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Being open source lets us be auditable, both in terms of the code being all readable and auditable, and we can have audits... We're having least authority audit our payments system right now. We hope to have the Tor folks audit us, we also can have verified builds, at least on Debian. It's hard to get verified builds..... |
Open source is pretty darn important just for optics and trust, and I think it should be. I think people should audit us, and we welcome it. We just launched our HackerOne security Bug Bounty Program too, and open source makes that just a lot easier and better, even though you can... You can do black box bug bounties, ... |
Proprietary code doesn't really work for us. What I think matters beyond trust and, as you say, eventual standardization, is our brand is really tied to our users. It's not like we're gonna have a partner who keeps us going. It's really our users growing to tens of millions and maybe beyond, and that brand value is sti... |
**Mikeal Rogers:** That's great. It's a great way to close it. Thanks for coming on, Brendan. This was fantastic. |
**Nadia Eghbal:** Yeah, thanks Brendan. |
**Brendan Eich:** No problem. It was fun to talk about the old days, too. \[laughs\] |
**Mikeal Rogers:** Yeah, always. |
**Brendan Eich:** Alright, thanks. See ya! |
• Max Ogden's background and experience with open source and data distribution |
• How Max discovered grant funding for Dat and found his first funders |
• The mechanics of working with grant funders and building relationships |
• Code for America and how it helped Max think about different applications of code |
• The transition from being an outsider pushing technical solutions to working with governments as a change agent |
• Code for America's model for government innovation and civic tech |
• The importance of open source in government procurement and development |
• Max Ogden's experience as a Code for America fellow in Boston, working on open-source projects and advocating for better software and hiring practices |
• The challenges of implementing open source solutions in government, including contracting and support issues |
• The origins of the Dat project, initially focused on government data sharing but later expanding to scientific data |
• A fortuitous meeting at the Mozilla festival that led to a grant from a foundation to work on Dat's development |
• The Knight Prototype Fund offers smaller grants ($30,000) for 6 months to test ideas and develop prototypes |
• Grant writing can be intimidating due to large amounts of money or multi-year commitments, but there are alternative funding options available |
• Grants come from different sources (government, philanthropic private foundations, EU) |
• Building relationships with funders is crucial for grant success |
• The grant process involves finding the right foundation and funder, establishing a relationship, and writing grants to pursue specific missions |
• Grant writing is not about the technical details of the project, but rather about communicating the mission and vision to the funder. |
• Building relationships with investors is key, similar to venture capital |
• Meeting potential funders at events can lead to successful partnerships |
• Grants from organizations like the Knight Foundation and Sloan Foundation have supported Max Ogden's project, Dat |
• Max's project has received significant funding increases over time, from $50,000 to $3 million |
• The Sloan Foundation's grant requirements led to a shift in project direction to prioritize scientific use cases, specifically addressing issues with data sharing in scientific research |
• The speaker's grant allowed them to partner with scientific labs to develop software that improves data-sharing workflows. |
• The challenges of working with scientists include dealing with large datasets and non-standard file formats. |
• Incentives for open-source development are often lacking in science and government institutions. |
• Grants can provide a solution by paying developers to work on challenging problems. |
• The speaker's team was able to attract top talent, including Mathias Buus, by offering the opportunity to work on impactful projects. |
• Community involvement and events can help developers meet potential coworkers and funders. |
• Interdisciplinary approaches and understanding of affected communities are crucial for developing effective solutions. |
• Giving team members autonomy and freedom is key to attracting world-class talent. |
• The grant-funded project aims to explore the future of scientific data sharing. |
• Paying developers to work on open-source projects can create mismatched incentives |
• Autonomy is key, allowing developers to work on their own projects and prioritize tasks |
• Conference-driven development can be effective in keeping teams focused and motivated |
• Decentralized and asynchronous planning helps with project coordination and decision-making |
• Travel budgets for convening team members can be an effective way to boost productivity and collaboration |
• Funder relationships can facilitate travel expenses and other convenings |
• The team's unique blend of non-profit, academic, and software-focused aspects creates a distinct model |
• Grants as funding mechanism for open source projects |
• Importance of linking social mission with project goals |
• Role of grants in supporting public goods and infrastructure |
• Distinction between technology-focused foundations and socially-missioned organizations |
• Gaps in knowledge between grant makers and open source communities, particularly around timelines and agility |
• Need for trust-based relationships between funders and open source projects |
• Grants are a complex process with constraints on budgeting and planning |
• Open source projects can be more competitive if tied to social causes and impact |
• Procurement reform in government could make grants more accessible to open source |
• Organizations like US Digital Service and 18F are working to promote open source within government |
• Alternative funding models, such as the Substance Consortium, may emerge for supporting open source projects |
• Substance is a project with an open governance structure and multiple stakeholders who contribute financially but not exclusively as employees. |
• Collaborative Knowledge Foundation facilitates the project and supports its goals of improving scientific publishing and access to research. |
• The Substance Consortium model allows for cooperation without control among member organizations. |
• There are efforts to replicate this model for other projects, such as Dat, with a similar consortium structure. |
**Nadia Eghbal:** I’m Nadia Eghbal. |
**Mikeal Rogers:** And I’m Mikeal Rogers. |
**Nadia Eghbal:** On today’s show, Mikeal and I talk with Max Ogden, creator of Dat, an open source decentralized tool for distributing data sets. Max has also done a lot of work in the Node.js ecosystem, including helping start NodeSchool and publishing hundreds of modules to npm. He was also one of the first Code for... |
**Mikeal Rogers:** Our focus on today’s episode with Max is around grant funding. We talked about how he figured out grants were right for developing Dat, and how he managed to find his first funders. |
**Nadia Eghbal:** We also got into the mechanics of grant funding. Max shared what it’s like to work with grant funders, and how to build those early relationships if you’re looking for grants yourself. |
So Max, you have an interesting story in terms of how you ended up at Code for America. Can you tell us a little bit about how you ended up there? |
**Max Ogden:** Yeah, actually, it was fortuitous, or random, at least to me at the time. Maybe it was all planned out, I have no idea. I was attending an event around OSCON, which used to be in Portland every year, and they moved it down to Austin this year. OSCON was cool; I could never afford to go, but it was intere... |
I had a thing called a PDX API that took the datasets from the city of Portland, and made them accessible to developers. In the audience was Tim O’Reilly, who owns O’Reilly Books and runs OSCON. He came up to me afterwards and he goes, “Hey, we’re starting this new thing called Code for America. Here’s my card. You sho... |
**Mikeal Rogers:** I actually met you when you got the award, I was at the same thing. That was the first time I met you; you were actually 19 or 20 at the time, but you still had that giant beard. \[laughter\] |
**Max Ogden:** Nice. I didn’t realize that you were there. That’s crazy. I never knew that. |
**Mikeal Rogers:** Yeah, yeah. We were there with J. Chris and talked about CouchDB stuff, and the upcoming event… The upcoming Couch camp thing that we were going to do. Max is actually the first person to buy a ticket to the first event that I ever ran, in 2009. |
**Max Ogden:** \[laughs\] |
**Nadia Eghbal:** Wow! Way to go, Max. |
**Max Ogden:** Yeah, I remember when I first went to Oakland, right after I moved down to the Bay area. Or maybe I visited the Bay area ahead of time, but basically the first person I met up with was Mikeal. He had biked to a really cool coffee shop, and I was like, “Whoa, Oakland is awesome!” I ended up living there f... |
**Nadia Eghbal:** Can you talk about that a little bit? Just how… I think you had a startup before you were at Code for America. It sounds like Code for America helped you think about different applications of code in ways you hadn’t necessarily done before for work. |
**Max Ogden:** \[04:03\] Yeah, before that I was working at a great team at a company, but the product wasn’t anything that I was passionate about. It was qualitative market research. It was boring; I didn’t feel strongly about helping companies target their products. But I got super lucky because the team was super su... |
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