Corporate Donations and OSS – Chad Whitacre, Sentry

This is texturing TV. Hey everyone, welcome back to techstrung TV our guests for this segment. He's first time he's been on our show.

I want to introduce you to Chad Chad Whitaker of century. Hey Chad, welcome. How are you?

Good. Thanks for having me on Alan. It's a pleasure.

So Chad. Well, let's start with a little bit about you. If you don't mind, would you share with our audience?

Sure thing. So my name is Chad Whitaker. I'm the head of Open Source at Century Century is an air monitoring and application performance monitoring startup that was actually started we can see what we get to in the conversation here.

But Century we started in 2008 as an open source side project and now you know, it's growing as a startup and I've been here at Century for two years. And kind of what's your background from before Century? Sure.

So I guess most relevant to our conversation. I did a startup of my own in 2012 through 2015 called get tip later called gratipay, which was basically a crowdfunding platform for open source projects. So that torch has been picked up by GitHub sponsors open Collective things like that.

But yeah, so deep it's in the open source Community python Community. Yeah and spend a lot of time thinking on and working on open source funding and sustainability. Very cool.

So centuries started way back in 2008, right which by my is maybe 14 years for almost 15 years ago another overnight success, right? Yeah started primarily as an open source side project is what you said and it's not transitioned into a full-on commercial absolutely entity, but it still has open source sort of roots and components very much and and more so than that open source is really core to centuries DNA. It's part of our self-understanding part of our company identity.

We very much think of ourselves as part of the open source community. And yeah our product our main product is, you know, this air monitoring and application performance monitoring product. And that product is this open sources we can make it.

So again that was started in 2008 as an open source side project. Started commercializing in 2012 as a little Heroku plug-in. That's actually personally when I started using it so long time customer, you know, and then 2015-2016 is when they reorganized as a Delaware C Corp, so they could take venture capital investment and really started the growth trajectory.

So, you know about seven or eight years there just because kind of an open source side project lightly commercialized and then the past eight years or so, you know, six seven eight years growing as a startup. Fantastic before we jump into what you know the meat of our story today for people want to get more information on Century. io.

Tre dot Io if you end up on an insurance company's website, you're on the wrong one. You're not a century that I am. Yeah.

That's the one you want. We got you. All right, so Chad, you know, I I didn't update.

Yes today from the open source security Foundation. Oh, yeah sure part of Linux Foundation. Yeah, they started this project.

I think they called the outer Omega the beginning and right. Yeah. And they detailed kind of you know there it's been a year.

They're you know, they're they're marks or they're, you know High marks for the year and you know what's going on and what I found interesting is You know, they talked about fundraising right? Where where did the support come from in terms of dollars? And and you know, there were the usual suspects in there Google I think a Microsoft and some others and they yeah.

You know, we we're so numb to big numbers that we see something like two million four million or I guess just two million right two million is a lot of money, right? Anyway, but it brings up the whole issue of. Look, it costs money to support open source, you know a couple of fallacies that I've seen.

disproven in my time in the open source world is open open source is in free the software is free to use but it costs money to develop software and cause people's times develop software. It costs money to make to Monitor and and make sure that software is secure. It costs money to run the software oftentimes because money to support Church.

Up. There are inherent costs in maintaining open source software. Yeah.

and like in any business model, we could shift the burden of those costs to different players in the ecosystem. I know you have sort of your views on yeah where those birds should lie. Sure.

Let's hear. Okay, so I guess let me start with this Alan. We'll see if we can get into it.

You know, we talk about the open source community. and the way I think about the open source Community is I think about multiple ways to multiple ways to kind of structure it or kind of break it down. But one that I think is relevant for us here is you've got the open source Community kind of think about it three buckets.

There's the part of the open source community that wants nothing to do with money, right? Somebody's got an open source project and they love writing code and they're gonna keep writing code whether you pay them or not. And actually they don't want money to come anywhere near their open source work, right?

And that's fine. Okay, so that that's that's one slice of the open source Community. There's another slice the open source Community.

I'll put over here. We're talking about commercial open source. We talk about Century.

Our product is as open sources we can make it and we're a growing startup. Right? So there's there's kind of those two ends of of the spectrum and then in the middle, we have this slice of the open source community that I think of as the community supported portion of the open source Community, they're not commercializing in the way that century is and yet they're also not totally averse to mixing money and open source.

And this is what we see folks like GitHub sponsors going after open Collective going after some of these new platforms like thanks Dev and stack Aid And really, you know, we're talking about Linux Foundation here in openssf, you know, we're trying to find ways of funding this like this is the Hard One to fund right? Like these folks don't have a problem because they're not asking for funding, you know, folks like Century like we don't have a problem because we have a business model but it's this slice in the middle of folks that are doing a lot of work a lot of volunteer labor. And you know, and this is this is the classics right like, you know, the where we get the heart leads and the log for Jays and things like this right these these kind of showcase examples of where it breaks down here where this is the problem we've got here is how do we make this slice here sustainable so that the folks that are working on their open source libraries or what what have you and are interested in, you know, bringing money into the mix somehow.

I'll say you know, this is the problem we haven't solved yet. Yeah. I have it just a slightly different.

Close Okay slightly clears my analogy. I already know people okay. So I think origin you know, I think back to when I first became involved in open source.

Yeah, and to me. I call that the error of the cathedral and the bazaar, you know that yeah absolutely hair cream. And yeah, sorry.

Richard stallman and you know the Pure pure open source, where okay, you don't want no stinking money, you know messing up our honor that we're we're okay. So for the love of software, okay, and that was a very it was a very popular movements how open source started right? It was like really the ultimate geek kind of thing right for the love.

I think then oh, I think open source there moved into what I call the big brother error. Okay where almost every open source project had a corporate big brother who for all intents and purposes ran the open source project and I'm not you know, IBM's are perfect example of this there are others I'm not saying it's inherently Evil. By the way, that's a perfectly fine model.

Okay, right for the love. You got the big brother. Right, and then the third era for me is what I call the phenomenasm offense.

I called the foundation era. Okay. Yeah and And in here where we have co-opetition Community as you called it coalescing around open source projects.

and and the beauty of it is companies that would normally not work together because they're competitors. are somehow It's lining away. Yeah, right where they cooperating to certain exactly certain extent and so it allows Microsoft and Google to both support open as I sat forward the last yeah, you know that Linux foundation's probably the best example, we have of that.

Yeah, but Cliffs clinics. Okay, there's all the foundations are pretty good about it because it takes it out of the hands of just a single big brother who runs it at the end of the day. It's like the benevolent King and Plato the philosopher king, right?

Is he gonna run it for the good of the community or does he running for his own benefit? Sure not you know Century may do a great job of running it for the good of the community. But you know, there's always you know, who's who's taking charge next?

So to me, those are the kind of Errors of open source of dominant forms of Open Source that we we've been through. I'm not saying one is better than the other. Hmm.

I I do think though that with the onset of this foundational error. Yeah, you see an open source explode like never before sure. Well another way to slice open sources, you know, I guess I go this way for the the funding buckets and maybe I'll go this way for this.

I basically think of it as kind of like OS level. Application development level or framework or language level and then kind of end user application Level. Right?

So we're talking about Linux Foundation. We're talking about openssf. I mean, that's really down here, right?

That's like yeah that that's the OS level a lot of where Century where we spend our time think about open source is kind of and this is because you know, we're developer tools company. So right, you know, we think a lot about the developers. So we spend a lot of our time here at this application development framework level.

So thinking about the the Python's and the javascripts and the web Frameworks and the laravels absolutely right then I'll see you have cncf down here down here. I mean that's in for oh, yeah. Yeah structure.

Yeah. It's more infrastructure. Right?

It's you know, how are you, you know now data center to Cloud right? Like that's yeah, I think of that is kind of broadly down there in that level up here are things like what inkscape and like, you know VLC right like end user applications what Leisure office things like this right like Designed for the consumer. Yeah exactly that kind of thing.

So I think that's an interesting distinction to keep in the mix too. Because you know, I think where we're seeing, you know, you talk about the two million dollars the five million dollars and the Google's in the Microsoft's like that's down here at this level, you know, and and honestly with Century a lot of where we spend our time is is kind of at this level and the Frameworks and the languages and and you know and and how to support how support folks in there. Yes, a lot of different stuff going on.

I mean certainly, you know, imagine like you said you've been in yeah, you've seen open source go from you know, 1998 Halloween documents, you know Microsoft like trying to squish it to now microsite, you know a few years ago and a big promoter but Vegas, right, but also there when we would have Fights to the death over what licensing I was only right was he upper lower GPL or was it MIT or was it you know, remember? Yeah, you don't hear much of that anymore. I don't know if he is the BSL license you do.

Yeah. This is definitely some licensing conversations. Yeah, you know, what else has been a big change for me chat.

Back early you're on. Let's say in the Boost Cathedral Bazaar era. Yeah.

There are a lot of people who would get pissed off. If you would make a money off of opens. He's right language, they'd be upset if you were making money off of or if you're making money in the wrong way, right?

If you're it's like it was very, you know, what was the wrong way versus the right way it kind of changed. I think depending who you were but Yeah, now I think for the most part developers consumers, they recognize, you know, they weren't there software free if possible, but they recognize people you're entitled to have a commercial. Business model you're in tight.

Someone's entitled to make money for their time and efforts well, and there's different economic. things that play here right because Two things. I want to put out there number one.

Is this post my friend VM? Brassau wrote this post open source is not a business model. Her point is open source is a development model and then there's business models over here and you know there it's an open question kind of how those two relate and ongoing conversation about well what you know, what business models are appropriate for different for for open source, but open source itself is a software development model.

It doesn't have an inherent business model inherent to it. That's why this conversation about well, how do we plug these two together? Number two that I want to put out here is this idea of rival risk and non-rival risk goods.

And what's the other one rivalry is non-rivalist and excludable and non-excludable. This is a framework for analyzing different Goods in the world and how they're produced and you know open source really fits in in two of the two two places in the quadrant and this is My friend Nadia. Let me get her name right because it's not egg ball anymore us asper.

Rohova. I think it's how you pronounce it naiah on Twitter. She has a book about this book out about open source, and she she has this helpful analysis where she says it open source really fits in two of these economic categories.

from the point of view the digital asset It's a public good. Meaning, you know zero transactional cost to download the millionth copy of something versus the first copy of something. So essentially free.

It's this public good, but then this is the crucial part and you you this gets back something you were saying earlier. The time and attention it takes to maintain the software is not free, right the the maintainer attention and effort. That is what we would call a common pool resource.

So it's not a public good. It's a it's a Commons and there's different ways of managing a comments then, you know, economically managing a public good so that that's just another framework. I guess.

I'm thrown out Frameworks here Alan. I feel like going on. Yeah.

so So ultimately look hmm. We've moved past the time where if you spoke to people, you know in the VC Community or in the finance, you know Tech Finance World. Okay Red Hat was the only successful open surprise companies what you used to hear share plenty of successful companies that are very successful using open source software.

Mm-hmm. Century is exactly, right? Yeah.

But if we're gonna be it, okay, how who why? where should the Emphasis lion who's responsible whatever money it takes to maintain. We agree.

There's some costs to doing it who should be paying that the end users of this software. Is it a is it Big Brother corporations, is it the community as a whole? Well again, you know someone's gotta pay, you know, so bringing this bringing this kind of to a point, you know, we got our folks that don't want money.

So we're not worried about them and that's certainly part of the open source community. And that's fine. We got the folks like Century that have the business model, you know, so we're not worried about that part of Open Source the problem we need to solve is this middle part where you've got people working on open source in their free time giving their work away.

And how do we incentivize them? They're interested in in some remuneration. Let's say and some payment for what they're doing.

How do we incentivize that and that is fundamentally a common pool resource Province. It's how to avoid a tragedy of the comments. How do we how do we think about that?

So point to answer your question is the people using a software need to pay for it? Okay. So if companies are benefiting from it then company to be paying for it.

Obviously, the end users are benefiting, you know, that's that's a different model again Century. We're mostly focused on this layer here. And and I think one thing I think that we're seeing over time is it seems to be that we're working up the stack in terms of finding solutions to these sustainability challenges because I feel like we've met a lot of progress in the past 10 years with Linux Foundation openssf companies coming together and co-opetition like you were saying right like this feels to me like this is solidifying into a workable sustainable solution.

I think yeah, we're Century we're thinking mostly is at this level, you know, the the front, you know web Frameworks mobile Frameworks the libraries the languages. How do we make sure this is taken care of and it's the companies that have to pay right? So just like we've seen companies start to step up down here.

We need that next year of, you know, obviously like centuries not As large as a Google or Microsoft, but we're trying to do our part here. And so we need to see an order of magnitude or four orders of magnitude more companies kind of in this space stepping up and funding the open source dependencies that they're building their businesses on. A lot of great tools out there for this.

Yeah. Go ahead. Let me play Devil's Advocate a little bit.

Yeah. Sure. It all works your hundred percent, correct?

Yeah until we run into macroeconomic headwinds like we are now. Yes all the sudden. What's on the chopping side?

Yeah. Yeah, and it's and it seems like the supporting the open source is one of those things that are deemed Expendable or yeah critical or what have you? Yeah that That's that that's scary frankly, right?

It gives people pause to say wait a second. Can I count on this? Right well and that's really what we're trying to get you is, you know, and we're not there yet.

And yes, the macroeconomic conditions impact this you know, but this is a long haul right you and I have been at this for 20 plus years, you know a couple years to slow down here like we're gonna get through this we'll come out the other side. Yeah, no, you're right that definitely plays into it. But really the conversation we need to be having I think is how do we manage this, you know like this part of office on a find this middle, you know, I guess I got nine here now right like application framework developers who want to be paid for what they're doing.

How do we figure out how to manage this as a common pool resource and there's tools for this, you know, we're coming up on time here. So we'll have to have to talk again in the future. But this is the conversation you'd be having and yes the macroeconomic conditions affect it but you know, let's have this conversation now, I think we do need to build some new structures just like Linux foundation's really doing a lot of work done.

Do we have to do sort of a foundational thing that middle layer something something? Yeah, Chad. I I we are up on time.

I got our yes in the room there. But hey, this was a great conversation. I hope you enjoyed absolutely right.

Thanks for having me on yes. I would you know, what will have them kind of run back probably after the first of the year, but we'll run it back and pick it up from there from here about how do we put that sort of in play right a framework there? No pun intended framework in play there for these, you know this framework later.

Thanks for coming on and telling us all about Century. io against it. Yeah and one soon.

Thanks so much take. Alrighty. Bye we're gonna take a break on text wrong.

We'll be right back.