The Open Source Eras Tour with Erin McKean

julia ferraioli: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Open Source Stories. My name is julia ferraioli. Oh my goodness. It is December 17 of 2024. Still, I believe, it is a wonderful gray rainy day in Seattle, which is just how I like it because it means the mushrooms will have another shot at another flush. I am here today with Erin McKean. Erin, would you like to introduce yourself?

Erin McKean: Hi. I’m Erin McKean. I use she/her pronouns mostly, but I’m perfectly happy with they. I’m in Portland, which is totally living up to the Pacific Northwest hype for the wintertime. Now it’s gray and rainy, a little bit chilly. [laughs]

julia: That Portland?

Erin: Yes.

julia: We have to be careful about which Portland it is, right?

Erin: I usually differentiate them by saying I live in Donut Portland and not Lobster Portland.

julia: That is a great and incredibly accurate way of distinguishing between the two.

Erin: People seem to get that right off. Even people in Europe. I’ve had some very confusing just conversations with people who thought I was in Maine.

julia: It is closer to Europe than Donut Portland, so I can understand that.

Erin: Perfectly understandable.

[laughter]

Extremely accurate hedgehogs

julia: Thank you so much for joining us here today. I thought I’d kick things off with a fun question. To everyone listening or reading, Erin has not heard this question before, so it’s complete surprise. Do you have a current favorite word?

Erin: Oh my goodness. Well, you know I get asked this question a lot.

julia: I didn’t know that, but I can understand why.

[laughter]

Erin: For people who don’t know, I’ve been a lexicographer, someone who makes dictionaries, nearly all my adult working life. I started working on dictionaries before I even graduated from college. When you ask somebody who works on dictionaries what their favorite word is, it’s often like asking somebody like, “What’s your favorite child?”

I like them all. I like all the words. Every word has a purpose and a use and a reason for being or else it wouldn’t be a word. People don’t like that answer because they really want me to have a word. I often say that a word that I really love is the word erinaceous because, first of all, it’s got my name in it, E-R-I-N, and it means “of, like, or pertaining to hedgehogs”.

julia: Oh my gosh.

[laughter]

Erin: Of course, the downside of this is that people have started giving me hedgehog things, and I have too many hedgehog things at this point. They’re very cute. I love hedgehogs. I do not want an actual live hedgehog, but hedgehog things in general are cute.

julia: I feel like they are like words, multifaceted. They can be cute, but they can also be a little bit scary, so also hedgehog babies.

Erin: Oh, yes.

julia: Can you repeat that word for me?

Erin: It’s erinaceous.

julia: Erinaceous. That’s with an E, E-R-I-N?

Erin: Yes. One of the Latin names for the hedgehog has “Erin” in it. It’s erina. It’s part of the nomenclature for the species.

julia: My brain wants to associate that somehow with erroneous, but I know that is erroneous.

Erin: No, hedgehogs are always extremelyaccurate. People really don’t know that about hedgehogs, but they’re very devoted to facts.

julia: Now I need a sticker that says “extremely accurate hedgehog”.

Erin: Yes.

julia: Well, I’m happy to hear about your favorite word. I’m sorry it is not a novel question; I should have known better.

Erin: That’s okay. I do love that question. [laughs]

Creative Commons for code

julia: For those who don’t know, do you want to talk a little bit about Wordnik before we dig into the open source side of things?

Erin: Oh, sure. Yes. Wordnik is a very large online English language dictionary. I like to joke it’s the biggest dictionary nobody has ever heard of. It’s a 501c3 nonprofit. It started as a venture-backed startup, but we didn’t make any money. Our investors were awesome and let me reincorporate it as a nonprofit. I’ve been working on it since 2007, which actually makes it very young in dictionary years.

julia: That’s true when you compare it to the Oxford English dictionary or Merriam-Webster.

Erin: Oh, yes. Larval stage when you compare it to the OED.

julia: I heard of Wordnik before we met, and so-

Erin: Oh, awesome.

julia: -I was like, “Oh my goodness, I’m meeting the great Erin McKean.” That was like a celebrity moment for me. I’m so glad that our paths have overlapped in open source land as well.

Erin: I got into open source in a weird way compared to a lot of open source type people in that I got in through Creative Commons because dictionary editors basically just are gluttons for text, because dictionaries are made by analyzing large-scale text corpora, and we want as much access to as much text as possible– and CC licensed text…just beautiful. Chef’s kiss. We could analyze it, we could use it for things, which I’m not going to go off onto my tangent about how the gobbly AI things are ruining open access text for everybody. Wordnik, obviously, we’re big consumers of corpora.

I went to one of the iSummits in Japan in 2008, I guess. Then when I started doing more things with code, I was like, “Oh, there’s Creative Commons for code. Oh, it’s called open source.” [laughs]

julia: I think that’s an awesome path into it, though. It provides you such a foundational layer. Plus communication is so important in open source, too.

Erin: Oh, absolutely. It’s nice when you’re building something to have something available to you under a license that’s very clear about what you’re allowed to do with it. Because if you’re thinking about things like fair use, fair use is not a checkbox you can check. A whole bunch of people have to be involved before something could be really declared to be fair use. Everything else is just a shrug and a like, “It looks like it to me.” I’m not a lawyer, by the way. Please do not take this as legal advice. [laughs]

julia: We’ll put a disclaimer. This is the disclaimer. Yes, we’ll put an additional disclaimer. [laughs]

Erin: Yes. My only legal advice is do not take legal advice from me.

Erin McKean is not a lawyer and her only legal advice is to not take legal advice from her.

julia: I think I’m segfaulting.

[laughter]

Coming in from this world of Creative Commons, of dictionaries to open source, you must have some interesting perspectives, takes on what open source is or how it’s evolved over time and the different generations and eras of open source that we’re seeing.

The Open Source Eras Tour

Erin: I have been thinking about open source in a little bit because– we met because I’m paid by Google now. That’s my capitalism job. It’s pretty good capitalism job as capitalism jobs go. I work at the Open Source Programs Office. Nothing I say should be taken as the position of Google. One of the great things about working in open source is that you’re on the outside and the inside at the same time. That gives you an interesting perspective. Whatever company you work for, you’re also part of the open-source community.

Speaking in my capacity as a private citizen, I’ve been thinking a lot about how open source has changed even in the 20-ish years that I’ve been vaguely aware of it. Maybe it’s just as part of being older in that now I start thinking about things more of like, “Oh, there’s a history to this. There are layers.” I’ve been thinking about open source as maybe having Taylor Swift-type Eras…or maybe layers.

The Inventor Era

Erin: I’m thinking when open source first began, it was in its Inventor Era. Everything was new. People were trying to come up with norms. Licenses were new. Just the very idea of sharing things parallel to copyright.

Copyright is involved but how can we give people a license to do what they want to do? Everything was new. I don’t want to use the word discovery because that feels colonialist to me, but if things were being invented, things were being set up, and some of the things that were being treated as norms were maybe not things that we want to have as norms now. The idea that code is what matters the most or that if you’re just a kickass coder, we can excuse maybe some of the things that you do in your personal life that are not so nice to other people. That was a norm of the time.

Thinking of these as maybe layers of the onion, that was the first layer that got put down, the first Era.

The Community Era

Erin: Then the second Era– and all of these things are still all happening at the same time, because everything happens everywhere all at once– the second Era was really the Community Era, where we’ve realized that code that falls in a forest where nobody uses it or contributes to it or cares about it might as well not exist. I’m thinking about that as the Kubernetes Era, where everybody came together, stone souped a thing out of the code that then became this enormous community. How many KubeCons are they up to a year now? Is it like 11?

julia: I think they just keep adding one every year.

Erin: [laughs]

We realized that what made code valuable wasn’t necessarily just the code, it was the people around it and how they reached out to each other and how they helped each other and used things together to make things that were bigger than the sum of their parts. We’ve got the inventors and then we’ve got the community. Now I think we’re entering what I think for a lack of a better term, I’m calling our Responsibility Era.

The Responsibility Era

julia: Ooh.

Erin: Where we’re thinking more about like, “Oh, as people who create things, we have a responsibility to, I don’t know, manage our dependencies or tell people where things came from or give clearer guidance to users about what this code is good for and what maybe they shouldn’t be using it for.” Whether this responsibility is externally imposed by regulation or maybe it’s just the maturing of people and realizing that, “Hey, sometimes consequences are unintended and we should try to have a little foresight about those things.” This Responsibility Era still has code, it still has community but now we’re adding this extra layer on top where we’re like, “Hey, we also have to think about our externalities and deal with those as well.”

julia: It’s interesting to me because as you’re going through those eras– by the way, I definitely want you to come up with Taylor Swift albums for each one– you can also think about it in terms of the scarcity being defined as what’s scarce, computing resources, people’s skills, maybe, and then thinking long term and thinking about the ethics, the morals, and norms of a society.

Erin: Right. Yes.

julia: It’s a fascinating way of viewing open source.

Burnout, sustainability, and slack in the open source system

Erin: I think that this happens naturally as communities and domains mature. Because the longer something is around, the more chances unintended consequences have to actually occur. Maybe fossil fuels aren’t the right metaphor, but they burned a lot of open source code for 100 years before we realized that like, “Oh, is it burning out the maintainer community maybe?”

julia: That’s a little maybe tooclose to home that I dislike how well that resonates. [chuckles]

Erin: You can’t solve a problem until you recognize that there actually is a problem, right?

julia: Yes.

Erin: I think the solution to this problem is not maintainers do more. Right?

julia: Right.

Erin: It can’t be. We can’t just layer more responsibilities on top of maintainers. I think I certainly have definitely been a lackadaisical developer where I’ll pick a project that I want to use based on vibes because I work in JavaScript, which, as we all know, is a vibes-driven development ecosystem. Then maybe a year or two later, I’m like, “Oh, right. This hasn’t been updated. Now I have to update or I have to pick something else.” I feel like as consumers of open source, we have to be a little bit more responsible, we have to read the label, we have to be willing to give back more.

julia: As much as there is not an obligation that is codified in the license, there’s a philosophical obligation writ large.

Erin: It’s almost like a self-interest obligation, too. If you want open source to keep going, you can’t just keep pumping water out of the bedrock. [chuckles]

julia: Yeahhhh. What is solar for open source? What’s solar energy for open source?

Erin: Yes, that is a really good question. Again, speaking just for myself, I feel like people need more slack in their lives and that’s a systemic issue that really can’t be solved just inside the open source community. If you’re working all the hours of the day for your capitalism job, and your capitalism job isn’t related to open source, where are those hours coming from to contribute? If you don’t have anybody to share your caregiving obligations, and all the hours you’re not working your capitalism job are spent in caregiving, where does your open source time come from? There’s a lot of systemic problems that affect people in all sorts of creative avocations that we can’t solve by ourselves in open source.

julia: Yes, it’s one of those things where people love to say, “Oh, X, Y, and Z, they’re not zero-sum.” Time…is?

Erin: Time is zero-sum, and I wish that it weren’t because I have so many projects. I plan to live to be 100 but still, I’m never going to get to them all.

julia: I think based on the number of domains I’ve registered alone, yes, there are more projects than there will ever be time. Especially, you’re talking about your capitalism job and making sure that you can keep afloat as a human being in the society that we’re living in. Where is the give in the schedule? Where is the time for creativity that goes into our open source projects and in developing our own Open Source Stories? It’s just, I don’t know.

Erin: Yes. Where’s the slack in the system? Without slack in the system, one accident backs everything up.

julia: Sometimes literally. Sometimes it’s a bike accident and then you’re out of the game for six months, right?

Erin: Yes.

julia: Never mind a security incident, both very, very critical issues. How do we give people more slack?

Erin: I wish I knew.

Joy, care, and all the things

julia: I think one of the things that that brings to mind is one of our standard questions for our storytellers is “what’s bringing you joy?” I wonder if there’s a way to promote joy-driven development in open source.

Erin: I think a lot of people get into open source because of joy. The joy of creation, the joy of sharing, the joy of community. Then they get weighed down with the anti-joy of paperwork, maintenance, entitled people opening issues where you know they haven’t even bothered to try to reproduce their problem. Personally, I think it’s fine for people to set boundaries, to say, “Look, if you don’t do this, I’m just closing this issue.” You don’t owe people more than they have brought to the interaction. If somebody comes to you with no care and no regard for your time, it’s okay to say, “Come on back when you’ve put some care into this.”

julia: Yes. Where’s the TLC in this?

Erin: Yes. I feel that’s something that’s bringing me joy is that lately, I’ve seen more and more people realize that all we really have is each other. If you can’t be kind to other people and you can’t support other people and you can’t be in a community of care, you don’t really have anything at all. There’s no rugged loner frontiersman persona that you can adopt in an interconnected world that we have that will serve you in the long term.

julia: Yes. Especially if that’s not your base operating. That’s a really hard persona to adopt and still find satisfaction and joy.

Erin: Yes. I’m pretty terrible about wanting to do all the things myself because I just enjoy doing things. Come on, julia, I make my own clothes. This is not a reasonable perspective to have. I want to start making shoes. This is nonsense.

julia: You’re talking to a fellow nonsense because I just spent the better part of the morning stripping down candle wax to reuse.

Erin: Making things is fun and the feeling of competence and being like, “Oh, yes, I can do this thing.” I really do feel that there’s also a muscle that has to be built up where you’re like, “Hey, wow, I’m really bad at this kind of thing, and I really don’t enjoy doing it. Who can I pair with that loves that kind of thing?”

julia: Maybe it’s bringing more types of joy seekers into open source because nobody wants to do all the things. I don’t want to fix security bugs. I’m bad at it. Come on.

Erin: Right. There’s always going to be somebody who wants to bring the seven-layer dip to the potluck and somebody who wants to bring napkins.

julia: Exactly. Different types of perspectives, different concerns, different skill sets, and levels of investment.

Erin: Yes. If you don’t make space for the napkin bringers, everybody’s going to be wiping their hands on their pants and it’s just going to be a terrible potluck.

julia: Very messy one. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants that potluck. I love that.

Humans doing squishy human things

julia: What is the Fourth Era?

Erin: Fully automated luxury space communism. I don’t know. I can’t predict what’s going to happen next. I’m not very good at predictions because I always go straight to the most science-fictional outcome. I do feel like there’s– and I don’t want to bring up the two worst letters in the English language right now, A and I– but I do feel there’s still a lot of messiness there where we’re trying to put things into a paradigm that maybe doesn’t quite fit. There’s going to be a lot of messiness until we figure out what is the right metaphor. What is the right analogy? Who knows?

Maybe the next Era is the Era of Self-Perpetuating Automation Where Humans Do the Squishy Human Things, and the code is hermetically generated inside a giant glowing orb.

julia: Can the orb also be squishy? Because that sounds fun.

Erin: Ooh, a squishy glowing orb.

julia: A squishy glowing orb.

Erin: Like a giant.

julia: Like the sun.

Erin: Of all of undifferentiated energy. Yes, that’s the solar!

julia: That’s the solar!

[laughter]

Please don’t touch the sun, people. I don’t recommend it. I’m not a medical doctor, but I’m pretty sure that will kill you.

Erin: That is a really good question. The sun is theoretically squishy, right? It’s just we can’t squish it. It doesn’t have a hard surface. All I know about the sun comes from the They Might Be Giants song, so who knows?

julia: [laughs]

Astrophysicists, what does the sun feel like? Your move. Come on Open Source Stories and tell us. We’ll be waiting along with Taylor Swift for the next Era open source album drop.

On that delightful note, I’d like to thank you, Erin, for coming on Open Source Stories and talking about the Responsibility Era and what are some difficult and challenging but rewarding problems in open source.

Erin: Thanks so much for having me.

The story was facilitated by julia ferraioli