Jason Lengstorf

Learn about the characteristics of thriving open source communities and how to create a healthy, welcoming community of your own.

Done well, open source is one of the highest-value targets for businesses these days. Companies like Facebook and Airbnb leverage OSS as a source of brand equity and recruiting, among other advantages. However, OSS is still uncomfortable for many companies — and even if they do open source their tools, these projects often fail to launch — because they’re missing the most important (and best) part of OSS: the community.

Projects that survive in today’s landscape have thriving communities that care deeply about the quality and advancement of open source and the people using it. But open source can also be intimidating to newcomers, and occasionally unwelcoming. 

In this talk, learn how popular open source framework Gatsby has doubled down on community, including: 1. Offering open pair programming hours 2. Trusting all contributors with merge access 3. Sending free swag to contributors... And much more! 

Learn how you can borrow our strategies to create a healthy, welcoming community for your open source projects, starting today!

2019

React India

You Belong Here

Learn how you can create a healthy, welcoming community for your open source projects, starting today!

Done well, open source is one of the highest-value targets for businesses these days. Companies like Facebook and Airbnb leverage OSS as a source of brand equity and recruiting, among other advantages. However, OSS is still uncomfortable for many companies — and even if they _do_ open source their tools, these projects often fail to launch — because they're missing the most important (and best) part of OSS: the community.

Projects that survive in today's landscape have thriving communities that care deeply about the quality and advancement of open source _and_ the people using it. But open source can also be intimidating to newcomers, and occasionally unwelcoming. In this talk, learn how popular open source framework Gatsby has doubled down on community, including:

Offering open pair programming hours
Trusting _all_ contributors with merge access
Sending free swag to contributors
And much more!