Dawn Foster
Co-Host of CHAOSScast
Dr. Dawn Foster works as the Director of Data Science for CHAOSS where she is also a board member / maintainer. She is co-chair of CNCF TAG Contributor Strategy and an OpenUK board member. She has 20+ years of experience at companies like VMware and Intel with expertise in community, strategy, governance, metrics, and more. She has spoken at over 100 industry events and has a BS in computer science, an MBA, and a PhD. In her spare time she enjoys reading science fiction, running, and traveling.
Dawn Foster has hosted 30 Episodes.
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Episode 82: The AI Conundrum: Implications for OSPOs
25 April 2024 | 39 mins 16 secs
In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Dawn Foster brings together Matt Germonprez, Brian Proffitt, and Ashley Wolf to discuss the implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs), including policy considerations, the potential for AI-driven contributions to create workload for maintainers, and the quality of contributions. They also touch on the use of AI internally within companies versus contributing back to the open source community, the importance of distinguishing between human and AI contributions, and the potential benefits and challenges AI introduces to open source project health and community metrics. The conversation strikes a balance between optimism for AI’s benefits and caution for its governance, leaving us to ponder the future of open source in an AI-integrated world.
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Episode 81: Managing Federal CHAOSS at CMS.gov
12 March 2024 | 40 mins 25 secs
On today’s episode of CHAOSScast, we focus on the experiences and initiatives of the Open Source Program Office at the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Host Dawn Foster is joined by Sean Goggins along with guests, Remy DeCausemaker, Natalia Luzuriaga, Isaac Milarsky, and Aayat Ali, all from various backgrounds within the CMS, who share insights into their efforts in maintaining and promoting an open source culture within federal services. Key discussion points include the launch of the CMS’s first open source program office, the development of a maturity model framework to evaluate open source projects, the creation of tools such as Repo Scaffolder and Duplifier to support open source practices, and efforts towards open source software security. This episode emphasizes the distinct aspects of opens source work in government settings compared to the private sector and highlights upcoming presentations at conferences. Download this episode now to hear more!
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Episode 79: The Mechanics of CHAOSS: A Deep Dive into Open Source Community Health Analytics
21 February 2024 | 1 hr 1 min
In this collaboration between the CHAOSS Cast and Mechanical Ink podcasts, hosts Dawn Foster and Schalk Neethling are joined by guests Daniel Izquierdo and Sean Goggins to discuss open source community health metrics.
The focus is on providing an overview of two projects under the CHAOSS (Community Health Analytics for Open Source Software) umbrella - GrimoireLab and Augur. These open source tools gather data from diverse sources and analyze it to provide insights into open-source community health.
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Episode 77: Open Source Metrics at Microsoft
16 January 2024 | 22 mins 41 secs
In this episode of CHAOSScast, host Dawn Foster has a compelling discussion with three guests from Microsoft’s Open Source Programs Office: Emma Irwin, James Siri, and Justin Gosses. The conversation includes how Microsoft measures the health of open source communities, their experiences with the CHAOSS Community, and the critical role of open source within the organization. Topics such as use of metrics, tackling security issues within scaling, and the future of metrics within the company were discussed. Also, they talk about the value of open source contributions within the business, the role of internal communities, and how they track and improve processes at Microsoft, emphasizing the importance of open source impact both externally and internally.
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Episode 76: CHAOSS Goals for 2024 and Beyond
1 January 2024 | 42 mins 41 secs
In this episode, host Georg is joined by CHAOSS members, Sean, Nicole, Matt, Elizabeth, and Dawn. Today, they delve into the CHAOSS Project’s goals for 2024 and beyond, highlighting efforts to establish CHAOSS metrics and models as formal international standards. The conversation covers their potential ISO standardization, strategies to grow the user community, the importance of increasing collaboration within the CHAOSS contributor community, and enhancing software contributions, acknowledging the need to value non-code contributions. They also touch on the importance of community engagement and the utility of hosted software solutions to make CHAOSS tools more accessible. We are all excited to see where this new journey takes us, and we would love for you to be a part of this journey.
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Episode 75: DEI Metrics Overcoming Social Barriers in OSS
19 December 2023 | 32 mins 50 secs
In this episode of CHAOSScast, Georg and Dawn have a conversation with guest, Anita Ihuman, about the vital subject of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) metrics within open source communities. Anita, who’s a developer advocate and technical writer, shares her research about how DEI metrics are used and their effectiveness. They discuss the importance of documenting DEI efforts, reflect on the challenges faced by communities in improving inclusivity, and share success stories of events that have leveraged CHAOSS DEI badges to enhance participant experiences. Also, Anita encourages everyone to explore the comprehensive research findings for further insights.
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Episode 73: Reflections on the LF OSS Maintainer Report
2 November 2023 | 41 mins 25 secs
In today’s episode, the conversation dives deep into the Linux Foundation Research Open Source Maintainers Report. Georg, Alyssa, Dawn, Sophia, and Anita engage in a thoughtful discussion about the report's methodology, findings, and implications for open source projects. They explore topics such as the challenges of obtaining a representative sample in open source research, the bias toward technical contributors, and the importance of considering the long-term engagement lifecycle of contributors. Additionally, they touch upon the report's best practices, including documentation and diversity, and how these practices can be connected across different categories. Download this episode now to learn more!
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Episode 72: Open Source Software Viability and Project Selection
19 October 2023 | 32 mins 38 secs
In this episode, our host, Matt Germonprez, is joined by Dawn Foster from the CHAOSS Community, Sophia Vargas from Google, and Gary White from Verizon. Today, they dive into the crucial topic of assessing the viability of open source projects for adoption within organizations. The discussion covers the intricacies of evaluating project viability, the challenges of project failure, and the necessity of continuous assessments. The panelists provide valuable insights on mitigating risks, leveraging metrics, and the importance of active engagement within open source communities. This episode offers a wealth of knowledge and practical advice for navigating the world of open source software. Download this episode now to hear more!
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Episode 71: What's New in CHAOSS: Podcast Reboot Episode
5 October 2023 | 47 mins 23 secs
In this episode, the CHAOSScast team is back! Georg Link, Dawn Foster, Sean Goggins, Matt Germonprez, and Elizabeth Barron discuss the relaunch of the podcast after taking a short break. They delve into the fascinating world of open source community health, focusing on metrics, metric models, and the CHAOSS Project’s role in measuring the health of open source communities. They share insights on how they’re working to make metrics more accessible and how they interpret these metrics within the context of specific projects. Additionally, they highlight the Data Science Initiative, the growth of CHAOSS community chapters worldwide, and their initiative to improve newcomer experience and promote diversity and inclusion in open source. Download this episode now to find out much more!
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Episode 62: Maintaining Open Source Projects - a joint episode with the Sustain Podcast
12 August 2022 | 42 mins 7 secs
Today’s episode is a shared podcast between Sustain and CHAOSS. We have six panelists to talk about maintaining open source and we’ll also do a quick update from a previous episode and talk about what has changed and what maintaining open source looks like today. The panelists we have are Georg Link, Richard Littauer, Dawn Foster, Willem Jiang, Amanda Casari, and Ben Nickolls.
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Episode 49: CHAOSS Community Year 2021 in Review
3 December 2021 | 51 mins 34 secs
We are super excited for today’s episode because we are doing a “Year 2021 in Review” with our panel of representatives from the CHAOSS community from all around the world. Joining us today are Georg, Sean, Matt, Willem, Dawn, Nicole, Elizabeth, and Xiaoya. Our panelists tell us their favorite episodes from this year, we hear about new advances in software for CHAOSS Project, things that happened around metrics in CHAOSS, and DEI Badging for Events that was built out this year. Also, we learn more about conversations that happened from this year with metrics models, dependencies, and ethics guidelines. And finally, the panelists share with us where they want to see the CHAOSS Project going in 2022.
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Episode 34: Anniversary Episode with Georg, Dawn, Matt, Sophia, Elizabeth
7 May 2021 | 35 mins 47 secs
Hello and welcome to this episode of CHAOSScast. Today’s episode is our Anniversary Episode because the podcast launched one year ago! We will discuss how the podcast and the CHAOSS project has evolved. We learn why Georg wanted to start this podcast and the project, and the goals he had along with the success of the podcast in the last year. We find out from the panelists the episode that was most interesting to them, the impact the podcast has had on the community as a whole, where they see the CHAOSS Project evolving and heading from where they’ve come in the last four years. Also, Dawn and Matt talk about how CHAOSS is working on doing translations for Chinese and Spanish. Download this episode to find out much more! Don’t forget to subscribe for free to this podcast or on your favorite podcast App and share this podcast with your friends and colleagues.