Ahmed Sobeh
OSPO Engineering Manager at Aiven
Munich, Germany
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Ahmed Sobeh is an Open Source Engineering Manager at Aiven's Open Source Program Office. An Egyptian, with different experiences in open source ranging from working on Firefox at Mozilla to working with Rust at SAP, his interest and experience in open source have grown over the past few years.
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Your OSPO is not only yours: Working on 3rd-Party OSS
You’ve likely heard of an OSPO (open-source program office) – a small, tactical team within a much larger tech organization. While the vast majority of that company’s engineers (sometimes numbering in the tens of thousands) work toward company goals, the OSPO works on the sidelines to block-and-tackle all the fine print that comes with making open-source contributions.
In this session you will hear the story of the OSPO team at Aiven, an OSPO team that is a bit different, whose main mission is to ensure the sustainability of external OSS projects. Many organizations give financial support to OSS communities and that's a great starting point, but communities are about people more than about money.
You'll gain insight into the origins and mission of the OSPO, the scope of its activities and how Aiven measures success and hires for roles like these. Starting a new department like this one isn't easy, so I will also share the pitfalls and other hazards, and how we tackled those challenges. This session is recommended for anyone curious about building an outbound OSPO like ours, with a focus on 3rd party OSS.
Managing In The Open, Managing Contributions: The challenges of OSPO developers management
Managing an Open Source Program Office (OSPO) team is undoubtedly a unique experience. In this talk I will discuss the unique challenges and best practices for managing software developers in an OSPO environment. I will cover topics such as managing remote teams, maintaining the career progression of OSPO developers, fostering a culture of collaboration and collaborating with the open source community. I will also explore the role of performance metrics in managing software developers in an OSPO, how to align those metrics withe the goals of the organization and how to help developers balance the needs of the organization with the needs of the open source community.
The F in FOSS: Affording Open Source in Developing Countries
What if you can’t afford the “F” in FOSS? In a country that’s struggling economically, can you afford to open source even parts of your product? Will you have the capacity to have an Open Source Program Office (OSPO)?
The “F” in FOSS stands for free; what if the society itself struggles with freedom of speech, creativity, and expression?
In this talk, we will cover the immense challenges that open source faces in developing countries and the struggle that open source developers face in a commercial-product-first environment. We'll also go through approaches and measures that can be taken to build an open source culture starting by adapting an innersource strategy that is easier to establish in these environments.
Participants will get an overview of these challenges and how we can support those who carry the flag of open source in these regions in growing open source communities.
Ahmed Sobeh
OSPO Engineering Manager at Aiven
Munich, Germany
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