Episode Details

Wes and Scott talk with Chad Whitacre, the newest member of the Syntax team, about all things open source—licenses, controversies, economics, and ethics. Chad breaks down what most people misunderstand, and how companies can support sustainable software development the right way.

• 00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
• 00:39 Meet Chad Whitacre
• 03:39 Chad’s retro headphones
  • Retrospekt
• 05:00 Chad’s role at Syntax
  • https://syntax.fm/oss
  • Open Path
• 09:41 What do people get wrong about open source?
• 11:11 Why is open source so divisive?
• 13:01 The evolution of open source and free software
• 17:55 Single vendor vs. community open source
• 20:22 How do people build businesses off of a GPL license?
• 24:40 What’s the most pure version of open source?
• 26:55 Fair source licensing explained
• 30:30 Brought to you by Sentry.io
• 33:09 Should you be concerned about dependencies in your app in relation to licensing?
  • Fair Source
• 35:16 What’s the most interesting/unusual open source license?
  • Beerware License
• 40:00 What is Open Source Pledge?
  • Open Source Pledge
• 45:41 Choosing the right open source license
• 48:31 Wes’ most popular open source project
  • wait
• 49:39 Interesting open source projects
  • Mercedes-Benz embraces Open Source
  • Porsche Open Source Platform
• 51:33 Licensing for educational content
• 53:46 The beauty of open source
  • Plausible
• 56:12 Scott’s various open source projects
• 56:44 The importance of contributing to open source projects
• 59:16 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs

• Chad: Save The Cat!

• Chad: Coming soon