Recent content on Stormy Peters
I love giving talks that explore big questions — the kind that are facing all of us right now and that nobody has fully figured out yet. “Is AI Killing Open Source Software?” is exactly that kind of question. It actually reminds me of a talk I gave really early in my career where I was worried that paying maintainers to work on open source would kill open source. (Spoiler: it…
Your one-on-one meetings with your manager aren’t just another meeting. They’re one of the most powerful tools you have for advancing your career. And here’s the thing that might surprise you: you own those meetings, not your manager. I know there are a lot of guides out there telling managers how to run better one-on-ones ( I’ve even written one myself ), but the truth is,…
Participation in online collaborative sites is decreasing, and the numbers are striking. Matt Asay recently wrote an article about how there are fewer people asking questions on Stack Overflow . If you look at December 2023 to December 2024, the number of questions that were asked dropped by 40%. You can watch the video version of this article on YouTube. https://youtu.be/WOYFIQxQoUc Since ChatGPT…
Successful open source software leaders are great communicators. I realize I’m cheating a little when I say that because I think in order to be a great communicator in the open source software space, you have to be technical, you have to be authentic, you have to be passionate, you have to delegate, you know, build community. But I think all of those are part of being a good communicator.…
There are two widespread beliefs about AI that I’m certain are wrong: 1. AI is not killing the role of software developer. It’s definitely changing it. It may kill open source software, but I do not believe it’s killing the role of software developer. 2. AI is not making it really hard for new developers to get started. On the contrary. Let me explain both of these points. Here…
The debate over open source AI continues to rage after years of discussion. Despite all the arguments, we still don’t have clear answers about what open source AI actually means, why it matters, or how to make it work. Let’s examine the different definitions, the challenges we face, and what history teaches us about navigating this complex landscape. This was originally posted as a…
Doing research for my Grow an Organization by Planting Volunteers at SCALE , I ran across Dirk Riehle’s article on the Five Stages of Open Source Volunteering . The whole article is worth a read but I thought I’d call out the open communication piece. He says to support a distributed community and to engage new volunteers, open communication is key. Public communication ensures that…
AI is killing open source software. If we act now, it won’t do away with collaborative software development, but I do think it is changing open source software as we know it. This was originally posted on YouTube as my daily walk, think and share. Below is the transcription. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgR4ww94Evk Two recent events highlight why change is coming to open source software…
I’m curious how AI coding assistants will change open source software development. If I write software with an AI coding assistant, am I more or less likely to use open source software solutions? Am I more or less inclined to make it into an open source software project than I would have before AI? The first concern with AI coding assistants is that we’ll end up with many variations of the same…
The United Nations is encouraging the use of open source. They see the value of open source software in helping with digital transformation, providing equitable access to technology, and accomplishing the world’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Last year they had an OSPOs for Good event , and the event went so well that this year it will be a week long UN Open Source Week 2025 . In…
This post is one of a series of posts about what open source software projects can do (if they wish to) to make it easier for companies to participate in their projects. When a company wants to get involved in an open source software, often they need some help understanding how things work. Sometimes it’s the developer who wants to contribute that has questions. Sometimes it’s their…
If you are looking for an open source governance model, there are two resources to explore. Red Hat has published the Project and Community Governance Guidebook on GitHub. It covers things from roles of the participants, to how projects evolve (and governance should evolve with them), to policies and procedures. The FOSS Governance Collection just launched with a collection of governance docs on…
Several happenings over the weekend are case studies in how open source software communities work. The Dev Behind a Hugely Popular GNOME Extension Just Quit While the news is about a developer quitting because it’s not “fun”. I think the message - or messages - are deeper than that. Isn’t it awesome that are free software is developed by people that love doing it? Back when…
Do you remember those 4 brave, little, black kindergarten girls who were the first to attend a desegregated school ? This is one of those girls, Leona Tate. She went to kindergarten accompanied by US Marshalls. She said the first year and a half wasn’t bad. Her family never let her feel like they were afraid, the US Marshalls were nice and they were the only 3 kids in the school. Everyone…
This article was originally published on Medium . How often should you meet with each of your team members if you manage a remote team? How long should you meet? What else should you do? My team spans geographically from the west coast of the United States to the Czech Republic and from as far north as the Netherlands and as far south as Brazil. Here is how I have 1:1s. I am always looking for…
I recently read Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust , Why that is a Problem, and What to do About It. Dream Hoarders is a book with a good point hidden in a really annoying lecture. The premise: Because of our society and our culture, the upper middle class is becoming a hereditary station in American life, not the meritocracy we imagine.
[caption id=“attachment_2270” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”] Photo by A Healthier Michigan[/caption] I’ve been watching kids sports for 12 years now and I’ve seem some crazy behavior from parents. Every once in a while, I wonder if there’s some way to channel all this extra energy and support into academics. What if parents followed their…
I just listened to Mike McQuaid ’s FOSDEM talk, Why People Don’t Contribute to Your Open Source Project . Â If you are interested in communities and how they grow, I highly recommend you take a half hour and watch it. Some of the things I got from the talk: I get asked a lot what the difference between a contributor and a maintainer is. Mike does a great job of explaining it around…
One of the challenges of public speaking is timing your talk. And paying attention to that timing without distracting your audience. Do not mention the time to the audience. Do not say you only have 5 minutes. Do not say you won’t take up too much of their time. Do not point out you finished with one minute left. Do not mention you are running a couple of minutes over. Do not ask for a time…
Every time I rate a book, I struggle with what I’m rating it on. Both Amazon and GoodReads use a 5 star system. If I loved the book, that’s easy. However, what if I liked the book except for the ridiculous stereotypical romance that was a minor theme. Do I ding it half a star? What if I read a romance and it’s really well written and the character development is good but I hate…
It’s become unacceptable to not know it all. And in today’s world of information overload, that’s not ok. It’s not doable, so we are fooling ourselves. I find myself silently thanking people who look confused when some famous person is named or some incident is mentioned or a meme is laughed at. Keeping track of all the current affairs is getting harder and harder and the…
I read the Four Burner theory and I call bullshit. Mozillians cooking. The Four Burner theory says that your life can be represented by a stove with four burners, one each for family, friends, work and health. The theory goes that you can only do two of them well because a chef can only pay attention to two burners at once. So you can do great in your career and with your family but you’ll…
I was watching Guardians of the Galaxy, Part 2 and I realized that while baby Groot was making me laugh, it was Rocket that I understood. Rocket is an interpreter. He might even be a community manager. In Guardians of the Galaxy, there’ a character called Groot. And the only thing he ever says is “I am Groot.” After a few instances, it becomes clear that he is saying a lot with…
Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships was an interesting book that sparked many interesting conversations in my life. (Yes, animals do practice oral sex.) Once I got over being angry about the final chapter that explains why all that history excuses why men cheat but not why women do, I realized the thing that stuck with me was not about sex but about…
The best way to handle difficult conversations is to prevent them from ever starting. The way to prevent them from happening (or at least to keep them less painful) is to have good governance. Governance is the solution to difficult conversations and trolls. My motto is that you’ve done the best job you can do when you work yourself out of a job. When you have solved the problem, you…
Open source software communities, like companies and cities, can come in all sizes. They don’t get too big but they can grow faster than their infrastructure and processes. Take for comparison, the size of companies and cities. Companies come in sizes from one person LLCs to 100,000 employee megaliths. Cities come in sizes from a single person farm to enormous cities with 10’s of…
Community managers must make sure their projects are healthy. Before they can help foster and grow a community, they have to make sure it’s a well functioning, welcoming place. [caption id=“attachment_2211” align=“aligncenter” width=“705”] Photo from the Library of Congress.[/caption] While community managers and project leaders often don’t…
[caption id=“attachment_2207” align=“alignleft” width=“300”] Photo by Anthony Topper .[/caption] This week I am participating in the opensource.com community blogging challenge: Encouraging New Contributors ! Crossfit gyms are great at creating community and welcoming new members. Here are 3 things that Crossfit boxes do that open source software communities…
I just finished my first week at Red Hat ! I flew out to Raleigh last Sunday night and attended New Hire Orientation (NHO, in Red Hat speak) Monday and Tuesday. There were 18 of us in the class from across Red Hat functions and business units. Most of us were a bit apprehensive of what 2 days of orientation would look like and all of us were anxious for our new laptops and email addresses which…
A decade ago, I researched and gave a talk called Would you do it again for free? If you worked on an open source software project for free, and a company started paying you to work on it, if they stopped paying you, would you stop working on it? At the time it was a valid question as many of my friends were starting to get paid positions doing their dream job. In case you are curious, the answer…
While I don’t agree with everything Sebastian Junger writes in Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging , I love the way he manages to articulate some things that I’ve noticed but never been able to describe. Just last weekend I was camping, and we had this torrential rain storm. People rushing to get their boats off the water were hurrying so much that they lost their boats off the…
Our digital infrastructure is all open source. It’s built and maintained by a relatively small community of open source software developers. Right now the open source software work is funded by a variety of methods: volunteer time, nonprofit corporations and donations of time and money by a few corporations. Is that sustainable? Or should we be looking for ways to fund our digital…
When my grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, we were all told to come visit immediately. By the time I got there, they had already given her a dose of chemotherapy. I was furious. Why do you give a dying 80 year old person a dose of chemotherapy? She never got out of bed again. I could not understand why the doctors had given her the option of chemotherapy. She wasn’t expected…
I am not an expert in poverty nor in economic culture. If there are any mistakes in this post, I likely understood it incorrectly. I hope that this post inspires you to go learn more about the social groups in our society and how we can all work more effectively together. Bridges out of Poverty taught by Jodi Pfarr was a fascinating class about how the cultures of individuals living in the middle…
First published on Medium . Always Hungry? by David Ludwig is yet another diet book but one written by a respected doctor specializing in obesity in children. I really enjoyed several articles about Dr Ludwig and his ideas, so I was expecting something more from the book but all I got additional was lots of recipes. Dr Ludwig, like many others, blames sugar and refined grains for many of our…
First published on Medium . Companies with the newer “sharing economy†business models are gamifying work. They are making people work hard in ways that resemble how they play video games. To better understand this, I compare their models to the components of a game as given by Reality is Broken by Jane McGonigal: Goal: A game has a very specific outcome, a sense of purpose. Where as at work…
First published on Medium . When role models are risk adverse, they change the game for everyone. Last night at kickball, a young woman on the other team decided to start bunting and she changed the preferred strategy for women on both teams. She was a strong player and she obviously thought her best option, maybe her only option, was to bunt. So quickly the feel became, to be a “team”…
I hate introducing myself. It’s very hard to introduce someone but especially yourself. So here’s what I’ve learned about giving awesome intros: [caption id=“attachment_2162” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Photo by lucianvenutian [/caption] Talk other people up. This may seem counter intuitive, but if you are doing a round robin set of intros,…
Developer relations is the combination of activities, programs and tactics to get developers using or developing for your organization’s product or ecosystem. The goal of a good developer relations team is often to make your organization’s product or ecosystem the first choice for developers. (You may be doing this just to sell more of your product or you may be doing this because you…
The best jobs in life are not the easiest ones. The best jobs are the most meaningful ones. They challenge you - and make the most of your skills. The best jobs give you a chance to make a difference in the world. (And often great jobs also involve working with awesome people that also motivated by making a difference.) Through exhaustive analysis of diaries kept by knowledge workers, we…
The world lost a great math teacher this week. Mimi Geier not only loved math, she loved teaching math and delighted in watching kids discover solutions. If I had a picture to share here, it would be of Ms. Geier with a grin on her face, holding out a piece of chalk so that a student could teach. My first day at BFIS, Ms. Geier asked me if I was in first or seventh period math. I wanted to ask…
I was writing a post about why you must work in the open to get more volunteers and I ended up writing this post about why I don’t work in the open. The Good So I think there are some very valid reasons for not working in the open: Personal . Not all projects are open source projects, especially personal ones. Where I’m going for Valentine’s Day or how to get my son to do better…
Traditionally, open source software has relied primarily on asynchronous communication. While there are probably quite a few synchronous conversations on irc, most project discussions and decisions will happen on asynchronous channels like mailing lists, bug tracking tools and blogs. I think there’s another reason for this. Synchronous communication is difficult for an open source project.…
Kids on Computers is planning a trip to the Huajuapan de Leon, Mexico area in June. If you can, please join us! If you can’t, please consider donating to help the labs we’ll be working on. Most of us will be going down for a week or so. There are travel stipends available for those willing to spend a month helping in the area. **What could I possibly do to help? **I ask myself this…
With an unprecedented number of friends visiting New Orleans in the next couple of months, I put together my top list of things to do. Spend evenings on Frenchmen Street rather than Bourbon Street. Walk down Royal and check out the antiques. Have the double chocolate bread pudding at Red Fish . (We usually split an appetizer and the bread pudding.) Have goat cheese crepes at Muriel’s at the…
The Starfish and the Spider compares two types of organizational structures. Spider organizations have a central command structure, like a CEO. If you detach one of the spider’s legs from the head, the leg can no longer function. It is not autonomous. Starfish organizations have very distributed command structures. Cut off a leg and it will continue to function and will even grow other legs…
“Where there is no competition, there is no market. This is why start-ups who “have no competition” have trouble engaging partners and making sales.” - Geoffrey Moore, Escape Velocity Open source projects often shy away from competition. They value collaboration and leveraging existing solutions. But competition is good for more than making you run faster. Competition helps…
I recently listened to a talk by Michael Lopp about how to be a great manager. During his talk, he stressed the importance of hallway conversations. Hallway conversations are informal conversations about projects, goals and status. As Shez says, they are great for bouncing ideas off people you might not normally interact with and just letting them know what you are up to. Here’s how I do…
When I told the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors that I was leaving my job as executive director , I told them my number one priority was to hire my replacement. Before I was hired, the GNOME Foundation went through a long period without an executive director and I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen again. At the Boston Summit, there was actually some discussion about whether they…
I hear a lot of people worrying about getting more visibility. While I think visibility is important, I think worrying about visibility is the wrong way to go about it. Worrying about visibility makes people do weird, self-centered things. If you want to be more visible, talk more about other people! Meet people, listen to them, laugh with them, spread their story. Here are a few simple things…