Patchstack::helpers is a series of interviews with people who have helped open-source projects and open-source related communities.
For this inaugural episode, we did not look far. We will be interviewing the CEO of Patchstack, Oliver Sild.
Oliver also co-founded the first co-working space in Pärnu, Estonia, and is a believer in the power of community.
In this episode he shares how he has found success with building communities, and how building communities can lead to greater success in one’s career and business.
Oliver helped start both virtual and in-person communities, such as a co-working space and hacker space in Pärnu, as well as the virtual Patchstack Alliance.
The latter has helped solve problems of friction that open source projects sometimes face with ethical hackers reporting security bugs.
What is Patchstack::helpers?
“Look for the helpers” is a saying from the mother of the famous showrunner of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Fred Rogers.
It embodies the belief that when something terrible happens, it’s better to look for the helpers and highlight their efforts.
Patchstack::helpers hopes to collect stories from underrepresented and non-traditional helpers willing to share their first-hand experiences, and hopefully highlight the many ways people can help a project succeed.
Our motivation, inspired by the quote above, is to counter a world full of headlines like “X+ Million Websites at Risk of Being Hacked” and “Project XQ is Insecure“, and ignorant quips and memes shared online that tarnish the trustworthiness of open-source projects for a cheap laugh.
Patchstack::helpers will focus on the helpers.
They are sharing their stories and spreading the positive message that there are helpers everywhere. Helpers who are willing to take action and improve open-source projects and communities they are a part of.
These are the people we’ll be putting a spotlight on.
How you can contribute to the show
If you would like to join us as a guest on Patchstack::helpers please reach out. We want to hear from anyone who has a story of helping, especially from more non-traditional forms of help such as organizing events, reporting bugs, education/public presenting, as well as providing code and projects that solve issues.
If you or someone you know would like to share their experiences, then please submit a guest idea using this form.
