Episode 125: A Very CHAOTIC 2025  Welcome back to Chaos Cast, the Chaos Community podcast where we share use cases and experiences with measuring open source community health. Well, hello listeners. This is the last episode of the year and as we're taking a break over the end of December and starting again in January. To close out this year, I'm pleased to welcome some of the members of the chaos board to share their reflections of everything that's been happening in the project in 2025. On the panel today, your hosts, me, Alice Saabby, and Harmony Elendu. We also have guests Sha Gogggins, Anita Ehuman, Gail Glink, and Elizabeth Baron. So, let's start with introductions. So, my name's Alice Sa. I'm your co-host today. I'm a freelance technical program manager currently supporting the FreeBSD Foundation. I'm active in several open source projects including producing this podcast with Chaos and editing the OSO book with the to-do group. I'm based in the UK and I'm in a small village near Bath. Harmony, do you want to introduce yourself? >> Hi everyone. Beside being a co-host or co-hosting with Alice, I'm a product and project manager. I also lead the technical writers focus group in chaos. I help coordinate the podcast, host the podcast sometimes, and yes, contribute to various open communities across the globe. It's a pleasure to be a horse today. I hope we're going to have fun. I knew we would have fun, actually. >> We definitely will because now we're going to Sean. >> Hi, I'm Sean, one of the co-founders of the Chaos Community. I work with a lot of the working groups over the years now mostly with the open source scientific software working group data science and of course augur 8 not glad to be here. Hi everyone, I am Anita Ehuan. I am a developer advocate and technical writer and I am also on the chaos working with Chaos Africa chapter and also a member of like the DI working group and yeah I do a lot of work in open source generally. >> Hi everyone, welcome back to Chaos Cast. I'm super excited to be here with you again. I'm one of the co-founders of the Chaos Project and started the podcast. I'm still always excited to be here. I'm also on the board and I think right now I spent a lot of time planning our next chaos con which if you are coming to Fazdom, I would love to see you there. We are meeting the Thursday before Fostam that is January 29 and we have some super exciting new upgrades to the previous Chaos Cons. We are changing the venue to be in the Commons Hub Brussels which is right by the central station. We have multiple rooms. We have interactive sessions. We have so much planned. I'm super excited. I would love to see you there. And you heard it first here on the podcast. >> Thanks, Gog. And it's not that long when this goes out until full stem. So, it's only going to be like a month approximately, isn't it? Well, maybe 6 weeks. Anyway, >> let's move to our last guest, who is Elizabeth. Elizabeth, over to you. >> Hi everyone, it's Elizabeth. I am the Chaos community manager. I've been with Chaos since 2020 and I am here in Cincinnati, Ohio. It's great to see everybody here. I'm so excited for the podcast. I always love doing these. >> Yeah. I can't believe it's another year gone by already. >> Right. So weird. >> You were about to say something. >> I was going to say when you said you heard it first here on the podcast. It reminds me of a scene from the movie 2012 where Woody Harrelson's on the top of a mountain getting blown away by the giant volcano at Yellowstone and he goes, "Remember folks, you heard it here first from Charlie Frost." And then he blown away. >> I have not seen that movie in a long time. >> Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. >> All right. It's great to have everyone here together. Now, I am going to pass over to Harmony to kick off the questioning. >> Yeah, I'm so glad we're having a lot of fun today. Let's add some hairs in the mix. So, yeah. So one of the factors have like there's been a lot going on like in the open source community especially this year in 2025 there was a lot on AI there was a lot on a lot of things policies and stuff like that but then let's discuss about the factors that we have seen that made affect this year across bird in open source communities >> yeah this is gay I have seen a couple shifts in opensource in the open source communities and ecosystems. One, you'd already mentioned it, AI, artificial intelligence is eating opensource toast. So, a lot of funding is going into AI and I've seen that funding is being withdrawn from open source and so the funding landscape is shifting. I'm in the middle of a research project right now. more on that. I think we'll have an update at FOSTM for sure. So the funding is changing, the opensource sustainability is changing, not just with the availability of funding but also the demands are increasing. We are seeing the opensource ecosystem or specifically software supply chains becoming regulated where especially now in the European Union with the cyber resilience act. There are new demands coming down for anyone that is selling products or services with software in them. And because everything is built on open source these days, those requirements also trickle down into open-source and companies are building their software bill of materials and need to manage their engagement with the open-source project so that they're not just passive consumers anymore. They're now required to upstream changes and fixes. So there are things that are going to change the way that we are working in opensource and as this since we're here on chaos cast what I think this is super interesting for chaos is as we are seeing changes in how we do work in open source the metrics I think will reflect that and we can revisit what we are seeing what the metrics mean the work does not stuff. >> Anita, did you want to add to what factors you're seeing this year? >> Yes, and I do like that G adds a dramatic flare to his endings. It's really interesting. But to add to G's point now, so many organizations are currently depending on open source for like mission critical project and stuff like that. But I think I have seen that this year there's also a lot of pressure for communities to formalize their governance to try to like improve on transparency a lot and also like reinforce the need for psychological safety for people that are participating within these communities. And also with like AI coming into the picture, so many communities are also exploring how to leverage this AI and LLM tools in a way that does not also affect the community's um reputation cuz there are so many persons that are bringing in contributions that are not validated and so communities are struggling to make sure they manage this as well. So there's a lot of like ethical and legal things that a lot of communities are trying to put into consideration all to make sure that it doesn't infringe the licensing of their project and all of that. If I can add to that, one of the things that I think will be super critical as everyone is managing these things, there will be a lot of scanning going on of licenses that are going into the software of what are the projects doing, what's going on there and on a global level, if everyone is scanning our open source communities, if everyone is generating the metrics that we have in chaos. There's going to be a lot of repetition, reinventing the wheel, a lot of using compute powers to do things that others have already done. So one of the things looking forward, one of the things I think we need to think about is how can we provide data, open data and reduce at the global level the amount of calculating that needs to be done so that these things like Anita was talking about people can do and not have to worry about the things that we are good at here in chaos. So I just wanted to build on something that Anita had said about psychological safety and kind of the role that AI plays in open source in general. And I don't think that AI can replace humans in that way. When you're looking for psychological safety, what that means is that you feel comfortable contributing. You feel valued. You feel like you can be more of your authentic self as you contribute to the project. And I just don't believe that AI can fill that hole. I think that is something that only human beings can do. And so I know that I have seen some open source communities that I participate in aside from chaos try to use AI to fill that hole. It just isn't effective in my opinion. There is nothing like an actual human connection to make you feel safe. A bot is not going to make you feel safe. So in terms of psychological safety, I think that that is something that communities are going to try to use AI for that maybe it's not the best solution. I think it's just humans. You're just going to need humans. >> That's very interesting. Yeah, I can definitely believe that chat beauty doesn't really make you feel safe. >> Weird. >> No. Or even just a welcome bot. >> Yeah. >> You know, just saying welcome to the community. It's nice. I mean, we have one at Chaos, so it's great for that. For folks who just want basic information, it's great. But when you start to get a little bit deeper in that connection, like a bot just can't fill that hole of actual feedback on your PR or being grateful for contribution. >> Yeah, there's definitely a lot to be thinking about based on what's been happening 2025, what might still happen in 2026. So thinking about chaos and the journey that chaos is on and what's happened in the last year, I wonder where you all have noticed that chaos has developed the most this year. And we'll start with Anita. >> Okay. So I'm going to be a little bit biased with my response here and I would say that I have noticed significant engagement from like the global engagement with chaos participation especially like regional chapters. So we have like chaos Africa, chaos Asia and I think there's one for Latam as well. That has been really interesting to see because through these chapters more persons are seeing or hearing about chaos metrics and learning more about what we're doing in chaos and I remember I was in a board meeting for state of open con and someone was like they're trying to use chaos metrics but they're struggling with it and I was really interested to know why they're struggling with it and how it could help them. But like learning about all of that just made me realize that so many persons are getting to learn about work that we're doing here in chaos and most especially the momentum that is coming from these regional communities particularly here in Africa we've had like chaos collaborate with like so many smaller communities and just for like the local empowerment and it's been really really interesting to see and I look forward to more of these come 2026. takes. >> Again, I would just like to build on what Anita had said about the global community growing in chaos. I just wanted to bring to the forefront the chaos Asia community in particular. They have been growing quite a lot and that has been due to I just want to give a shout out to Divan and Rowan Mosenberger for their extra efforts in welcoming folks to the community trying to make the meetings more accessible and just really working hard to promote the Chaos Asia community. So I am so impressed and proud of the work that they're doing and all of the Chaos Asia folks, not just those two, but everybody. It's, you know, it's always a group effort. But yeah, I just wanted to give them a shout out. But I'm just incredibly impressed with the way that they're growing that community. I've also seen some shifting. I mean, we've talked about this before in other podcasts, but this shift of focusing less on the development of new metrics and focusing more on how metrics are being used continues to amaze me how the project just has evolved so much from the beginning and the original vision to what it is now. The organic growth is really incredible. I've loved watching it. I loved being a part of it. I think Sean mentioned the other working groups that have been developed. We're just continuing to grow in that way. So, I think that that's very interesting to see that. And that's been happening for a couple years now, but it's even more so. We pretty much gotten all the lowhanging fruit with metrics that we can. I think there's 80 something out there. So, the metrics that we do focus on are, as Sean mentioned, just they're the deeper, the harder metrics to solve. We've got ourselves in this position now where we've taken care of the easy stuff and now it's trying to tackle the harder problems which is super interesting. It's a great time to come to chaos and be a part of that. >> I also noticed that Anita the the things happening in the chaos community in the Africa chapter are just absolutely blow me away. I'm floored. I also want to say the chaos slack channel right now as I'm looking at it has 3,290 people in the general channel. It's the scale of chaos I would not have imagined. I want to highlight three things. One is the design working group. I think also a lot of people in Africa are really helping us with design and chaos and some of the visual assets that we're having now. Just absolutely stunning. I'm so so so proud of all the work that they're doing and how this is helping Chaos be more present, more professional in every aspect. The accessibility is another highlight I have. There's a new interest from several people on how we can have metrics around accessibility, but also how we as chaos can follow the accessibility best practices. And I love to see that in the conversation. And then finally, the third thing that I want to highlight are the guides that we have had several podcast episodes on already. So, if you're a regular listener, you will be well aware of what this is. And if not, go check out those episodes. Now is a good time to get familiar with what we are doing with those metric guides. >> Yeah, I think we have six or seven episodes out now about the guides. Definitely worth a look. Sean, I I wondered what you've seen in terms of where chaos has developed most this year. I think we've gotten really good this year at identifying things that are difficult but essential to measure. And I've seen this mostly in the open source scientific and academic software groups where there's a collection of chaos folks and also I forget I forgot should mention the package management groups. We've got a couple new working groups that have emerged here towards the second half of the year in package management and ethical use of AI or called AI alignment working group. And these two working groups are trying to find ways and I think effectively finding ways to put data behind the things that projects need to measure but have had a difficult time measuring. So we've talked for a long time about dependencies and transitive dependencies and had metrics for those coming out of our risk working group. Now I'm seeing many other approaches and those approaches are becoming standardized. So Andrew Nesbbit for example has really come up with a very clear and routine way of getting common information out of all of the different package managers on the open source earth that has tremendous value for understanding the supply chain for understanding the effects of AI and for really you know measuring these very difficult things. Another example from the academic or really more the research software scientific software group is trying to measure scholarly results that emerge from open source software. These are difficult things to measure because they're a trailing indicator. And by trailing I mean the effect if you fund and support an open source project. The effect on scientific findings is like a two to fouryear cycle. So, it's finding the scientific effects of supporting scientific open source that has a very long return signal. And I think we're starting to find ways to use data to measure those things in a meaningful way. >> It's really great to hear about the chaos project rising up to meet the difficult challenges headon. And for those interested in the package metadata working group, there is also a podcast episode on that from not too long ago. Harmony, do you want to pick up the next question? >> I can't stop thinking like the various working groups and like ensuring that we've done a lot in the community and even beyond the community from various global engagement to better programs and also guides that help people to like settle properly in the open source industry completely. Thank you so much to everyone and because of this vote of thanks I want us I know like the working groups and the project we have done thus far has been great with tremendous achievement across board uh on the panel today I want to know the working group of the project that you guys are actually proud of so far that you can't stop talking about so I'll start with Sean there's a lot of working groups like you know we talked about package management and AI alignment I'm excited about those things, but they're kind of new, so they appeal to my novelty and recency as an ADHD person. I think maybe proudest is maybe the right word, but surprised. We've been working for almost 10 years now on Chaos, and getting folks getting a steady contributor stream for the software projects has been probably one of our most significant challenges, but also most one of our most critical ones since the software takes the most sustained effort to preserve and At first it was like for some reason we're seeing a lot more engagement in the augur 8 not working group and I wasn't sure why and I think part of it is that we've made it easier to install and there's more people working on it but I think part of it is I haven't figured out exactly the connection but there's some connection between the availability of AI tools and the floor for new contributor entry being higher than it was. So there's this trade-off and I'll talk about it a little bit more when we think about what's under the radar. But there's been a significant increase in software contributions. So like in a release instead of two or three contributors, we have like 12 now. And I've got some theories about why that is, but I haven't quite narrowed it down yet. But I'm proud of the fact that that's happening really in a way that it hasn't before. >> I agree with you. And I think my theory would be that since it became less complex and installing the package, we now have more contributors in it because I've had folks reach out and be like, oh, we would love to get down and start contributing to a one of the difficulties was installing and since that has been sorted, I think there have been a lot of flooding from persons trying to like contribute more. But I'll be very honest the contributors has been very committed and we have got to like see like lots of improvement across board and that's something to be proud of. Thank you so much ago. Thank you so much Sean for sharing. G what's yours? >> I want to take the time to really highlight Alice and Harmony for all the work that you've done on the podcast this year. The podcast we started when chaos was still young to bring use cases, experiences. We're sharing what people are doing in a format where they can just talk with us and elevate the things that sometimes would get missed. So for the podcast to still be alive this long after we started it, it's really a community effort. If it had been only me doing the podcast, it would have stopped by now. And there were others over the years that helped, but right now Alice and Harmony really meeting on a weekly basis, checking where is every episode, who do we want to bring on the podcast, what are the stories that haven't been told yet. There's so much love and effort that goes into the podcast. I'm super proud that this is a stable part of the chaos community. So, thank you, Alice and Harmony. >> Thank you so much, Gag. I saw Alice dancing earlier. >> Yeah, thank you. And I feel like we've never mentioned Paul's name, but Paul edits a podcast. And so, this is a special moment to say, >> "Don't cut this out, Paul. We're just going to say thank you to you live on air." Paul from Peach Tree Sound. If you need a podcast editing, >> get in touch with him. >> Yeah. Shout out to Paul for like ensuring that the episode is out. Wendita, I feel like you have a lot to say. First off, I'd like to also appreciate the persons working in the chaos education working group. I think a lot of incredible work has been done in the working group from the education project which ideally was just to on board people to open source and to chaos and today we've had like aside the courses to get people into open source and chaos we've had like the practitioner guide for chaos that also came out from the same working group and like seeing all of the effort that Peculiar puts into it and how devoted she has been contributing to making sure that the project still remains is really really interesting and like I said the idea or the goal for the working group was just to create a means to on board people right but it has grown beyond that to having resources that so many persons can use in years to come and this has also been a good means to on board people but also help more persons especially newcomers to understand and also apply chaos and the metrics that are being built from the community. So I think that's been the most exciting project for me this year. >> Thank you so much Anita. I agree with you completely because I've been hosting or co-hosting some of the practitioner guys series and I could tell you that they're very much informative for not just contributors but also organizations that want to like get into open source and as part of the contributors for the educational project as someone that has recorded a session it's been great and picular has been doing great and if you would love to contribute to the chaos education project we will do to share the link directly to the repository. So you can either pick up a course record the session or help us to edit one of the slides that people would record. Yeah. So thank you so much Anita for bringing that up. It's good that we have various various various projects and proud moments. I would like to say that I am incredibly proud of the shared ownership of community growth and the way that our entire community works to protect the culture of chaos. Again, to build on what others have said, Gayorg and Anita both about, you know, the podcast about the education team, I feel like people really do take ownership of the places where they're contributing and I absolutely love that. That is the best thing about open source that can be in my opinion. That is the magic of open source is when you have this group of mish mash of people from all over the world and now they're building things together and they take ownership of it and they care about it and they work together to make something amazing. I mean, if you look at our chaos cons, the welcoming that people share across when someone new comes in the community, which happens every single day. We have new people coming into our Slack every single day. And just watching other folks, so it's not just me, it's other folks that are welcoming each other. They're answering each other's questions. They're contributing to things like the education project, like badging, even just down to the creation of new working groups. This is something that someone will come to me and say, "Hey, we want to start a new working group. What do we do for that? Is that okay?" And you know, nine times out of 10, yes, of course. If there's enough people that want to talk about a topic that, you know, merits the creation of a working group, absolutely. I just absolutely love it. I feel like my role has kind of shifted from a community manager, quote unquote, to more of community support. I'm here to support folks who want to work in the community, who want to contribute. I'm not necessarily manage that really, but to support them. That's how I see my role now. And I think if you're running an open source project, one of the hardest things to get over is this feeling that you have to trust people and that you have to empower them. You have to let them do the thing. And even if they make mistakes, if it's not, you know, in alignment with your original vision, like that's okay. And getting over that hurdle is really hard, I think, in open source. And I feel like we're doing that pretty well at Chaos is trying to empower people, trying to give them the tools that they need to make amazing things and to really create beautiful software, beautiful events, beautiful projects, whatever that looks like. So, I'm just really proud to be a community support person now pretty much is what my role is. Oh, >> that's really good to hear. No, no benevolent dictators for life round here, right? Not a fan. No offense to I mean it can be done well but yeah I prefer the empowerment. >> No offense to all the dictators out there. Yeah. >> Just the benevolent ones. The other ones. Yes. >> Benevolent ones. Yeah. >> Offense intended for sure. >> All right. Well, this is probably my favorite question that I'm about to ask now, which is what do you think has gone under the radar within the project this year? And let's start with Anita on that one. Do you have any thoughts? I think one area that I think may have gone under the radar is the work from the DEI working group. So with like the recent social political shift with the US, so many persons directed their attention away from topics of inclusion, belonging and the safety of like marginalized people in the community, right? And even while this has been going on, so many persons also now shied away from being present in these meetings and it's understandable. But then the DI working group team has still made efforts to show up and while some of the work is now like behind the scene like the badging project which now has over like we've badged over 200 events open source events as of date and it's really interesting to see that even with all of this happening events are are willing to you know apply for like the project badge to get their event badge. And I think right now there's a lot of work put towards spreading more awareness for project badging to assess the inclusion of open source projects as well. And the work is still on but like when you attend the meetings you would actually notice that there has been a slight shift from participation and engagement regarding topics around inclusion and belonging. So I think that is one area that I think I have noticed a huge shift in this year. >> So so true. The conversations around diversity, equity, inclusion that I've had this year at conference in communities has shifted a lot and the work for anyone who is interested in doing this is more important than ever. the work might be pushed into the fringes, into the shadows. And it is really important for us right now who are working on diversity, equity, inclusion to band together and continue to make progress. Even if it is more in the background, once the public sentiment changes, we'll come back stronger. And so don't lose hope. Continue to do what you believe in because it matters. >> I would echo that. And I don't even think it's public sentiment. I think it's more of a political echo chamber problem. And it's I think largely isolated in the United States. But I don't know that I have felt in my conversations with my European colleagues less constrained in discussing these topics or participating than I do in an American setting where all of the organizational infrastructure is working to not talk about it and yet the work is essential. >> Yeah, thank you for sharing your frank thoughts on that. And it's I know that people that who are in marginalized groups appreciate the allyships from others and from within as well. Thank you for sharing that. >> So I would actually like to give a shout out to Harmony and the technical writers group. I feel like they have done such incredible work and I love to see it. I absolutely love to see it. I mean I'm a writer too so I have that bias of trying to promote technical writing in open source is I feel like that already is overlooked but Harmony and his group just as an example of the work that they do they ran this incredible workshop for Hacktoberfest to bring new folks in who may have an interest in technical writing to get them started. Where do you start? How do you go from wanting to do this thing to actually doing this thing? And so they ran this workshop. They had 11 speakers. They had folks from 12 countries, 170 people signed up. Like I had nothing to do with this at all. Like that was 100% Harmony and Mary Blessing and the other folks from Chaos Africa that were working on this project. I'm just blown away by this whole group. So just want to give a shout out to Harmony and the technical writers working group. >> Is there anything else, Sean, that you think's gone under the radar within the project this year? >> So we've talked about AI, right? It's in the headlines. It's everywhere. But I think the thing that has become clear to me is how AI is getting used and the effects that it's having. It is beginning when I look at the data from 150,000 open- source repos that includes the LF and Apache and lots of scientific projects. It's really back in April that I could start to see in the data, the trace data from projects around the internet that the use of AI is being stated and sort of put into text in a way that we can detect it and that is a very light trend but it is increasing and so the first thing is we can measure it now to some extent. The second thing is how it's affecting projects as a software project maintainer. It's had kind of a weird increase in labor effect. So the level of work required from software maintainers because AI exists is significant. I think the amount of time that's been required to maintain just the contributor community that grows because AI exists. it's at least a 2x increase in the maintainer commitment these days. And so that means that when you get a pull request, if it doesn't state that AI is used, we're looking at it and assuming that we have to find out or understand if AI is used. And I don't think that's something that we expected to occur. The thing I'm seeing that we possibly expected or some of us expected is that as the volume of contribution goes up, our technical debt as an open- source software project goes up as well. So the amount of code that has to be maintained and critiqued in order for software to remain sustainable if you're accepting contributions from anyone has increased. And I think the effect of AI on increasing maintainer labor is not something that we expected. So it's making more work for maintainers, not less. >> Yeah. Ironic somehow, isn't it? >> Yeah. >> G, I think you wanted to chime in on AI. I don't know if it was around the same. I do have additional thoughts on the AI use that Sean has mentioned is very interesting new development and there's something that is underneath that. I haven't quite wrapped my head around it yet but I see it coming down. It's about identities. When we analyze open-source communities, when we look at the metrics, we've always assumed that it is humans doing work in open source and that they have certain attributes. Now, there are AI agents, there are bots, they're doing work for people, but not the people themselves. And while that is it may be declared I think it becomes really important moving forward that we have a clear understanding of who are the people. So if we can have a proof of personhood and who are the bots and who do they work for, who are they instructed by the infrastructure we have right now with git and other tools does not allow for this level of identification. I know there's work underway. Jim Zlin had announced this year that the Linux kernel is working on an identity solution with the first person project. I think it's important to watch these cryptographic digital identity wallets, all of those things because they will impact how we identify who is who in open source projects and our metrics right now I don't think account for that. And Sean, I don't think we've talked about any of this really in the chaos project yet. Does that connect with what you're seeing as well or am I off base here? >> With regard to identity? >> Yeah, >> I haven't seen any material improvements in the ability to discern identity. And I suppose what I have seen more of is an increase in the amount of bot contribution. And GitHub and GitLab both as platforms tag bots if you declare them as such. and I think most projects do and so that's how AI is showing up. I haven't yet seen any improvements in identity resolution though. >> Yeah, not improvements yet but I think they need to come. I think we need to follow suit. Yeah, I think maybe the latent concern that I have is with these AI tools, it becomes also much easier for a contributor with varying motivations, let's say, to create multiple identities and to maintain multiple identities. I think in the past where let's call them bad actors could sometimes sort of do a social hack like in the XZ project and sort of work their way in that took a lot of effort by a group of individuals. I think with AI, it's now significantly easier to appear as a person and to maintain multiple identities in an open- source universe. And that's a different kinds of challenge. It's almost the inversion of the hope that I have for things like identity. >> Okay. Yeah. Thank you for validating that. I'll drop in a blog post in the show notes that kind of summarizes current thinking that I'm on. Yes, it's definitely something that that we could unpack for a lot longer. Where would you like to see more engagement? Or alternatively, where can people go to get engaged with interesting things that they might not be aware of? I would like to see folks get engaged with really anything that speaks to them. And I know that that's kind of a non-answer, but we have people, you know, I mentioned it earlier, we have people coming every day to chaos. So the challenge is where do we point them? And we have some, you know, kind of generic docs and we have the tour guides and we have the newcomers hangout and we have other resources for newcomers. I would like to see folks give us more feedback on how we can make that process better. So I think that's one place for sure is engagement as a newcomer helping us improve that process. And then secondly helping them find the things that speak to them and that's tricky because there are so many moving parts to chaos and we're always adding and changing those parts too. So that's also tricky. I'm thinking about the education project is such a great way for newcomers to join but also it's a good way for folks to know what is even out there. So, I would like to just see people engage with that project even more and whether that's as a viewer, as a learner, or as a contributor. I just really love that project. I'm a huge, huge fan of it. As we mentioned, it was meant to take the place of onboarding, but it's really grown into something much larger. So, I think that is where we can really make a difference in helping people find their space and find their place here at Chaos. >> That's pretty interesting. I like >> fresh eyes or new person eyes are always useful when designing like the education and on boarding as well. They really are. And especially, you know, at Chaos, we are so very different than we are not just software. And I feel like that is a great thing for us, you know, but it's also challenging, right? Cuz we want to find a place for everybody, anybody who wants to be an open source, whether you're a designer or a social media person or or a software developer. And so it's so much more than just go look at our open issues now. Go look at the ones that are tagged good for first time contributors. But it's so much more than that. And I think that that is it is a challenge, but also I love to see it. I love to see the education project kind of try to fill that hole of where do we send these people? >> Actually very curious since we're speaking to like the members of the board. We want to know what have been like the top of your mind. Tell us you guys have been having meetings and all of that. So what's the priority for the board this year and maybe next year? Sean Gag, >> one of the things that we have talked about at the board level, at the chaos board level is how we can improve the diversity of the board and maybe introduce there's conversation going on. I don't want to quite yet talk about the solution because we are still working on that. But it's something I'm looking forward to. >> Okay. Seems we have to stay curious and wait till like it's matures, right? But let's hear from later. >> Yes, we'll update you. We'll have an episode on it maybe. Who knows >> when things shake out really kind of the other side of that coin for looking at inclusivity of the board which has been a topic of discussion as Kark mentioned. I think sustainability of the chaos project is also always foremost in our minds. You know, what are the things that are happening in the community that we need to feed? Are there parts of the community that are starved or need more attention? And finding that way to sustain engagement is always important especially for the parts of the project that we have so many people who kind of know how it runs and we want to make sure that those thoughts and ideas are preserved and become a little bit more personroof as it were. So you know sustainability is always sort of I think an umbrella that we sit under as a primary objective from year to year. agree it's a very good umbrella that we we could implement. Anita, do you have some thoughts on this? So I think in addition to sustainability and the succession plans and inclusion plans that chaos has a long-term goal that the board has also been looking into is to see chaos metrics become recognized internationally like as a standard and not just metrics that exist within the community. And so this is crucial because not only will it help with consistency across the chaos metrics but also like open-source projects across the world, right? And so I look forward to us doing more of that next year and collaborating with like more foundations and standard bodies in order to do this. But I guess you have to wait until next year to see that happen. >> Yeah. and we actually can't wait. But I think right that DCA have laid the foundation for the success of the metrics for next year. We've had like good engagement and the badge project has been doing pretty well in for DEI especially for projects and conferences. But yeah, we can't wait for the fruition of it in 2026. Well, that's nearly all we have time for, but just before we wrap up, I would love to hear very short responses to what are your wishes for chaos in 2026. I'm going to start off with mine so you get a flavor for the kind of thing. You can really say whatever you want, but mine is that I would love us to onboard a podcast host for the Asia chapter. And that's something that we're working on right now. So love to hear more voices from our Asia chapter represented in the podcast hosting and also guests. Harmony, what's yours? >> I think I I love like my chaos con much more experiences on Chaos Con. >> Sean, >> I wish for the community for 2026 is that we keep on trucking, keep going, keep doing what we do. Anita, what's your wish for 2026 for chaos? >> My wish for chaos 2026 would be for our metric definition to be stable, easily repeatable, and also easily integrated into communities and projects and like I hear people talking about it now, but I want to see them implementing with more next year. >> That's a good one. G, what's yours? My wish for chaos in 2026 is that we continue to come together as a community. The chaos cons that we are organizing around the world are excellent places to come together and the personal connections that we have with each other as chaotics are what keeps the community going and keeps the project going. My wish my hope is that we have good chaos cons next year. Elizabeth, what's your wish for Tales for 2026? >> I would like to see in addition to continued financial support where we can get it. Of course, I will always ask for financial support. I will always wish for that just so we can do more things. But I would like to see, and Alice, this speaks to your heart, I know, as well. I would really like to see the communications working group get figured out because we have gone back and forth with this group up and down. you know, we've been active and then inactive and then active again and now inactive. And for whatever reason, it's just really hard because all the folks on this team are so incredibly busy. And so, it's like really hard to find time and space and energy for this group, but I think that it's it's really important to the project. I kind of fill in the holes where I can. And we've got some folks helping out with social media in particular for Chaos Con, but I would really like to see that just gel finally. I don't know how to make that happen. I really don't. But it is so important, I think, to kind of make sure the world still knows that chaos is here and what is happening because there's so much happening. and just having that team to help with the outreach of chaos. And even internally, you know, I do my best, but I'm sure that it could be better. 100% could be better. So, that would be my wish for 2026 is that this team would magically just figure out how to stay active and how to have find the energy to keep maintained. I don't know what that looks like, but >> yeah. >> Yeah. And just for anyone who's not completely sure what it is we're talking about. So chaos community has had an on again offagain group sort of doing marketing function. So trying to get a view of what the community is doing to promote you know so for example when the podcast comes out to make sure that the episodes always promoted on social media and to share information about events to share information about what's going on in the different chapters and basically to communicate mainly externally but also like you said a little bit internally and we do have people with the skills but it's just been very difficult to get enough momentum to overcome that activation energy of getting the group going and and having a consistent momentum. So, if there's anyone out there who thinks, "Oh my goodness, I love doing that. That would be perfect. I've got the skills or I've got energy and I'd like to learn the skills and I'm prepared to be like the point person to kind of rally people around and organize, then please get in touch." >> Yes, please, please, please. I mean like we we have a calendar even that has people giving talks about chaos at upcoming conferences and we try to keep a calendar. It's up to people to add their own events but you know having just somebody to help us promote those even hey if you're at this conference go hear this talk by this wonderful person. Things like that would be so amazing if we just had a little more more hands- on deck would be great. >> Awesome. Yeah. Well hopefully the wish will come true. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much, Elizabeth, for that one. And that's the end of this year's podcast. I think I'm privileged to say that. Yeah, that's the end of this year's podcast. If you have a topic that you like us to cover on the podcast next year or sometime further, whether you want questions that we want us to answer, suggestions for guests, our panels, or maybe feedback of what we've done so far this year and the year previous, we'd love to hear from you. Do well to email us as podcast at chaos.com community with your messages and definitely you'll find the email address at the show notes. Thank you for joining us today and thank you for joining us this year so far. We hope you love this episode. Until next time, your chaos community and happy Christmas and happy new year., Episode 125: A Very CHAOTIC 2025, YouTube, 01kc6s5etnhg31b8nqjme04965.