Episode 89: Leslie Hawthorn, OSPOs, Digital Sovereignty, and Cultivating Open Source Communities

Guest Leslie Hawthorn Panelists Allen "Gunner" Gunn | Eric Berry | Eriol Fox | Richard Littauer Show Notes Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. We have an excellent guest on today and she is here to talk about real stuff! Our guest is Leslie Hawthorn, who is the Manager for the Vertical Community Strategy in Red Hat’s Open Source Programs Office in the Office of the CTO. She has spent her career creating, cultivating, and enabling open source communities and we are so fortunate to have her with us today to speak her eloquent words of wisdom. We learn more about what Leslie does in her position, the Open Source Program Office and how she sees it growing and changing, and a deep conversation of European digital sovereignty and how it is both a threat and opportunity for open source and open standards. Also, Leslie keeps it real and shares awesome advice on what it takes to be the best kind of corporate open source program officer. Go ahead and download this episode now to learn much more! [00:02:37] We learn what Leslie she does in her position. [00:05:13] Richard is curious about what Leslie thinks about the OSPO concept in general and how does she see it growing and changing in the past five years. [00:07:43] Leslie talks about digital sovereignty and the movement towards open source program offices focusing on that. [00:13:13] Eriol brings up a design phrase “human-centered” and asks Leslie to talk more about examples she has seen where humans, users, and citizens have been centered at the creation of various open source software projects. Leslie mentions a really great panel discussion to check out with Claudia Barrosa and Pia Karter where they talked about Open Source and Open Standards, Supporting European Innovation. [00:18:21] Leslie tells us what made her move to Germany and how that’s reflected in the work she’s doing at Red Hat. [00:23:16] Richard wonders why Leslie feels that the OSPO at Red Hat is the place where you can affect the