Meeting Cancellations Week of July 1-5

July 4 is a US holiday, and as such, we decided at this week’s CHAOSS Community meeting to take a break from meetings that week!

The following meetings are canceled:

• Newcomer Hangout
• CHAOSS Weekly Community Call
• App Ecosystem Working Group
• DEI Working Group
• Data Science Working Group
• Metrics Models Working Group
• Metrics Development Working Group
• CHAOSS Africa Designers Sync
• CHAOSS Africa Developer meeting

Meetings will resume as usual July 8. Thanks, and enjoy the break!

Bus Factor Renamed to Contributor Absence Factor

After many comments, discussions, and shared opinions, the Metrics Development Working Group took an opportunity to rename the Bus Factor metric to Contributor Absence Factor. “Bus Factor” was a term used to represent the number of contributors who could be hit by a bus before an open source project would fail, or continue to operate. It’s a pretty morbid thought and was off-putting for a lot of people. So in order to be more inclusive, and after careful consideration of numerous other options, the decision was made to rename it to Contributor Absence Factor. This is an equally representative name that is a little happier to think about. 🙂

New Resource for Newcomers: Advice from CHAOTICs of the Week

As part of our regular segment in the CHAOSSweekly, where we highlight CHAOTICs who are doing great work within the CHAOSS community, we ask them to provide some advice to our newcomers. We have since compiled all of these into one document in our Community Repo: Advice for Newcomers. We may be publishing these in other places, but for now, if you are a newcomer to this project (or open source in general), there are some great words of advice in there for you! It’s definitely worth the read. Thanks to all who have contributed to this document!

Project Management Team Meetings on Tuesdays

Regular meetings for the CHAOSS Project Management Team have been added to the CHAOSS calendar. Every other Tuesday at 12:00pm US Central/Chicago time, these meetings will happen on the CHAOSS Zoom.

They are currently a part of the CHAOSS Operations meetings, and to subscribe to this meeting, right-click to copy this URL and add it to your calendar as a URL: https://ics.teamup.com/feed/ksk9vit7vig1w48j3s/13082966.ics

Also, if you are interested in being involved with this team, you can join the #project-managers Slack channel to connect.

Reminder: Looking for Podcast Questions and Ideas for CHAOSScast

Alice Sowerby and the CHAOSScast team would love to hear your questions, comments, and ideas for new episodes of CHAOSScast! Feel free to send an email to podcast@chaoss.community with your thoughts.

Reminder: CHAOTIC of the Week Nomination Form

Have you noticed a fellow CHAOTIC doing something amazing for CHAOSS? Has there been someone who is going above and beyond? If you’d like to nominate them for CHAOTIC of the Week, now you can! With our CHAOTIC of the Week feature, we like to celebrate their contributions to CHAOSS and enable our whole community to get to know them a little better. It’s a great way to show appreciation for our fellow CHAOTICs so don’t hesitate to nominate someone here.

Congratulations CHAOSS Africa on 2 Years of Awesomeness!

CHAOSS Africa celebrated their 2 year anniversary last week! They’ve accomplished so much in the past 2 years and we are so happy that this chapter has continued to flourish. A tremendous shout-out goes of course, to Ruth Ikegah who is the Regional Lead for the chapter and who has been the primary driver for this work. There is a blog post in the works, which will outline all the amazing progress this chapter has achieved, so stay tuned. We are incredibly grateful for all those who continue to make CHAOSS and CHAOSS Africa a welcoming and wonderful place to be!

Upcoming CHAOSS Meetings Cancellations

In honor of the June 19 US Holiday, the following CHAOSS meetings will be canceled: 

• DEI Working Group 
• Data Science Working Group

Meetings will resume as scheduled on June 20.

Looking for Podcast Questions and Ideas for CHAOSScast

Alice Sowerby and the CHAOSScast team would love to hear your questions, comments, and ideas for new episodes of CHAOSScast! Feel free to send an email to podcast@chaoss.community with your thoughts. 

CHAOSScast Episode 86: Chat with the Turing Institute: Using AI Ethically with the Power of Open Source 

The lastest episode of CHAOSScast features hosts Alice Sowerby and Dawn Foster and guests Aida Mehonic, Kirstie Whittaker, and Malvika Sharan from the Alan Turing Institute. The discussion was centered around data science and AI and how open source in particular can have an impact on the ethics, accessibility and impact of artificial intelligence. The group also discusses community building, AI ethics, research, and projects like The Turing Way. This is a fantastic episode that you won’t want to miss, especially if you have an interest in AI and the future implications. You can listen here: https://podcast.chaoss.community/86. 

Reminder: CHAOTIC of the Week Nomination Form

Have you noticed a fellow CHAOTIC doing something amazing for CHAOSS? Has there been someone who is going above and beyond? If you’d like to nominate them for CHAOTIC of the Week, now you can! With our CHAOTIC of the Week feature, we like to celebrate their contributions to CHAOSS and enable our whole community to get to know them a little better. It’s a great way to show appreciation for our fellow CHAOTICs so don’t hesitate to nominate someone here.

CHAOTIC of the Week: Peculiar Umeh!

Please join us in celebrating our CHAOTIC of the Week: Peculiar Umeh!

A little about Peculiar:

Peculiar is an open-source advocate, mobile developer, and project manager. With a strong passion for project/program management, I excel in developer education, training, and mentoring new contributors. A Google Certified Project Manager and Certified Scrum Master.  I continually hone my skills when not engaged in open-source initiatives, build projects and mentor others. I enjoy playing volleyball and football with a local team during my free time. Peculiar is open to opportunities and is available for roles as a Project Manager, Software/Agile Project Manager, or Scrum Master.

What Peculiar works on at CHAOSS:

At CHAOSS, I serve as the Project Management Co-chair and the Project Manager for the CHAOSS Education Project. Additionally, I am a DEI event badger and a member of the DEI and Metrics development working groups. In these groups, we collaborate to discuss and develop CHAOSS Metrics through individual contributions. I have contributed to CHAOSS Slackbot and Accessibility projects alongside others. I am also part of the organising team for CHAOSS Africa Disability and Inclusion.

Peculiar’s advice to newcomers to open source:

CHAOSS community is a fantastic environment for learning about open source and personal growth. CHAOTICS are ready to guide you and provide opportunities for leadership and showcasing your skills. If you are new to CHAOSS, take your time to understand how the community operates and don’t hesitate to ask questions about anything unclear. Most importantly, join CHAOSS onboarding meetings with Elizabeth to get you started and join CHAOSS meetings and listen carefully during discussions. Then, find a project to contribute to, we have maintainers and leads ready to assist you. 

Special thanks from Elizabeth and the CHAOSS Community:

Peculiar joined CHAOSS a little over a year ago and the impact she has made has been remarkable! She is already a leader in the community and a consistent attendee at several of our working group meetings. Peculiar always makes time to greet newcomers to the community and cares deeply about making everyone feel welcome. She has been a constant driver of progress within the CHAOSS community, especially with several of our internal projects. We are incredibly grateful for the many hours Peculiar has spent with CHAOSS and the work she has done here! And on a personal note, it has been lovely to get to know Peculiar and I’m privileged to call her my friend. We are so glad you’re here, Peculiar, and thank you for everything! 

DEI Event Badging 4.0 Released with 3 New Metrics

DEI Event Badging 4.0 has been released and now includes 3 new metrics for badging applicants to consider:

• Event Location Inclusivity
• Event Accessibility
• Public Health and Safety

By adding these new metrics, we are hoping to expand the conversations around building more inclusive open source events and to offer more areas for event organizers to consider. Development of these metrics and Badging conversations all happen in our DEI Working Group meeting, and they are open to anyone! If you’d like to add your input to our Badging efforts, please join us!

New Streamlined Metric Template

Our metrics documents can be a bit overwhelming for first time users of the metrics, so in an attempt to streamline and make them more accessible, we are going to be implementing a new metric template. The biggest changes to the template are:

• Combining Objectives and Description sections into one section, now called “Overview”
• Limited word count in the Overview section to encourage concise language
• Remaining sections will be hidden in a dropdown that people can access if they’d like to read more

Discussions about this metric template and its implementation are happening in the Metrics Development Working Group, so if this is of interest to you, please join us!

CHAOSS Africa + Project Enable: June 11 Event for African Folks Living with Disabilities

Our CHAOSS Africa community is teaming up with Project Enable Africa to host an event on June 11 aimed at teaching differently abled folks about open source and how they can get involved and become contributors. CHAOSS is providing many volunteers for this event and the registration is already at capacity! This is an exciting event for all of us!

Communications Working Group Reboot

Our Communications Working Group is rebooting and reactivating! If you’re interested in being a part of this team, you can join the #wg-comms channel and attend the meetings. Meetings will happen every 3 weeks on Thursdays at 11:00 US Central. The next meeting will be on June 13.

CHAOTIC of the Week Nomination Form

Have you noticed a fellow CHAOTIC doing something amazing for CHAOSS? Has there been someone who is going above and beyond? If you’d like to nominate them for CHAOTIC of the Week, now you can! With our CHAOTIC of the Week feature, we like to celebrate their contributions to CHAOSS and enable our whole community to get to know them a little better. It’s a great way to show appreciation for our fellow CHAOTICs so don’t hesitate to nominate someone here.

CHAOTIC of the Week: Desmond Obisi!

Please join us in celebrating our CHAOTIC of the Week: Desmond Obisi!

A little about Desmond:

My name is Desmond Obisi, a software engineer, open source contributor and technical author. I love developer experience engineering, building solutions and developer education. I currently work with Resilis where we help businesses optimize their API, improve performance and save them costs. In my spare time, I love building fun projects, contributing to open source, writing technical articles and speaking at tech meetups/conferences.

What Desmond works on at CHAOSS:

At CHAOSS, I am working alongside other amazing people to maintain the BadgingAPI project, the AFOS project and the Slackbot project. My activities are majorly on the engineering level where I help onboard new contributors, take code reviews and as well fix issues or add new features to these projects.

Desmond’s advice to newcomers to open source:

Feel free to engage with any working group you find interesting. The folks at CHAOSS are amazing and welcoming. Try to also catch the meetings so you will always be up to date on what is happening within your working group. If you feel uncertain, always reach out. We thrive on community efforts and the community is always ready to assist you in your open source journey.

Special thanks from Elizabeth, Adeyinka, and the CHAOSS Community:

Desmond has been contributing as a backend developer to the badging project. He has also been involved in supporting other contributors at CHAOSS Africa by creating tutorials, reviewing pull requests, and providing trainings on the badging bot and how to make high-quality contributions. Additionally, he played a key role in getting the AFOS website up and running again. We are incredibly grateful for all your contributions, Desmond! Especially those that empower others in their own open source journeys. Thank you so much for all your time and efforts to make CHAOSS better and to help others in the community. You are an absolute superstar!

Augur / 8-Knot Working Group Meeting Change

The Augur / 8-Knot meetings are switching to a bi-weekly cadence, starting next week. If you are subscribed to the CHAOSS calendar already, the change should be evident in your calendar. If not, please make that change — the next meeting will be on May 20 at 9:00 am US Central/Chicago Time. You can subscribe to the Augur / 8-knot meetings by copying this link (https://ics.teamup.com/feed/ksk9vit7vig1w48j3s/13059924.ics) and adding it as a URL to your calendar.

3 New Metrics Coming Soon to Event Badging

We will soon be releasing DEI Event Badging 4.0, which will include 3 new metrics:

• Event Location Inclusivity
• Event Accessibility
• Public Health and Safety

These metrics have been a long time coming, and we hope this will further progress the open source conference experience for everyone.

Weigh In on Renaming “Bus Factor” Metric

CHAOSS has decided that perhaps it’s time for a name change for one of our previously released metrics: Bus Factor. This name is somewhat recognized in open source, but its origins are problematic. In an effort to be more inclusive, we started a discussion on what acceptable alternatives might be. If you have thoughts on this, you are encouraged to share them on the GitHub issue thread. We will also be discussing this at the Metrics Development Working Group meetings, which are open to anyone who would like to attend.

CHAOTIC of the Week: Chan Voong!

Please join us in celebrating our CHAOTIC of the Week: Chan Voong!

A little about Chan:

Chan is a Sr. Technical Program Manager at the Comcast Open Source Program Office, where she works closely with technologists to successfully open source and innersource projects. Chan is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a previously practicing scrum master, with experience in program managing federally-funded, health-related, and data-driven research and

software development projects. She holds a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Spatial Analytics program, and has a strong background in data analytics and informatics. During her free time, she explores adventures like rock climbing, snowboarding, hiking the backcountry, and meditating. 

What Chan works on at CHAOSS:

Chan has been a member of the CHAOSS OSPO working group and was recently appointed co-chair of the data scienc

e working group. In these working groups, the community comes together to understand open source community health and make it easier for people to use CHAOSS tools, metrics, and metrics models to d

raw meaningful insights that they can use to improve open source project health.

Chan’s advice to newcomers to open source:

CHAOSS is a vibrant community with people who have varying professional backgrounds that include technical and non-technical skills. Chan’s advice to anyone who is new to CHAOSS is to provide an introduction in the #newcomers channel, tell us what you’re interested in (not sure is okay, too!), and check if there are any projects you can contribute to.

Special thanks from Elizabeth and the CHAOSS Community:

Chan’s influence on CHAOSS has been remarkable! Chan infuses enthusiasm and energy in everything she does, and she jumped into CHAOSS with both feet. She greets everyone with such a level of warmth and friendliness, she helps CHAOSS be an amazing place to spend

 your time, especially in the Data Science Working Group where she is a Co-Chair. I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Chan in person, and I can vouch that she is exactly as awesome as she seems. Chan, we can’t thank you enough for all your work in the OSPO and Data Science Working Groups, and beyond. Your light and energy has made CHAOSS better for everyone!

No CHAOSS Meetings the week of April 15

During the week of OSSNA and CHAOSScon, we typically take a break from CHAOSS meetings. For those who are traveling to the conference, it’s nice to not have to juggle CHAOSS meetings during the conference, and for those who aren’t traveling, it’s always nice to have a little break. We can consider this a Spring/Fall Break 🙂 This year, it falls during the week of April 15, so the CHAOSS meetings have been removed from the calendar.

New Badger Orientation Scheduled

Date: April 2 (add this to your calendar)
Time: 7:30 am US Central/Chicago

If anyone is interested in becoming a Badger, this is the meeting for you! You will learn everything you need to know to review DEI Event Badge applications. You don’t need a deep knowledge of DEI, CHAOSS, or our metrics. This is a great way to get started contributing to CHAOSS!

If you would like to be added to the meeting invite, you can do so here. Thank you!

(If you can’t make this meeting but would like to be a Badger, let her know that too. We can figure something out!)

Congratulations Adeyinka Oresanya for becoming a Badging Lead!

As our DEI Event Badging Program grows, and the number of applications continues to grow with it, we knew it was time to appoint another Badging Lead. Adeyinka was a perfect candidate, because of her work with leading the CHAOSS Badging Developers working on the project, and her Badging experience as a Badger herself. Adeyinka will help with assigning Badgers to new applications, tracking application status, and issuing badges as needed. Thanks so much, Adeykina, for your help in this crucial part of CHAOSS!

New ADOPTERS.md File

To gain more insight into who is using CHAOSS tools, we are trying something new! We saw this idea from another open source project and thought it would be a good fit for us. Enter the ADOPTERS.md file where users of the software can add their name as a public user. Right now we have this for GrimoireLab and will expand to Augur sometime in the future. If you are using GrimoireLab in your company or organization and would like to add your name, you can submit a PR to the ADOPTERS.md file.

Help us Celebrate our CHAOTIC of the Week – Ria Schalnat

A little about Ria:

I am delighted to be Open Source Program Manager for the Open Source Program Office of Hewlett Packard Enterprise! This role is the culmination of my prior lives as a computer programmer, lawyer and adjunct professor specializing in tech/intellectual property subjects including open source. HPE is letting me live my best Open Source life … I made my first ever code-based pull request this year which was just merged!   I also get to indulge in running an Open Source & Tech bookclub at HPE which may be the most fun “job duty” I have ever had.  We just finished reading the Inner Source series by O’Reilly including a visit from author Andy Oram.  When I’m not doing open source related stuff, I spend time trying to convince my teenagers to go on adventures with me, playing chess and other strategy games with my husband and doing yoga to keep it all in balance.

What Ria works on at CHAOSS:

My involvement with CHAOSS could be best described as super-fan.  I love the project, its mission and its importance especially some of the more recent efforts on inclusivity via the DEI badging project for both events and projects.  The CHAOSS team really exemplifies that inclusivity because I always feel welcome no matter how inconsistently I show up for meetings.  They live the mantra that no contribution is too small in open source!

Ria’s advice to newcomers to open source:

My best advice is just not to give up and love to learn.  A little bit every day (or week or month or year) eventually adds up into something that will provide both you and the project you are engaging in with real value.  There is ALWAYS work to be done – the trick is finding something that resonates with you!

Special thanks from Elizabeth and the CHAOSS Community:

Having Ria’s insight and input into various CHAOSS meetings has been so helpful to the project! Ria’s inquisitive nature means she is always seeking to understand CHAOSS metrics and software a little better, and she asks questions others might be too shy to ask. In that way, she has helped make the project more inclusive and welcoming and helped us clarify documentation for others. She always brings her enthusiasm and positivity to our meetings, making them more fun for everyone. I’m so happy to have met Ria in person, and that when she zips through Cincinnati, we can grab coffee and chat about all the things. I’ve absolutely loved getting to know you, Ria, and I’m so grateful for your participation in CHAOSS! Thank you for all you bring to the community! ????

If you’d like to connect to Ria, you can do so on Linked In.

Reminder: CHAOSScon NA 2024 Registration Open

As we have done in the past, the CHAOSS project is partnering with the Linux Foundation to co-locate the next CHAOSScon with the next OSSNA (Open Source Summit North America). CHAOSScon NA 2024 will be on April 15, 2024 from 1:30-5:00 pm in Seattle, WA. Tickets are $10USD but registration to OSSNA is a requirement. You can learn more about CHAOSScon or register for both events on the OSSNA site.

While you’re registering for OSSNA, you can also register for a 1/2 day session around visualization of metrics, hosted by CHAOSS. This will be more of a hands-on workshop using CHAOSS software. This will be happening Monday, April 15 from 9:00 am – 12:30 pm and will cost $7USD.

Upcoming Meetings

Unless noted otherwise, all calls use our CHAOSS Community Zoom link (https://zoom.us/my/chaoss) Times listed below are in US Central / Chicago Time Zone, now on Daylight Savings Time (UTC -5). Regional meetings are tied to regional time zones as noted below. You can convert to your local time here. You can also subscribe to the CHAOSS Calendar or watch for meeting reminders that are posted daily in the #general channel in Slack.

CHAOSScon NA 2024 Registration Open

As we have done in the past, the CHAOSS project is partnering with the Linux Foundation to co-locate the next CHAOSScon with the next OSSNA (Open Source Summit North America). CHAOSScon NA 2024 will be on April 15, 2024 from 1:30-5:00 pm in Seattle, WA. Tickets are $10USD but registration to OSSNA is a requirement. You can learn more about CHAOSScon or register for both events on the OSSNA site.

While you’re registering for OSSNA, you can also register for a 1/2 day session around visualization of metrics, hosted by CHAOSS. This will be more of a hands-on workshop using CHAOSS software. This will be happening Monday, April 15 from 9:00 am – 12:30 pm and will cost $7USD.

New CHAOSS Software Releases

We are happy to celebrate the recent software releases from the Augur and GrimoireLab teams! 

In Augur’s recent release (v 0.62.0-KC Chiefs) you can expect to see API improvements, GitLab support, and a host of other updates, which you can read about in the Release Notes. (Also a special shoutout to the 7 contributors who made this release possible!)

In GrimoireLab’s recent release (v. 021.0) you will see support for organization aliases and Kitsune work. You can see the full list of changes in the Release Notes.

Thank you to all the CHAOTICS who worked on these releases! 

Code of Conduct Team Updates

At the last Board Meeting, a new Code of Conduct team was voted upon. Our new Code of Conduct Team members are:

• Georg Link
• Anita ihuman
• Maryblessing Okolie

Goals for the team include Code of Conduct Enforcement Training for the whole team (which is already in the works), revisiting the Code of Conduct for anything that may need updating, and revising the process for reporting Code of Conduct violations. Many thanks to these folks who are volunteering their time to keep our community safer and more welcoming!

Daylight Savings Time is On the Horizon – Check the CHAOSS Calendar!

Just when we think we have things sorted out from the last clock change, here it comes again! Daylight savings happens in the United States on March 10 and in many places in Europe on March 31. It happens in Israel on March 29 and Egypt on April 26. New Zealand and Australia are coming off Daylight Savings on April 7. Many other countries don’t participate in Daylight Savings at all. It is the community manager’s worst nightmare. 

We are exploring some solutions to make keeping up with the CHAOSS calendar easier for everybody. But until we find a better solution, you are highly encouraged to refer to the official CHAOSS calendar for current times and dates of meetings. Thanks for your patience! 

Help us Celebrate our CHAOTIC of the Week – Clare Dillon

A little about Clare:

I’ve worked for over 25 years in the tech industry – and got involved in InnerSource and open source in 2018. I’m not a developer, and think there is a huge opportunity to spread the word about the value of getting involved in open source beyond developer communities. I live in Dublin, Ireland and I am a researcher with University of Galway and Lero, Science Foundation Ireland’s Software Development Research Centre, where I am a member of the OSPO team. I also work with CURIOSS, a community for university and research institute OSPOs. I do love a good emoji, and probably use too many!  I’m mostly a lurker on social media, but am often on LinkedIn.

What Clare works on at CHAOSS:

I am involved with the University Working Group, where we are working on metrics and models that will help those involved in OSS in universities. It turns out when you think about open source in the university context, goals and backgrounds of those involved can be very different than in the general open source community. I gave a talk on the topic at the recent CHAOSScon and we had a fantastic workshop session in the afternoon discussing researcher goals and motivations when using and creating open source projects.

Clare’s advice to newcomers to open source:

I think my biggest piece of advice is, like many things in life, it is all so much easier if you find a group of people you enjoy interacting with… I’ve learned so much from the open source communities I have been involved in – but that’s happened because the people in those communities are so helpful and great to work with. There will be many places where you can invest time and effort to contribute – choose a place where it’s also a lot of fun to hang out! The CHAOSS community is definitely one of those places! 

Special thanks from Elizabeth and the CHAOSS Community:

Clare has been a tremendous contributor and leader in our Academic Open Source Context Working Group, it’s safe to say that without her influence, it would be nowhere near what it is today. She has been instrumental in building the foundation for this group, helping clarify the group’s goals and mission, and advocating and promoting the group in her network.  The University Slack channel now has over 50 participants and the Working Group meetings are some of our most heavily attended meetings. Clare, it has been a joy to have you in our community, and you’ve brought invaluable insight into CHAOSS. We greatly appreciate your time and energy, and that you have continued to engage University newcomers to the open source space through CHAOSS. Thank you for all of your hard work, especially at CHAOSScons. Those events were made even better thanks to your influence, your coordination, your and attention to detail. We are very happy you’re here! 

Upcoming Meetings

All calls use our CHAOSS Community Zoom link (https://zoom.us/my/chaoss). All meetings listed here are in US Central / Chicago Time Zone, currently not on Daylight Savings Time (UTC -6). (The only exception is the CHAOSS Africa Community Meeting on WAT, which will not change with Daylight Savings.) You can convert to your local time here. You can also subscribe to the CHAOSS Calendar or watch for meeting reminders that are posted daily in the #general channel in Slack.

Monday, February 26

9:00 am Augur/8-Knot Developers Meeting

Tuesday, February 27

9:00 am Newcomer Hangout (no agenda)

11:00 am CHAOSS Weekly Community Meeting (agenda)

1:00 pm App Ecosystem Working Group (agenda)

Wednesday, February 28

4:00 am CHAOSS Africa Designers Sync

10:00 am DEI Working Group (agenda)

11:00 am Data Science Working Group (agenda)

Thursday, February 29 (leap year!)

8:00 am CHAOSS Africa Developers Sync

10:00 am Metrics Models Working Group Meeting (agenda)