Episode 75: Deb Nicholson on the OSI, the future of open source, and SeaGL

Guest Deb Nicholson Panelists Eric Berry | Justin Dorfman | Alyssa Wright | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! Today, we are incredibly privileged to have as our guest, Deb Nicholson, who is Interim General Manager and Interim Executive Director at the Open Source Initiative, as well as a founding organizer of the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference (SeaGL). Deb tells us how she founded SeaGL and what she did in legislature before open source. We learn about a blog post that Elastic wrote, how Deb feels about it, and how OSI is addressing it. Also, we learn how open source is looked at differently by the community and by lawyers, and a talk Deb did about all the different patent clauses in licenses. Find out what Deb is currently doing as the Interim General Manager at OSI and why being kind is so important to her. As well, if you haven’t seen the Seagulls video on YouTube, you have to watch it! Download this episode now to find out more! [00:02:23] Deb tells us the story of how she founded SeaGL, when the next conference will be, and how many people come to it. [00:05:39] Justin brings up a blog post that Elastic wrote recently and asks Deb what her feelings are about it and wonders how OSI is addressing it. Alyssa wonders if there was any direct conversation with somebody from Elastic. [00:09:20] Deb explains the two groups of people, the community and lawyers, and the differences between what they think open source means. [00:11:20] Eric asks Deb if Elastic deserves all the bad press and negative feelings. Deb also tells us what approach Elastic should have taken. [00:14:22] Alyssa asks Deb to speak more about lawyers sit in the community now and what lawyers and people with legal expertise can do to be a part of open source creation and sustainability. [00:16:40] Deb tells us what she did in legislature before open source. [00:17:40] Alyssa asks Deb how she found clarity around all these licenses, was she ever confused about how to navigate, and if she could help people understand and naviga