I advise people to do it. 125 00:06:34,560 --> 00:06:36,200 I feel like it's good. I agree with you. 126 00:06:36,200 --> 00:06:39,520 It's really good feedback. It's solid, but there is also 127 00:06:39,520 --> 00:06:43,040 always the sense of imposter syndrome where it's very much 128 00:06:43,040 --> 00:06:44,760 out of your comfort zone if you've never done it. 129 00:06:45,040 --> 00:06:46,840 I feel like if you do that continuously, if you're like 130 00:06:46,840 --> 00:06:49,720 you, you probably have an opinion on how you structure 131 00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:51,080 things and you take pride in that. 132 00:06:51,080 --> 00:06:53,880 You've become good at that. It's easier when you're good and 133 00:06:53,880 --> 00:06:55,400 it's not easy when you're not good. 134 00:06:55,880 --> 00:06:57,920 How do you accommodate for that or what would your advice? 135 00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:02,200 Be so, I would say I read a lot of code, read a lot of open 136 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:04,680 source code, try to understand how other people do this. 137 00:07:05,080 --> 00:07:08,480 I would say the way I write code nowadays has been shaped by open 138 00:07:08,480 --> 00:07:12,520 source and it has obviously been shaped by the code that read 139 00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:15,680 through my 9:00 to 5:00, but it's somehow different. 140 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:20,800 I think a lot of people unintentionally or unconsciously 141 00:07:20,800 --> 00:07:23,760 take inspiration from how open source code is is written, 142 00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:26,000 especially those that contribute to those projects. 143 00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:30,840 If you are a beginner that finds yourself in a position where you 144 00:07:30,840 --> 00:07:34,360 either feel this sort of imposter syndrome where like, 145 00:07:34,360 --> 00:07:37,160 oh, am I good enough to contribute or not, I would say 146 00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:41,640 spend time reading code. There's there's tons of amazing 147 00:07:41,640 --> 00:07:45,160 projects out there that keep a really high bar on code quality. 148 00:07:45,480 --> 00:07:47,960 Find something that's within your knees or niche or within 149 00:07:47,960 --> 00:07:50,640 your industry. For me, oh, it's Terraform and 150 00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:54,920 Terraforms ecosystem. Mitchell and Armand and and 151 00:07:54,920 --> 00:07:58,360 Martin Atkins and a lot of folks over at Hashicorp spend a decade 152 00:07:58,360 --> 00:08:03,160 building an amazing ecosystem. And most of the Go code I write 153 00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:06,360 nowadays has been shaped by sort of reading all the code from all 154 00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:09,560 those projects. So read more than you write to 155 00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:10,840 begin with. Gotcha. 156 00:08:10,920 --> 00:08:13,520 Yeah. And this also this, the fact 157 00:08:13,520 --> 00:08:16,200 that you do this, it gives you energy because all the people 9 158 00:08:16,200 --> 00:08:18,320 to 5, they're like, God, this is my tech stuff. 159 00:08:18,320 --> 00:08:21,000 This is my regular day-to-day things and they don't want to do 160 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:22,680 more tech things outside of work. 161 00:08:23,120 --> 00:08:27,200 It does, it does give me energy it, but it's like I said in the 162 00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:29,480 beginning, it's also a form of escapism for me. 163 00:08:30,800 --> 00:08:33,280 I'm a bit of an introvert person, so you won't see me in, 164 00:08:33,280 --> 00:08:35,880 in clubs or bars or, or or whatever. 165 00:08:37,320 --> 00:08:41,000 So that's definitely a form for me to sort of escape from, from, 166 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:45,240 from live and personal things and and work on these projects 167 00:08:45,240 --> 00:08:50,800 on the other side. It's being able to I I use for 168 00:08:50,800 --> 00:08:52,560 example Terraform or Kubernetes a lot. 169 00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:55,440 Being able to also contribute to it allows me to better 170 00:08:55,440 --> 00:08:56,920 understand the tools that I work with. 171 00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:00,520 Oh, that's smart like a. Like a chef that gets to design 172 00:09:00,520 --> 00:09:06,200 their own pans and knives. It also allows you to position 173 00:09:06,200 --> 00:09:11,200 yourself in a surgeon. It allows you to position 174 00:09:11,200 --> 00:09:16,040 yourself among your colleagues as someone that can be perceived 175 00:09:16,040 --> 00:09:20,280 as someone having a certain sense of thought leadership on 176 00:09:20,280 --> 00:09:22,800 how these tools should be used as you get to sort of speak 177 00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:25,400 behind the curtains, which I think is is really important. 178 00:09:27,120 --> 00:09:31,280 My first contributions started, funny enough, at Zebia, actually 179 00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:37,960 I was working at Adidas and they wanted to build an machine 180 00:09:37,960 --> 00:09:41,040 learning platform on ABS and a lot of the resources that we 181 00:09:41,040 --> 00:09:44,880 required for services were not in the Terraform ABS provider at 182 00:09:44,880 --> 00:09:47,480 that time. So I figured, you know, maybe 183 00:09:47,480 --> 00:09:49,760 I'll just give it a shot and, and contribute something. 184 00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:55,520 And my first contribution got merged relatively quickly and I 185 00:09:55,520 --> 00:09:57,840 got to bring this to our customers thinking, OK, I, I 186 00:09:57,840 --> 00:10:01,160 sort of unblocked you. We now get to use these, these 187 00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:04,000 new Terraform resources that I added and they were quite 188 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:08,240 impressed, which positioned me as a consultant in, in a good, 189 00:10:08,440 --> 00:10:13,600 in a good spot. And that was quite satisfying 190 00:10:13,600 --> 00:10:15,120 that feeling. So that's when I started 191 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:16,680 contributing more and contributing more. 192 00:10:17,840 --> 00:10:21,080 That's how I would say my contributions begin. 193 00:10:21,240 --> 00:10:24,280 Gotcha. Yeah, I, I remember time and I 194 00:10:24,280 --> 00:10:27,440 think this triggered me like 5-6, seven years ago, kind of 195 00:10:27,440 --> 00:10:31,240 early in my career where we also were working with Terraform and 196 00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:33,640 there was something that we needed that was not supported. 197 00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:34,960 So one of my colleagues just built it. 198 00:10:35,480 --> 00:10:36,560 As a guy, you just built the thing. 199 00:10:36,560 --> 00:10:38,880 He's like, yeah, I'm like, man, this is what senior engineers 200 00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:40,080 do. They just build something and 201 00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:42,040 then it's contributing to oversource. 202 00:10:42,160 --> 00:10:44,320 I thought it was really cool, but then I never took the 203 00:10:44,320 --> 00:10:46,480 conscious step to actually start doing it myself. 204 00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:50,440 Would you advise people to start contributing to open source in 205 00:10:50,440 --> 00:10:52,600 any aspect of their career? Does it matter if you're early 206 00:10:52,600 --> 00:10:55,080 in career or more senior or what's your take? 207 00:10:55,680 --> 00:10:59,920 I think and this is something that I would say I plus one with 208 00:10:59,920 --> 00:11:01,520 this opinion. It's something that Mitchell 209 00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:04,000 shared Mitchell Hashimoto. He said some of the best 210 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:09,440 engineers don't have a great get a profile and don't spend all 211 00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:13,000 their time on social media or or writing code outside of your 212 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:16,800 9:00 to 5:00 because they are the ones to lease contact 213 00:11:16,800 --> 00:11:19,200 switch. It doesn't really you don't have 214 00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:22,800 to be you don't become a better engineer by forcing yourself to 215 00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:25,760 contribute to open source. But if you generally are 216 00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:29,400 interested in understanding how some of the tooling works. 217 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:34,080 So we as currently in my position as a as a engineer here 218 00:11:34,080 --> 00:11:36,240 at Xebia, I use a lot of software. 219 00:11:36,240 --> 00:11:39,080 I get to build less. So I get to build on top of 220 00:11:39,080 --> 00:11:41,040 Kubernetes. I get to use Terraform or 221 00:11:41,040 --> 00:11:43,840 ADOSCDK. But they don't get to build 222 00:11:44,120 --> 00:11:48,320 those tools from scratch. And that is something I was 223 00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:51,360 missing. I'm a software engineer by by 224 00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:55,160 heart, but I now end up just using like AP is and writing 225 00:11:55,160 --> 00:12:00,440 configuration files for me to better understand Terraform, I 226 00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:03,800 started contributing to it. But if you find yourself already 227 00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:08,760 writing code from 9:00 to 5:00, I wouldn't say you usually 228 00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:11,040 benefit off of contributing to it. 229 00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:13,680 The the only angle that might be interesting is sort of the 230 00:12:13,680 --> 00:12:18,800 social aspect to it. Nowadays a lot of folks can 231 00:12:18,800 --> 00:12:20,520 contribute to open source using AI. 232 00:12:21,960 --> 00:12:28,360 But part of your contribution is the research you do. 233 00:12:28,360 --> 00:12:31,280 At first understanding the different GitHub issues, even 234 00:12:31,280 --> 00:12:34,360 looking whether there is a GitHub issue or not making one 235 00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:38,240 according to the documentation. Then joining like this community 236 00:12:38,240 --> 00:12:44,240 hour where you present your own research and sort of the patch 237 00:12:44,240 --> 00:12:46,920 you want to create or the fix you want to propose. 238 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:49,920 I think that is something a lot of engineers could benefit from, 239 00:12:50,760 --> 00:12:52,640 which are sort of the social aspects of it. 240 00:12:54,600 --> 00:12:58,360 Last time I spoke about open source on the podcast in and of 241 00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:01,560 its own, I got a comment that says, oh, the Primogen had this 242 00:13:01,560 --> 00:13:03,760 podcast and he was saying don't contribute to open source. 243 00:13:04,040 --> 00:13:07,040 And they were actually talking about this other video which had 244 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:10,400 millions of views, I think above 5 million views. 245 00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:12,400 It was about something related to Kubernetes. 246 00:13:12,840 --> 00:13:15,560 And they said, well, you just go here and here to this repository 247 00:13:15,560 --> 00:13:17,680 and change the read me. And that's what people were 248 00:13:17,680 --> 00:13:18,880 doing. They were bombarding this 249 00:13:18,880 --> 00:13:22,680 repository with all read me changes and like, damn, this is 250 00:13:22,680 --> 00:13:25,120 like the dark side. This is the downside of telling 251 00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:26,360 people to contribute to open source. 252 00:13:26,360 --> 00:13:28,680 And they don't necessarily provide value. 253 00:13:28,960 --> 00:13:31,880 They just provide change. And change is not always good. 254 00:13:32,280 --> 00:13:33,600 I feel like it needs to be valuable. 255 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:37,840 Yeah, there's a high signal to noise ratio at the moment and 256 00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:39,920 there has always been before AI as well. 257 00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:44,480 AI has lowered the contribution barrier for a lot of folks, but 258 00:13:44,920 --> 00:13:47,400 before that people just wanted to get their name into the list 259 00:13:47,400 --> 00:13:50,520 of contributors, which I think there's nothing wrong with. 260 00:13:51,280 --> 00:13:54,120 Changing something in a read me if there's generally A typo or 261 00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:57,640 whatever as your first contribution is a good way to 262 00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:02,480 get familiar with the process. I think the bigger problem for 263 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:07,080 open source is at the moment, and that's how I feel, it's sort 264 00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:10,240 of being killed with kindness and a lot of slop from people 265 00:14:10,240 --> 00:14:12,280 that are trying to contribute what? 266 00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:14,720 Do you mean with kindness? Well, there's a lot of people 267 00:14:14,720 --> 00:14:18,880 that people don't just randomly target repos and and run an 268 00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:20,920 agent against it. People generally want to 269 00:14:20,920 --> 00:14:24,280 contribute, but they don't want to put in the time and effort. 270 00:14:24,680 --> 00:14:27,920 There's this filter on on open source contributions. 271 00:14:27,920 --> 00:14:29,760 There's a filter on open source in general. 272 00:14:29,760 --> 00:14:34,360 It's consistency and commitment wins over sort of beats 273 00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:37,440 intensity. It's easy to generate APR using 274 00:14:37,440 --> 00:14:41,600 an agent, but making sure it's conform the language of the 275 00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:44,760 maintainers and according to the styling and showing up in that 276 00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:46,360 community hour, that's another thing. 277 00:14:48,840 --> 00:14:51,400 So yeah, there are tons of, I think if you look at, I think 278 00:14:51,640 --> 00:14:54,760 Carl recently closed his Buck Bounty program because it was 279 00:14:54,760 --> 00:14:56,360 sort of bombarded with. With. 280 00:14:56,640 --> 00:14:59,920 Attempts. Yeah, with attempts, most of 281 00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:03,800 them which were making no sense at all, there might be genuine 282 00:15:04,280 --> 00:15:07,880 intention from people because I like to assume that I don't want 283 00:15:07,880 --> 00:15:09,680 to assume the bad and the worse than people. 284 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:13,200 But it is a burden on maintainers. 285 00:15:13,200 --> 00:15:15,800 And maintainers are sort of now in this stage where if you put 286 00:15:15,800 --> 00:15:18,800 in 5 minutes, then I will put 5 minutes back of my time into 287 00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:22,000 reviewing it, which could mean, oh, it's generated by AI, so I 288 00:15:22,000 --> 00:15:24,400 will close it. Yeah, that's what some 289 00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:30,560 maintainers do, which I think it's it's, it's sort of putting 290 00:15:30,560 --> 00:15:34,600 a burden on maintainers. Yeah, I feel like the the burden 291 00:15:34,600 --> 00:15:38,240 on maintainers was already there and now there's this trend of we 292 00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:40,720 just have so much execution power, we can generate a lot. 293 00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:45,080 I feel like reviewing in and outside of open source is going 294 00:15:45,080 --> 00:15:47,760 to be a problem we need to solve because we are creating so much 295 00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:51,680 code. And then there's not many people 296 00:15:51,680 --> 00:15:54,120 that review as much code. I think as open source 297 00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:56,840 maintainer specifically, especially if it's something 298 00:15:56,840 --> 00:15:58,240 that they've built up from scratch. 299 00:15:58,240 --> 00:16:00,400 It's like something they take a lot of pride in. 300 00:16:00,720 --> 00:16:03,280 They will put in the time and effort to do that. 301 00:16:03,280 --> 00:16:06,120 I genuinely believe that. But I'm also the same. 302 00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:08,800 If I get bombarded with messages that say I want to edit for the 303 00:16:08,800 --> 00:16:11,680 podcast, I'm like, yeah, well, I can only do so much. 304 00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:14,480 So at some point you just see it as noise, which is a shame if 305 00:16:14,480 --> 00:16:16,960 there's people in there that genuinely want to contribute. 306 00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:19,320 But I don't know how to solve this problem yet. 307 00:16:20,120 --> 00:16:22,360 Yeah, it's, it's something I find myself struggling with as 308 00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:24,720 well. It's interesting. 309 00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:28,320 So a lot of maintainers take different approaches to this. 310 00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:32,160 Mitchell, who I, I used to work with at Hashcorp who 311 00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:36,000 unfortunately left now build Ghosty, which is a terminal. 312 00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:40,440 He also deals with a lot of like AI contributions and he's 313 00:16:40,560 --> 00:16:45,640 working or prototyping a system called Vouch where instead of 314 00:16:45,640 --> 00:16:48,760 sort of trust by default, so anyone is a great contributor 315 00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:51,640 and anyone has good intentions, it's now sort of a deny by 316 00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:54,400 default or reject by default as and you have to prove yourself 317 00:16:54,400 --> 00:16:58,320 as a trusted committer first. So that is one approach that 318 00:16:58,320 --> 00:17:00,480 people take. And he just sort of straight up 319 00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:03,120 closes your PR if it's, if it's slop and the next time if you 320 00:17:03,120 --> 00:17:07,480 create APR, it gets auto closed. So that is one approach I 321 00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:12,119 understand and I see his reasoning behind why other, I 322 00:17:12,119 --> 00:17:14,960 think the Flux team. Flux is a very popular 323 00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:18,800 Kubernetes deployment tool. I won't bother with introducing 324 00:17:18,800 --> 00:17:22,520 what the whole project is, but they also have an interesting 325 00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:26,119 approach is they, if you raise like a, a, a bug issued, they 326 00:17:26,119 --> 00:17:29,080 are saying, oh, there's this race condition in, in this and 327 00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:32,160 this code bath. Instead of spending hours as a 328 00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:34,880 maintainer trying to understand and reproduce this, this race 329 00:17:34,880 --> 00:17:38,000 condition, which is a very hard problem, they just throw a bunch 330 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:41,720 of agents on on this issue who try and replicate what you're 331 00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:44,400 saying. So they are not the ones anymore 332 00:17:44,400 --> 00:17:46,720 that spend the time on it as in the maintainers, but they 333 00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:50,160 outsource, outsource this thinking and reproducing to 334 00:17:50,160 --> 00:17:51,040 agents. Cool. 335 00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:54,760 So there's a various approaches to how many dealers deal with 336 00:17:54,760 --> 00:17:56,560 this. And I don't know what the right 337 00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:00,520 right approach is. Do you, do you yourself use any 338 00:18:00,520 --> 00:18:02,920 agentic tools when you contribute to open source? 339 00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:05,200 Yeah, you already mentioned you have a lot of like passion for 340 00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:07,440 the craft. So do. 341 00:18:07,600 --> 00:18:08,160 You. I do. 342 00:18:08,920 --> 00:18:13,480 I do, yeah. IAI is, in my opinion, like a 343 00:18:13,480 --> 00:18:17,320 it's a revolutionary tool and I would be crazy if I were to say 344 00:18:17,320 --> 00:18:19,440 I'm not not using it or not going to use it. 345 00:18:21,320 --> 00:18:23,760 I use it as sort of a bear programmer. 346 00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:26,880 I love bear programming. It's what I used to do before AI 347 00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:29,840 and I would pick someone else's, someone else's brain. 348 00:18:31,760 --> 00:18:34,880 I let it generate some code. Sometimes even I would say 2 are 349 00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:37,960 in parallel and see what sort of differences are. 350 00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:42,120 I use AMP to do a lot of like researching of of deeper code 351 00:18:42,120 --> 00:18:44,240 bats and understanding larger code bases. 352 00:18:44,880 --> 00:18:50,360 And I use clawed through open code to work on features and 353 00:18:50,360 --> 00:18:54,280 things like that. But I take a lot of pride in 354 00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:59,240 what I eventually propose. So it might be that I work on a 355 00:18:59,240 --> 00:19:03,400 feature in a in on a project for like half a day or two days, and 356 00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:06,680 I spent a whole lot of day polishing up that code, making 357 00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:10,360 sure I understand everything, crafting a proper PR description 358 00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:13,480 because I don't want to lose my identity. 359 00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:18,000 True using agents, but I think you should use them. 360 00:19:18,040 --> 00:19:20,920 But just don't let it sort of steal your identity or don't let 361 00:19:20,920 --> 00:19:23,200 it out. Don't outsource your thinking to 362 00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:25,000 it. Yeah, that's how you maintain 363 00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:27,040 ownership. That's for me is the biggest 364 00:19:27,040 --> 00:19:29,880 risk because now generating code has become easier. 365 00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:34,440 So it's also the E it's, it's a very small step to do a lot of 366 00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:37,360 it basically, but a lot is not always better, which means that 367 00:19:37,360 --> 00:19:40,040 if you do take pride in this and this is kind of what you 368 00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:42,520 perceive your craft, you still need to maintain ownership of 369 00:19:42,520 --> 00:19:44,600 it. And that for me is interesting 370 00:19:44,600 --> 00:19:47,360 because not everyone has the same passion or the same vigor 371 00:19:47,360 --> 00:19:49,600 to actually own this thing. So then you get generated a lot 372 00:19:49,600 --> 00:19:52,280 of things, all the things we call slot nowadays and it. 373 00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:55,080 Was liable for for the things that are being generated right 374 00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:59,040 is it the agent or is it the author of the code I I generally 375 00:19:59,040 --> 00:20:03,400 feel myself as an an author of code when I when I produce 376 00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:05,520 something when I write something whether it's in the read me or 377 00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:08,600 whether it's a comment on a function or whether it's a new 378 00:20:08,880 --> 00:20:12,720 struct I introduce or a whole new functionality, I see myself 379 00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:15,760 as the author, which results in me being the the owner of this 380 00:20:15,760 --> 00:20:18,880 piece I think that is really important yeah a lot of people 381 00:20:18,880 --> 00:20:21,640 just. Push code without assuming that 382 00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:24,720 they'll have to ever fix it or own it, or that they're liable 383 00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:29,440 for it, no. I was talking over lunch with 384 00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:32,840 Nico guest that came on the episode air probably last week. 385 00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:35,960 And he was talking to me about this very Tessium video that 386 00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:37,720 came out. So YouTube channel and they 387 00:20:37,720 --> 00:20:41,920 talked about someone that hacked something in an open source 388 00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:45,760 project and that almost made it into quite a lot of systems, 389 00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:49,280 which gave me a thought because right now I can make AI think 390 00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:53,400 anonymized account on GitHub. I can contribute a whole lot and 391 00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:56,800 someone will never know who I am, which also means there's not 392 00:20:56,800 --> 00:20:59,600 really any personal information within those accounts. 393 00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:03,400 And I'm wondering if it would be better maybe for the industry if 394 00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:06,080 there was a one-on-one. Patrick, is this on GitHub? 395 00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:09,440 Like I am also on LinkedIn. I'm wondering how what your 396 00:21:09,440 --> 00:21:11,440 thoughts are on that. Interesting one. 397 00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:15,280 I think it is important to understand who's contributing to 398 00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:19,080 your project. But if a patch or a proposal or 399 00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:26,680 a piece of code makes sense, I wouldn't be rejecting it, but 400 00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:30,760 proposing as, as when you're contribute to your project or 401 00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:32,600 when you become like sort of a trusted contributor. 402 00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:34,440 There's, there's sort of levels to this, right? 403 00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:40,800 In some projects you sort of graduate to different tiers or 404 00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:43,880 levels or ranks. So on certain projects, like a 405 00:21:43,880 --> 00:21:47,120 Crow cube resource orchestrator, I got certain permissions to do 406 00:21:47,120 --> 00:21:49,520 things go on certain tariff from repos. 407 00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:53,400 I previously before I worked in at Hashi Corp I had the ability 408 00:21:53,400 --> 00:21:55,800 to triage issues or clothes or merge BRS. 409 00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:58,200 And these are earned rights. These are earned rights and 410 00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:00,680 that's I think where you have to be careful with who you grant 411 00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:04,560 this to. Maybe I think for most of the 412 00:22:04,560 --> 00:22:08,160 projects where I ended up with like more permissions than I 413 00:22:08,160 --> 00:22:14,200 would randomly grant any other contributor is I met the repo 414 00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:17,560 sort of owners or the team behind it in person as well. 415 00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,800 And that happened to like keep con or AUS reinvent. 416 00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:27,240 But yeah, I I would never reject the PR if it made sense. 417 00:22:28,520 --> 00:22:31,560 But when it comes to handing out permissions, I would like to 418 00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:34,440 know who's who's behind the profile. 419 00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:37,400 Yeah, makes sense. You met these people in person 420 00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:40,800 and you actively going to form that connection with them 421 00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:42,720 because you're also mentioning like you're introvert. 422 00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:45,400 Me, I'm all, I see myself as introvert as well, even though 423 00:22:45,400 --> 00:22:47,080 I'm a little bit more extrovert on the podcast. 424 00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:50,960 I guess see myself as kind of different people in different 425 00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:53,800 circumstances, I guess, but stepping up to someone in a 426 00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:56,080 conference is still something that I find kind of quite 427 00:22:56,080 --> 00:22:58,160 daunting, to be honest. How did you do that? 428 00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:00,960 I tried to approach folks through Slack first. 429 00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:03,960 I have an asynchronous, asynchronous communication 430 00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:06,440 relationship with most most folks in in open source. 431 00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:09,520 We don't, we don't video call or or do those things. 432 00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:12,800 Now we we chat. People know each other by their 433 00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:15,960 get up handle. But at some point I did like the 434 00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:20,000 projects that I consistently contributed to and spent most of 435 00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:24,200 my sort of evenings and nights to at some point when I at some 436 00:23:24,200 --> 00:23:27,200 point you sort of meet each other at a, at a cube con or an 437 00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:32,520 Atos reinvent or Google next. And for me to be able I, I, I 438 00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:37,080 quickly, I think I realized to get more, I don't want to say 439 00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:40,040 authority, but you get more ownership on a particular 440 00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:42,520 project. I had to introduce myself. 441 00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:43,560 It's. Trust. 442 00:23:43,560 --> 00:23:45,720 It's trust. Yeah, this open source is built 443 00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:50,160 on trust. So I, I went ahead and like for 444 00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:53,200 Crow, for example, Cube Resource Orchestrator, I reached out to 445 00:23:53,200 --> 00:23:55,600 the maintainers of that project. There are some folks over at 446 00:23:55,840 --> 00:23:58,840 AWS, Microsoft and Azure. And we met at Cube Con and we 447 00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:01,800 sat down and they talked me through the potential things I 448 00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:05,560 could contribute to. And during the conference, I 449 00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:08,200 went back to my hotel room and started contributing to those, 450 00:24:08,720 --> 00:24:11,400 to those items. And the next day we met up and 451 00:24:11,400 --> 00:24:13,040 he merged them and we spoke about it. 452 00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:18,120 And it's been a huge trust builder for, for the Budfuss for 453 00:24:18,120 --> 00:24:20,640 me as in like, oh, there's, there's good leadership on this 454 00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:22,960 project. And for them, this is an actual 455 00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:26,320 trusted contributor who wants to sort of advance this project 456 00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:27,840 forward. That's really cool. 457 00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:31,320 And there's no other exchange. There's no I don't pay them, 458 00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:33,440 they don't pay me. It's my. 459 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,080 You also don't expect anything. I don't expect anything. 460 00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,320 No, no. Funny enough, you sometimes do 461 00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:40,280 get something but. You don't expect. 462 00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,120 It you don't expect it, no. And I think that's an 463 00:24:43,120 --> 00:24:47,320 interesting one. DHH David Heinemeyer Hanson once 464 00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:50,920 shared is never run an open source project as a business 465 00:24:52,280 --> 00:24:55,480 because you will then you, you build something. 466 00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:58,560 I like I said before, I give my code to the community. 467 00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:02,240 You don't get the mandate what goes into my project. 468 00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:06,960 You absolutely do not. I, I will consider it, but even 469 00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:10,640 if it gets 100 uploads, I might still reject it for what it's 470 00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:13,120 worth if it's not in line with my vision. 471 00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:14,920 And I think that's an important one. 472 00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:19,440 Some people do do sort of community driven development as 473 00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:22,800 they view that as their road map, whatever the community 474 00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:25,480 says. But a lot of solutions that are 475 00:25:25,480 --> 00:25:28,040 proposed might, all might sometimes not be the best 476 00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:31,680 solution or are not in line with your thinking or vision. 477 00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,880 Yeah, I think sort of what what David said was a community, open 478 00:25:37,880 --> 00:25:41,520 source is not a community nor a democracy, which I think is 479 00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:42,720 something that's pretty powerful. 480 00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:43,640 Yeah. Nice. 481 00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:47,960 I am wondering and probably some listeners are thinking, OK, I 482 00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:50,920 understand open source. I've always given the advice of 483 00:25:50,960 --> 00:25:53,800 I do think it's quite valuable both for your skill set, but 484 00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:57,160 potentially for your career and the potentially is quite a big 485 00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:02,080 thing like you mentioned, if you value this craft, you kind of 486 00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:05,200 find this passion for contributing and there is no 487 00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,840 expectation that this will have certain outcomes. 488 00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:11,640 It's a belief that you need to have and it's consistency. 489 00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:14,280 I feel like without that consistency part and that 490 00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:18,080 consistency is still vague because it can be in very long 491 00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:19,640 time or it can be in shorter time. 492 00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,560 But I do think it's quite valuable especially in the 493 00:26:22,560 --> 00:26:25,720 current market where getting your foot in the door is very 494 00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:28,000 difficult. I saw this post on Reddit person 495 00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:31,240 that said I've hired hundreds of engineers now. 496 00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:34,520 All the profiles I get are custom tailor made based on the 497 00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:36,960 job description that we have and they all look the same. 498 00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:40,240 Which means how do I then filter the resume part already in and 499 00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:42,720 of its own? And if that becomes very hard 500 00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:44,400 then getting your foot in the door you need to think of 501 00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:47,120 alternatives. I think open source is a good 502 00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:51,880 alternative. It is if you look for 503 00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:54,400 alternatives you can consider contributing to vendors she 504 00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:59,280 would like to work for right? And but I wouldn't recommend 505 00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,480 starting to contribute to a vendors project with the 506 00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:04,200 assumption that you'll be hired one day. 507 00:27:05,120 --> 00:27:08,960 Similarly, opening opening a business to assume you'll be 508 00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,120 become rich is also not a great plan, right? 509 00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,040 Find something you love doing and execute on that and be 510 00:27:15,040 --> 00:27:19,000 consistent and then hopefully you will be recognized by those 511 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:20,600 that benefit from your contributions. 512 00:27:23,360 --> 00:27:26,400 I've been recognized through like get up sponsor programs 513 00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:29,240 where I randomly got money from, from folks like a lot of money, 514 00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:31,240 which I never understood why they would send it. 515 00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:32,320 Send it. That's cool. 516 00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:35,720 There was someone sending like hundreds of of dollars over and 517 00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:39,640 over which I never spoke to. But you do you know for what? 518 00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:41,760 I have no clue. It might be some. 519 00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:44,880 For your legacy, yeah, it might be some random contributions 520 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:46,960 that I did to one of one of these projects that usually 521 00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:48,120 benefited them. Yeah. 522 00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:51,240 It might also be for something else, I don't know. 523 00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:54,200 But that's not what I do open source for. 524 00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:58,600 It's it's, it's sort of this, this, this craftsmanship and me 525 00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,480 trying to position myself as a thought leadership in certain 526 00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:05,920 tools and industries and niches. And I happened to be offered a 527 00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:08,360 job at Hashicorp. True. 528 00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:11,040 All the contributions I did because I positioned myself 529 00:28:11,360 --> 00:28:15,680 within that community and within that ecosystem and in addition 530 00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:20,480 to creating those PRSI attended dozens or more than dozens of of 531 00:28:20,720 --> 00:28:24,160 community hours and road map sessions with those teams. 532 00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:28,000 I attended multiple times Hash Econ for just the Hash Corp 533 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,080 conference where I spoke to the teams directly that I 534 00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:32,920 contributed to and some other folks. 535 00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,360 So that is that consistency that can get you somewhere, but it 536 00:28:37,360 --> 00:28:39,680 can also get you nowhere. And you shouldn't be 537 00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:41,280 disappointed if it doesn't get you anywhere. 538 00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,520 But it does. Help if you're surrounded by the 539 00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:46,040 right people. That's the part that 540 00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:49,000 contradicts, right? Because the there might be an 541 00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,880 outcome, but there might not be. So I don't think it's bad that 542 00:28:51,880 --> 00:28:54,000 you have the intention that there might be an outcome 543 00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:56,360 because that's reality, right? That's a, that's a maybe. 544 00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:59,720 But in the end, the fact that you might get disappointed, 545 00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,640 that's the risk. In the end, I feel like you're a 546 00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:06,240 person that is very due diligently doing their work and 547 00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:07,880 their effort and that you also get energy out of this. 548 00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:10,320 Otherwise, you would have never made it work, right? 549 00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,080 I feel like I can do a lot of things, and with discipline, I 550 00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:15,120 can do a lot of things for a long, long time. 551 00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:17,680 But the things that I've done for the longest, they also give 552 00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:20,680 me energy back in return. Because otherwise you're just 553 00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:22,720 drained. If nothing counterbalances the 554 00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:25,240 effort that you put in. If you don't get energy out of 555 00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:28,200 the things that you do, that's how you kind of lose passion for 556 00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:29,880 the thing that you do in the first place. 557 00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:31,800 It is. That's with a lot of things. 558 00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:34,120 Actually, it is. And I think something that's 559 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:36,840 probably, I've never shared that in, in, in public speaking 560 00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:38,880 before, but I'm, I'm a university dropout. 561 00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:44,200 I changed university for my first software engineering gig 562 00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:47,080 as they approached me during my, my, my second year. 563 00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:53,000 And after after leaving uni, I in my view, had a pretty 564 00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:54,960 successful career as a software engineer. 565 00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:59,000 But moving from company to company over and over, you do 566 00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:01,280 have to sort of extra prove yourself somehow. 567 00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:06,600 There's no fancy certificate or diploma that I that I can put on 568 00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,320 my resume. So part of my resume is also my 569 00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,640 contributions. I it's it's been years since I 570 00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:19,480 actually created the resume. Most of the jobs or companies 571 00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:22,520 I've now worked for was true. Folks approached me on Get up. 572 00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:24,960 That's very cool. That's like the status that 573 00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,000 you've built up. It's rewarding, yeah. 574 00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:29,760 It's also sometimes interesting because I've also had recruiters 575 00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,680 asking like hey why was there no activity between month X? 576 00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:35,800 And Y it was a holiday. It was a holiday. 577 00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:37,640 Or conference season. Or. 578 00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:40,920 You have to explain yourself. Yeah, that's something a little 579 00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:44,080 little tough and people sometimes do expect something 580 00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:46,560 from you. Currently I'm doing construction 581 00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:49,720 on our house and trying to sort of understand what marriage is 582 00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:53,520 because we're trying to engage and I haven't contributed a 583 00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:55,960 single line of code to open source for the past like few 584 00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,240 weeks. And I wasn't sure if I had to 585 00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:03,600 feel guilty about this or people started commenting on PRS like 586 00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:06,240 hey can I just get reviewed or hey what are your thoughts on 587 00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,520 this? Some of my draft PRS were even 588 00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:12,320 closed because things just took too long and things move on 589 00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,400 right? Open source doesn't wait for you 590 00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:18,840 unless it's your project and you own own everything. 591 00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,120 But yeah, I was also trying to consider should I post something 592 00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:25,920 on social media or not? Like, hey, I'm currently dealing 593 00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:28,080 with life. I'm not always on. 594 00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:30,160 People sometimes expect you to be always on. 595 00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:36,320 I spend a good 16 to 20 hours sometimes on on sitting behind 596 00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:40,440 my computer and suddenly going to prioritize things in life. 597 00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:43,800 Is interesting how the community response to that. 598 00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:45,920 Yeah, I like your balanced approach, though. 599 00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:50,040 Like some of my friends have said, building has become so 600 00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:54,120 easy now that if I don't build, it's almost like an addiction 601 00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,160 because now is the time. And now tools are still a lot 602 00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:00,360 more affordable than potentially in five years, which means that 603 00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:02,920 this is the adoption phase. And once they have a lot of 604 00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,360 users, they can slowly up the prices, which means I want to 605 00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:06,640 get the most out of it. Right now. 606 00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:11,240 It sounds like there is an addiction in there. 607 00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:13,920 Did you ever get to a point where you were like, I, I have 608 00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:17,000 to contribute and I have to do this continuously because now it 609 00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:18,320 sounds like you've kind of let that go. 610 00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:21,120 Yeah, I think there was. There were times where I tried 611 00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:24,720 sort of trying to prove myself. So open source and vendors 612 00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:27,560 notice they do a great job at like having different tiers and 613 00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,920 ranks. So you can become a Terraform 614 00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:35,960 core contributor or an AWSCDK distinguished contributor and 615 00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:38,560 you have to do, you have to meet certain metrics which they don't 616 00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:40,800 share with you. So the amount of like PR she's 617 00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,400 opened or Commons she's boot or there's a different type of 618 00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,480 metrics where they try and measure actual valuable 619 00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:49,840 contributions. That's a metric that they get to 620 00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:52,360 decide. And sometimes it's a little hard 621 00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:54,480 for you to understand. Am I going to miss the boat or 622 00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:57,200 not? This year I was lucky enough to 623 00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:01,000 be 4 years like a recurring core contributor, but I never 624 00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:03,200 understood where that threshold was. 625 00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,760 So yeah, sometimes I did feel like I have to contribute and 626 00:33:07,800 --> 00:33:13,000 that was sort of to meet those, those levels which don't really 627 00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:15,480 mean anything besides a badge and AT shirt. 628 00:33:15,800 --> 00:33:18,360 I guess that's what we that's what I do open source for. 629 00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,200 But there's also been times where I, you know, life was a 630 00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:25,800 little harder. And again, this sort of escapism 631 00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,760 was a worked well for me to sit behind the computer and just 632 00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:33,600 contribute, put my headset on. No meetings, just pure me 633 00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:36,080 writing code and and solving problems. 634 00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:38,080 That's something you have to enjoy. 635 00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:40,800 So the same as some folks would turn on the PlayStation, which 636 00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,520 could be an addiction or or a form of escapism. 637 00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:45,600 I happen to enjoy doing this, Yeah. 638 00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:49,920 I like that a lot. And I think the sort of the 639 00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:53,520 network you build up true, like LinkedIn and people reaching out 640 00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,800 to you, that is it's rewarding. It's a great community to be 641 00:33:56,800 --> 00:33:58,360 part of. That's great. 642 00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:02,160 Yeah. For me, the I really admire 643 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:05,960 people that have really called acquired skills and for me the 644 00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:09,600 acquired skills that you can do kind of building in public or in 645 00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:13,159 this manner are just very cool. Like it's not something that 646 00:34:13,159 --> 00:34:16,320 I've done in my career, but it is something that I admire. 647 00:34:16,320 --> 00:34:20,159 If I would go back, I don't think I would change a lot of my 648 00:34:20,159 --> 00:34:21,800 own career because I like where I ended up. 649 00:34:22,159 --> 00:34:25,280 But that doesn't mean that for someone else it's not a good 650 00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:27,120 choice. I feel like it's a very solid 651 00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,560 way of working and way of acquiring skills, which is just, 652 00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:32,360 it's very cool and very unique I would say and. 653 00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:36,239 I think another thing that could be really interesting to folks 654 00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:39,480 that are new to open source is something that was very valuable 655 00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:44,080 to me is you know, you don't get to easily pick where you work, 656 00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:46,639 right? I would love to work on certain 657 00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:49,719 Google service teams or like ABS service teams so they just don't 658 00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,480 happen to hire in the Netherlands or in Europe. 659 00:34:52,719 --> 00:34:54,719 A lot of like interesting service teams are over in the 660 00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,440 US, but still there are certain projects. 661 00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:01,040 And the reason why I'm saying it is like, I would like to work 662 00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:03,080 with some of the people that work there to be able to pick 663 00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:05,120 their brain and understand how they think. 664 00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:09,240 I started contributing to Crow, which is a joint effort by 665 00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:12,000 Google, Microsoft and Azure. Google, Microsoft and ABS. 666 00:35:12,720 --> 00:35:14,920 And when you join those community hours and when you 667 00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:17,800 speak those maintainers, you get a chance to pick their brain. 668 00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:21,840 I I get a chance to talk to the one of the principal engineers 669 00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,240 that works on Amazon ETS who also happens to be a Co founder 670 00:35:25,240 --> 00:35:28,240 of K surf. So you get to really learn from 671 00:35:28,240 --> 00:35:30,480 these these people, and I think that is very valuable. 672 00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:35,440 I feel like there's quite a close way of building a 673 00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:38,200 connection rather than, I mean, they are overseas, they are in 674 00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:41,440 different companies and I've never thought about this 675 00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:43,720 perspective, right? Where communities come together 676 00:35:43,720 --> 00:35:46,480 is where you can find people like that, which is very neat. 677 00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:50,880 And just be able to learn from them sort of for free is, I 678 00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:53,480 think awesome. We've covered a lot with regards 679 00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,520 to open source, also your career path and what it is meant 680 00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,280 throughout there. Is there anything that we still 681 00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:02,800 haven't discussed which you want to slice open before you leave 682 00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:04,480 off? Free money spot? 683 00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:09,400 Interesting one? Not necessarily, no. 684 00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:15,080 I wonder because right now the bar for entry is quite easy to 685 00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:16,960 open source. Do you think it's going to get 686 00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:21,560 harder because the the thing that you mentioned it wasn't Val 687 00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:23,840 or it was the other V vouch? Yeah, vouch. 688 00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,000 That that will in the end, if the vision of Vouch holds true, 689 00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:29,200 then some projects might just say, well you have to have X 690 00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:30,880 amount of. I see it as a point system, a 691 00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:33,120 ranking system. You have to have a certain rank 692 00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:35,640 which makes the open source not that open for contributors. 693 00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:37,880 Yeah. I think something I would like 694 00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:41,680 to share with folks is like, I think a genetic tool learning to 695 00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,800 generate code is, is amazing and it gets you to contribute to 696 00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:47,840 some of these projects. But don't outsource your 697 00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,360 thinking to it and don't let it sort of take away your 698 00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:53,360 personality and your craftsmanship when you 699 00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:57,920 contribute to these projects. We as a maintainers and other 700 00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:02,560 maintainers of different projects love to guide people, 701 00:37:02,720 --> 00:37:05,120 especially beginners through their first contributions. 702 00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:10,520 But it is also true, and I think I think it holds true that we 703 00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:13,480 also expect a a certain form of effort. 704 00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:16,360 And if you put one minute into something without APR 705 00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:22,160 description, it's fair to say that I'm I'm allowed to spend 706 00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,600 like an another 5 minutes or 10 minutes on this as well. 707 00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:31,720 If you shape your contributions, don't. 708 00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:35,560 Don't outsource your thinking. Yeah, and your personality? 709 00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:37,320 Perfect. Brion, thank you so much for 710 00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:38,480 coming on. This was great. 711 00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:41,080 Thank you, Patrick. If you're still with us, let me 712 00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:43,160 know in the comments section what you thought of this episode 713 00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:44,240 and we'll see you in the next one.