Speaker
Description
Open Source is “everything, everywhere, all at once.” In 2022, GitHub reported over 94 million developers using the platform and over 3.5 billion contributions recorded on the platform. While GitHub does not only have Open Source projects, it is impossible to ignore the changing drumbeat and record investments made into “Open Work” over the last ten years. But when people say “open source” and “free software,” what exactly do they mean? How do we define “free stuff” and what different ways do we produce this “free stuff?” Furthermore, how are companies, businesses, governments, and international NGOs providing opportunities, careers, and jobs to work on “free stuff?”
In this talk, Justin W. Flory will pull the curtain back on the past 40 years of “free & open source,” how we got to where we are today, and advice on how to find competitive careers working on open source products and with open source communities. Justin pulls from both the public history and his own personal experience as an open source contributor for the last 10 years, beginning when he was a high school student. Attendees will leave with a better understanding of the different ways “free & open source” are used in industry and gain insight for how open source projects can act as a launchpad for a technology career.
