OpenJS World Keynote: Open Open Source and Making Great Places for Collaboration

During OpenJS World, which was held virtually in June, we heard from many inspiring people involved in all areas of technology. In this keynote series, we will highlight the key points from the keynote videos. We hope to get a highlight of the speakers in a way that allows for people to hone in on the part of the talk that interests them the most.

During the OpenJS World Keynote Panel, Joe Sepi spoke to leaders in the tech world to hear their insights on the best Open Source practices and steps to make open source a more collaborative environment.

Joe Sepi, an Open Source Engineer and Advocate at IBM, spoke with Michael Dawson, Node.js lead for IBM and Red Hat, and Beth Griggs, Senior Software Engineer at Red Hat. They kicked the discussion off by talking about transparency, accessibility and the open governance model of Node.js. 

In terms of collaboration, Griggs mentioned how accessibility is key to Node.js. In an effort to lower the barriers to entry, being a part of Node.js is as simple as people turning up by clicking on a Zoom link to contribute and join the discussion. She further added that to help make Node.js a more collaborative space, mentorships programs have been set up. For example, she blocks off a couple of hours a week to shadow the process on the release working group. Dawson shared that getting many people together to share ideas requires coming to a consensus; his personal view is that sometimes challenges should be hard as it is better to spend more time in discussion before finalizing a big decision.

In their concluding thoughts, the panelists mentioned ways to get involved: taking a look at the projects hosted by the OpenJS Foundation, looking through the GitHub repos, analyzing your experience and interests and then just joining a call!

Full video here

Broken down by section:

Panel introduction 0:10

Node.js experience 1:03

Accessibility 4:30

The flipside 7:53

The Success of creating the OpenJS Foundation 10:43

Advantages of contributing to open source 13:25

Hiring in open source 15:46

Closing thoughts 18:51