Imagine the chaos that would occur if all open source software vanished with the snap of a finger. Picture the devices that would turn to bricks in our hands, the infrastructure that would fail, and the machinery that would fall silent.
The truth is we probably don't stop to think about all the open source libraries, frameworks, and components we depend on—until something goes wrong.
The extraordinary impact of open source is difficult to measure or quantify. The last attempt, a study by OpenForum Europe commissioned by the European Commission, estimated that the economic impact of open source software in Europe alone was between $77.8 billion and $113.7 billion, but that was back in 2018.
Open source is a testament to human ingenuity, and it's not often that we take the time to celebrate what we—the creators and users of open source—have made together.
We think it's time we did.
That's why we're announcing a new type of open source event called Upstream. It's a one-day celebration of open source for the developers who use it and the maintainers that create it.
We'd like you to join us on June 7 for this entirely virtual and free event where we'll focus on the creators behind essential open source packages and the developers who build amazing things with them.
We'll journey behind the open source libraries and frameworks you use every day, across ecosystems including JavaScript, Java, PHP, Ruby, Python, .NET, Rust, and Go, learning the "how" and "why" behind the projects, and getting insights into where they are headed next. We'll explore today's most exciting open source projects and ride along with those developing applications with open source at scale.
We have an amazing lineup:
- Maintainers including John Leider of Vuetify, Val Karpov of Mongoose, Jordan Harband of hundreds of npm projects, Forbes Lindesay of Pug, and Roel Spilker and Reiner Zwitserloot of Project Lombok will share their stories.
- Sarah Novotny of Microsoft will discuss open source as an innovation engine.
- Deb Bryant from Red Hat will explore what it means for businesses to "create authentic value" with open source.
- Brian Douglas of GitHub will talk about open source hospitality and how to attract new contributors.
- Erin McKean from Google will share how organizations can create and maintain documentation in open source projects.
- Kevin Fleming from Bloomberg will discuss how the organization is stepping up to help the Python Software Foundation and how others might follow suit.
- Dmitry Vinnik of Facebook will detail the approach that the Facebook Open Source team takes to measure the current health of its open source projects.
- Scott Owens from the United States Geological Survey-National Geospatial Technical Operations Center (USGS-NGTOC) will share how a government agency transformed by adopting an agile approach and embracing open source technology.
- Simon Phipps, well-known for his work at the Open Source Initiative, will be discussing the "rights ratchet" model we see in the recent spat of relicensing.
- Alex Williams from The New Stack will moderate a panel discussion about open source supply chain health, security, and management best practices.
- Jerry Wiltse from JFrog will share the interesting tale of how the company acquired open source project Conan and how its approach might've been different in today's landscape.
- Dr. Rishi Manchanda will teach us about the larger upstream thinking movement and how to tackle to root cause of the issues we face.
See the event website for a full schedule and list of speakers.
Upstream will kick off Maintainer Week, a series of events we're hosting alongside our pals at GitHub to celebrate the vital work of open source maintainers and highlight some of the heroes behind the movement.
You can register for free here today.
See you at Upstream!
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