The Intersection of Open Source and AI with Stefano Maffulli & Stephen O’Grady

Open||Source||Data

This episode features a panel discussion with Stefano Maffulli, Executive Director of the Open Source Initiative (OSI); and Stephen O’Grady, Co-founder of RedMonk. Stefano has decades of experience in open source advocacy. He co-founded the Italian chapter of Free Software Foundation Europe, built the developer community of the OpenStack Foundation, and led open source marketing teams at several international companies. Stephen has been an industry analyst for several decades and is author of the developer playbook, The New Kingmakers: How Developers Conquered the World.

In this episode, Sam, Stefano, and Stephen discuss the intersection of open source and AI, good data for everyone, and open data foundations.

-------------------

“Internet Archive, Wikipedia, they have that mission to accumulate data. The OpenStreetMap is another big one with a lot of interesting data. It's a fascinating space, though. There are so many facets of the word ‘data.’ One of the reasons why open data is so hard to manage and hasn't had that same impact of open source is because, like Stephen, the stories that he was telling about the startups having a hard time assembling the mixing and matching, or modifying of data has a different connotation. It's completely different from being able to do the same with software.” – Stefano Maffulli

“It's also not clear how said foundation would get buy-in. Because, as far as a lot of the model holders themselves, they've been able to do most of what they want already. What's the foundation really going to offer them? They've done what they wanted. Not having any inside information here, but just judging by the fact that they are willing to indemnify their users, they feel very confident legally in their stance. Therefore, it at least takes one of the major cards off the table for them.” – Stephen O’Grady

-------------------

Episode Timestamps:

(01:44): What open source in the context of AI means to each guest

(16:21): Stefano explains OSI’s opportunity to shine a light on models and teams

(21:22): The next step of open source AI according to Stephen

(25:38): Creating better definitions in order to modify software

(33:09): The case of funding an open data foundation

(42:31): The future of open source data

(51:54): Executive producer, Audra Montenegro's backstage takeaways

-------------------

Links:

LinkedIn - Connect with Stefano

Visit Open Source Initiative

LinkedIn - Connect with Stephen

Visit RedMonk