The Craft Of Open Source Ben Rometsch, CEO, Flagsmith

Flagsmith's CEO, Ben Rometsch, is a true champion of open source. His software revolution is turning heads among developers, by unlocking the true potential of simplicity and sustainability in the digital world. In this special interview episode, Jason Bosco from Type Sense takes charge and conducts an exciting conversation with Ben Rometsch. Today’s episode unravels the story behind Flagsmith and the pivotal moments that drove its creation. Jason probes Ben with insightful questions, exploring his decision to embrace open source from the start and the strategic considerations around its future monetization. Together, they discuss the significance of self-hosting for customers and the synergies it brings to software deployment. Ben shares how he approaches positioning the product, bridging the gap between proprietary solutions and an open-source alternative. They also delve into the realm of developer marketing, exploring effective channels and lessons learned. Don't miss out on the exciting glimpse into Flag Smith's future roadmap and the enduring philosophy of simplicity and sustainability in software development. Tune in now!

This whole idea of having an operating system that runs many different programs on one computer is completely outdated and doesn't reflect reality whatsoever. The question is, “What would an operating system look like for something in 2020 to serve up the software?” That's where NanoVMs come in with a unikernel concept. Today, its CEO, Ian Eyberg, takes us into a deep dive into unikernels and how they function. Tune in to discover how to efficiently manage virtual machines and create a truly agile environment for your software development.

In this episode, we welcome Kasra Bigdeli, Engineering Manager at CapRover. He shares how he built an open-source version of Heroku that features one-click apps. He explains how he designed it to be newbie-friendly: easy to navigate and full of contextual help. Kasra also talks about using only organic techniques in marketing CapRover, and now its community is naturally growing with more than a hundred projects.

When you create something you love, it feels good to give it away for people to tinker around and do great things with it. That is what is open-source is all about. But what happens when the cost of maintaining an open-source project becomes too high to sustain? Some people would abandon it, but not Francois Zaninotto, CEO of Marmelab. Realizing the untapped potential of React-Admin, he managed to build a sustainable business model from an open-source core. Find out how he did it in this conversation. Plus, get a glimpse of his other project, GreenFrame.io, which allows users to estimate the carbon emissions linked to user scenarios on a web application and use that information to create a carbon reduction strategy.

Ben Rometsch and Matt Althauser sit down with Shaun Campton, Principal Engineer at Tigera, who shares his experiences as a core developer on Project Calico. He talks about their origins of moving out of the era of doing forklift moves into OpenStack and down the development of network splitting, focusing more on a dynamic firewall approach. He opens up on his experiences writing their first 10,000 lines of code, their identity-based policy, and the value they are offering to clients. Shaun also provides insights on what may be next for Kubernetes and how open-source projects must get ready for any change ahead.

As simple as they seem, feature flags cannot be underestimated. The more you dive into what it offers, the more you realize how much it can clean up your code base. Mike Beamer and Todd Baert saw the value it could further provide and founded OpenFeature. OpenFeature is an open standard for feature flag management, created to support a robust feature flag ecosystem using cloud-native technologies. In this episode, they share with us the work they are doing as well as the genesis of OpenFeature as part of Dynatrace. Mike and Todd then talk about their vision, measuring their progress and success, and what they find exciting about open source projects. What is more, they discuss the diversity of the community in the open source space, highlighting the tremendous value in bringing passions, talents, and support together.