Alice Sowerby
Co-Host of CHAOSScast
Alice is a friendly and thoughtful person whose career is centered around operational leadership in tech.
She's currently on a sabbatical but previous jobs include Program Director for Developer Relations at Equinix, COO at an MLOps startup, and a range of roles in product, engineering, and marketing teams in B2B tech.
What she loves most about work is raising people up through collaborating, coaching, mentoring, and servant leadership. Her strategic and problem-solving skills mean she is valued as a key member of many groups. She is active in the TODO group in the OSPO Book project, in the AI working group in OpenChain and in comms with the CHAOSS project.
Alice is based in the UK, in a small village near Bath. She enjoys travel, dancing, gardening and astronomy.
Alice Sowerby has hosted 19 Episodes.
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Episode 128: Guest Episode - GR-OSS OUT Podcast: Building Welcoming Communities with Stacey Potter
19 February 2026 | 22 mins 17 secs
In this episode of CHAOSScast, we have a special crossover episode with the GR-OSS OUT podcast, hosted by Tabatha DiDomenico from G-Research and featuring special guest Stacey Potter, Community Manager at the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF).
See the original episode here: https://podcast.gr-oss.io/15-openssf-community
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Episode 127: Community Health metrics for Commercial Open Source
5 February 2026 | 34 mins 52 secs
In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Alice is joined by Matt Trifiro from the Commercial Open Source Startup Alliance (COSSA) and Daniel Izquierdo, CEO of Bitergia and co-founder of the CHAOSS Community. The discussion delves into the importance of open source community health metrics in shaping successful commercial strategies for startups. Matt shares COSSA's mission to support the growth of venture-funded open source projects by fostering collaboration among founders, investors, and customers. Daniel discusses how community health can influence the sustainability and innovation of projects. They also explore the future goals of COSSA, including establishing a working group to develop standardized metrics for evaluating community contributions and business value. Press download now to hear more!
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Episode 126: Meet Leon, your new Asia host
22 January 2026 | 23 mins 24 secs
CHAOSScast – Episode 126
On this episode of CHAOSScast, host Alice Sowerby introduces a special episode welcoming Leon Nunes as the new host for the CHAOSS Asia podcast. Leon shares his background in customer success, his work with CNCF, and hardware hacking, along with his role in growing the CHAOSS Asia chapter. Together, Alice and Leon talk about the current state of the Asia community, Leon’s curiosity-driven approach to podcast hosting, the stories he wants to surface from across Asia, and how listeners can get involved or pitch episode ideas. Hit download now to find out more!
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Episode 125: A very CHAOTIC 2025
11 December 2025 | 51 mins 27 secs
CHAOSScast – Episode 125
In this final episode of the year from CHAOSScast, hosts Alice Sowerby and Harmony Elendu welcome members of the CHAOSS Board, Sean Goggins, Anita Ihuman, Georg Link, and Elizabeth Barron, for an in-depth discussion on the project's developments and future. They share their reflections on key events and trends in the open-source community over 2025. Topics include the impact of AI on open source, shifts in funding, community engagement, and the importance of psychological safety. The panelists also spotlight various CHAOSS working groups, including education, design, and technical writing, while sharing their wishes for the CHAOSS Project in 2026. Press download now!
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Episode 123: Practitioner Guides: #6 Sunsetting an Open Source Project
13 November 2025 | 28 mins 51 secs
CHAOSScast – Episode 123
This episode of the CHAOSScast features hosts Harmony Elendu and Alice Sowerby, along with guests Stefka Dimitrova and Dawn Foster, discussing the process of sunsetting open source projects. Dawn and Stefka share their extensive experiences and the importance of managing the lifecycle of open source projects responsibly. They delve into the specifics of the 'Getting Started with Sunsetting an Open Source Project' guide from Dawn's series of practitioner guides, which aim to help practitioners, not just experts, interpret data and improve their project health. Key topics include identifying inactive projects, the responsible steps for sunsetting, and the crucial role of communication within the community. The episode also touches upon metrics to determine project activity and archive responsibly, highlighting that the process goes beyond simply pressing an 'archive' button. Hit download now to hear more! -
Episode 122: Meet the 2025 CHAOTICS of the month!
30 October 2025 | 37 mins 58 secs
CHAOSScast – Episode 122
In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Georg and co-host Alice introduce a special feature showcasing the “CHAOTICS of the Month” who are members recognized for their exceptional contributions to the CHAOSS open source community. Today, they chat with David Lippert, Victoria Ottah, and Cali Dolfi. David Lippert, Director of the Open Source Program Office at George Washington University, discusses his journey into academia and open source with a focus on public interest technology. Victoria Otta, a UX designer and accessibility advocate, shares her experiences and contributions to the CHAOSS community, particularly in accessibility auditing and inclusion of people with disabilities in open source. Cali Dolfi, a senior data scientist at Red Hat, talks about her work in community data analysis and the Data Science Working Group. Hit download now to hear more! -
Episode 121: Package Metadata Working Group with Andrew Nesbitt and Damián Vicino
16 October 2025 | 41 mins 7 secs
In this episode of the CHAOSScast, host Alice Sowerby sits down with Andrew Nesbitt and Damián Vicino to discuss the formation and objectives of the new Package Metadata Working Group within the CHAOSS community. They discuss the complex issues surrounding package manager metadata, its interoperability challenges, and how the working group aims to address these through mapping and standardization efforts. They also touch upon the importance of these efforts for various stakeholders, including developers, researchers, and tool builders. The conversation highlights both the immediate and long-term goals of the group and provides information on how interested individuals can get involved. Hit download now to hear more!
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Episode 106: Funding Impact Measurement Working Group
20 March 2025 | 35 mins 11 secs
In this episode of the CHAOSScast, host Alice Sowerby introduces guests Dawn Foster, Cailean Osborne, and Paul Sharratt to discuss the newly formed 'Funding Impact Measurement Working Group' within the CHAOSS community. The panel explores the group's origins, goals, and objectives, emphasizing the importance of mixed method approaches to assess the impact of funding on open source projects. They highlight the significance of both quantitative and qualitative methods to understand the effects of funding better and share insights on creating standardized frameworks for impact assessment. The discussion also touches on the challenges of public versus private funding, the nuances of financial support in open source projects, and the potential benefits of having a collaborative, open forum for related discussions. Hit download now to hear more!
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Episode 105: GrimoireLab at Thunderbird
6 March 2025 | 34 mins 42 secs
In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Alice Sowerby introduces guests Heather Ellsworth, Wayne Mery, and Luis Cañas-Díaz. Today, the conversation focuses on the collaboration between Thunderbird and Bitergia, detailing their journey in using Grimoire Lab to gather community metrics. Key points include the importance of metrics in understanding community dynamics, the various tools monitored for data collection, and the impact of these metrics on community management. The panelists also share advice for other open source projects considering adopting Grimoire Lab and reflect on future plans. Press download now to hear more!
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Episode 103: GrimoireLab at FreeBSD
6 February 2025 | 36 mins 1 sec
In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Alice Sowerby welcomes guests Miguel Ángel Fernández, Ed Maste, and Moin Rahman to talk about the FreeBSD Project's adoption of GrimoireLab as part of work commissioned by the Sovereign Tech Agency.
They discuss the FreeBSD Foundation's need to understand their extensive bug backlog and how they leveraged GrimoireLab to gain insights and optimize bug management. The conversation also covers the challenges of deploying GrimoireLab on FreeBSD, resulting enhancements in the GrimoireLab metrics, and the overall benefits seen in managing the FreeBSD project.
Press download to hear more!
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Episode 101: Inside CHAOSScast with your producers
9 January 2025 | 30 mins 9 secs
In this episode of CHAOSScast, hosts Alice Sowerby, Harmony Elendu, and Dawn Foster provide an in-depth look at how the CHAOSScast podcast is produced. They share their backgrounds, discuss the importance of community participation, and elaborate on their process for selecting topics and guests. They also discuss the logistics and creative process behind producing the podcast, and the challenges of scheduling recordings and coordinating with guests from different time zones. The episode concludes with a call for community feedback and suggestions to improve the podcast. Press download now to hear more!
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Episode 100: Celebrating 100 episodes of CHAOSScast!
26 December 2024 | 57 mins 58 secs
In this special 100th episode of CHAOSScast, co-hosts Alice Sowerby and Harmony Elendu, along with a panel of eight past and current contributors, reflect on four and a half years of exploring open source community health. They discuss the evolution of CHAOSS, its impact on open-source sustainability, and the critical role it plays in the software supply chain security. The conversation also covers the challenges and future prospects of open source, emphasizing community collaboration, governance, and inclusivity. The episode concludes with each person sharing a single word that encapsulate the spirit of CHAOSS community. Press download to hear more!