Managing an Open Source Program Office, With Ashley Wolf, GitHub  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Untold Stories of Open Source]] - Full Title: Managing an Open Source Program Office, With Ashley Wolf, GitHub - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/6b48e16b-4167-44a5-838b-831bc63ed9c0 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Hidden Company Knowledge Problem** - Company knowledge is often trapped in isolated systems and guarded by long-term employees. - This makes it hard for new hires to access information, understand decisions, and find experts. Transcript: Mark Miller It's a consistent pattern at most companies. High-value data and corporate memory are stored in isolated channels on disparate systems. Old processes are protected by those who have been there the longest. The problem is, the DNA of the company becomes lost as long-time employees depart, making it difficult for new hires to find what's available, why decisions were made, and who they Can look to for answers. Michael Lewis talks about this in his podcast, Against the Rules, in the series Six Levels Down. When he was looking for someone who actually understood how the insurance industry processes claims, and what all the obfuscated code numbers meant and how doctors actually get claims Paid. He had to go six levels deep to an overworked expert toiling away in the hospital basement. ([Time 0:00:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f37e14d4-5533-49d9-9e18-3404b4447867)) - **Facing Resistance to Change** - Ashley faced teams resistant to abandoning comfortable outdated tools and processes. - Information was scattered across IRC, Twiki, forums, and Google Docs, making it hard to find. Transcript: Ashley Wolf The beginning of my journey to this work, I met with tons of different teams at the companies that were very resistant to any of the tools or systems they were comfortable with, potentially Being phased out into moving to one. Ways and tools that people had spun up to try to store information or to connect with each other or to talk with each other. Tons of different systems from IRC, Twiki, forums, Google Docs, anything you can think of. It became impossible to try to find information about your job at the company. ([Time 0:01:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cf0b0356-8727-4890-a628-b905f1ac2a5c)) - **Early Tech and Open Source Discovery** - Ashley learned coding early by building basic websites on GeoCities and AngelFire. - Gaming communities in 2011 introduced her to open source's corporate impact. Transcript: Mark Miller From an early age, she would tinker around on computers with him. Ashley Wolf That really was part of the catalyst to my interest in electronics and technology. Online, I started to learn about coding by way of building websites. So I learned how to write HTML and CSS and put together these really janky websites that maybe Angel Fire and GeoCities. I really enjoyed that. However, I wasn't taking any classes during that time where I could develop technical skills. Mark Miller Ashley recalls using GeoCity and AngelFire as social media before the term was a household name. Connecting with others through technology became second nature to her. But while her interests kept drawing her towards tech, her formal education was taking her down another path. After high school, she pursued a degree in political science from a private university in Southern California. But it was technology, not politics, that ignited her interest in community building back in 2011. Ashley Wolf I got more involved and interested in video games. I actually attended a lot of conferences for video games and loved the community aspect of people coming together to share in their passion around video game or a technology. Mark Miller You remember gaming in 2011, right? Batman, Arkham City, The Legend of Zelda, The Elder Scrolls, Gears of War 3. ([Time 0:03:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5b682c69-366f-4185-9061-37fcf4591171)) - **Early Career Crossroads** - Ashley chose a political advocacy job over a startup that was later acquired by Disney. - She initially regretted missing the startup opportunity but still gained technical experience. Transcript: Ashley Wolf Before I graduated from college, I had two job offers. One was to join a political advocacy And the other was to join a startup that was working on channel monetization for YouTube. The way that the second opportunity with the channel monetization came up is, as I was doing a lot of work and helping with video game indie developers and attending conferences, somebody I met through that network said, you could be essentially doing streaming and making money from it and playing video games and talking about it or talking about emerging tech and beyond. So I had two options to go the path of my degree or go the path of working at this fun startup where I may not make as much money when I first start. Mark Miller Technology or policy? Heart or mind? There was no wrong decision here, but still one had to be made. Ashley Wolf I chose to go with a political advocacy firm with the uncertainty of what the prospect of going to the startup would look like. Inside, I think I regretted that for many, many months to follow. At one point, maybe a year after I made that decision and I started at the political advocacy firm, that startup got acquired by Disney. ([Time 0:06:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a2d7f2b5-4abc-4423-9983-c8786b7a34b1)) - **Finding Open Source Mentorship** - Ashley discovered open source through Quora and connected with open source advocate Gil Yehuda. - This interaction fueled her passion and understanding of open source's role in companies. Transcript: Ashley Wolf I was on Quora, which is a website primarily focused on question and answer and building community around folks asking questions, similar to the model that Yahoo Answers has. Mark Miller This made Quora a magnet for open source communities. And it was there that Ashley found Gil Yehuda. Ashley Wolf Gil Yehuda was very active on Quora, talking about his work at Yahoo. He went to the White House and represented Yahoo talking about open source and how companies should be giving away their code for free. At the time when I read that, I was shocked. I was impressed thinking there's these things happening out there where companies are giving their code away and building community around code. And I out to him to talk more about that and better understand what a career like his would look like. ([Time 0:09:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/06e28955-e2a7-46dd-8565-b2d6071b2790)) - **Value of Mentorship** - Seek mentorship when entering unfamiliar open source domains. - Mentors accelerate learning and help navigate new roles successfully. Transcript: Ashley Wolf And I'm fortunate that my path started with finding somebody who was already involved in the open source space and receiving mentorship. It helped me to dive into something I wasn't that familiar with. Mark Miller So if there's a lesson to be learned here, and perhaps the lesson of open source, you have some knowledge that you think might help someone, share it. And on the flip side, if you're entering unknown territory, there's probably someone out there that's willing to help. ([Time 0:11:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e773f9bc-e62b-4d64-9d64-76993247c02e)) - **Unifying Developer Culture at Yahoo** - At Yahoo, Ashley worked to unite thousands of engineers using scattered tools onto a single platform. - Open workspaces and social interaction helped foster a collaborative developer culture. Transcript: Ashley Wolf There were teams that were using PHP, BB forums. There were some teams that were on Twikies. My goal and my focus was to find a way that we could bring all developers to one platform to talk about the work that they were doing, to share technical documentation, and perhaps to encourage Some social interaction or conversations on top of the work that they were doing. Mark Miller The company had been following behind Google for years and needed a united front. Ashley joined at a pivotal time in the company's history. In July 2012, Marissa Mayer was appointed CEO and president of Yahoo. You might have heard about Elon Musk's recent ban on remote work at Tesla. Well, Mayer was the originator. In a notorious move, she banned remote work at Yahoo back in 2013. While unpopular, the action was part of a wider push to improve company culture. Ashley Wolf Right after I joined, or maybe shortly before I joined, the story is that Marissa came and saw that everyone was in these cubicles with fairly high up walls on each side that you could Barely look to your neighbors and see each other. And one of the first things she wanted to see was an open workspace. So we went through a transition from these isolated desks to having the open work layout where tables next to each other, you could see each other. And that was very important to her. And it helped to encourage people to get to know each other, talk about the work that we were doing, especially in the spirit of open source and the team that I was on. ([Time 0:12:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1e659373-502a-4a09-a3df-b3f01618fdb7)) - **Negotiating Change Thoughtfully** - Build relationships and listen closely to understand the reasons behind existing workflows. - Phasing out tools must avoid disrupting natural communication processes. Transcript: Mark Miller Ashley took a different approach. Ashley Wolf There were people that were quite resistant to the idea of giving up the services that they were comfortable with. So it was a really good educational experience for me and also for the future to build relationships with people and to figure out exactly what the pain points are and whether or not they Could actually be addressed by phasing out some of these things and bringing everybody to one platform without disrupting the natural process around the way people were communicating Or what they were comfortable with. Mark Miller As a new hire, forcing solidarity with an iron fist probably would have resulted in failure. By slowing down and learning about the history of each process, she was able to understand and accommodate the routines she was trying to streamline. While the current state of developer culture seemed scattered and chaotic, Ashley didn't start trying to make changes immediately. Ashley Wolf These are very smart, talented people. Often there's reasons why they went about what they did in an attempt to do the right thing, to share, to document. And finding a path forward involves listening to all of those stories earnestly. ([Time 0:16:28](https://share.snipd.com/snip/22648acf-8f71-4bba-abaa-67dd5890f76b)) - **Corporate Memory and Oracles** - Long-term employees act as oracles holding corporate memory essential to company functioning. - Reducing reliance on oracles through documentation and shared knowledge is crucial. Transcript: Mark Miller They were doing something for a reason. It was Ashley's job as a coordinator to discover those people and reasons. Yahoo was reliant on its oracles, people who had been at the company longer than anyone else and knew exactly where to find answers. Alan Rees and Gil Yehuda were two such oracles. Ashley Wolf Many people I came across would be open to pointing you to the right person or open if you reached out to saying, maybe go ask over there, or open to a conversation if they were somebody That was responsible perhaps for one of these tools or systems. Mark Miller It's important to have the Gills and the Allens because it's where corporate memory resides. But Ashley wanted to create a company culture that was less reliant on oracles. She wanted to get to the point where people were writing things down, talking about their work, and documenting decisions to make information easy to find. ([Time 0:18:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fa926e39-caf5-4d6b-b5ba-02fd4f2d3128)) - **Challenges Post-Acquisition** - Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo in 2017 slowed open source initiatives due to risk concerns. - Ashley adapted by moving to a cybersecurity startup to further her skills in tech. Transcript: Mark Miller There was a huge obstacle to overcome when Verizon acquired Yahoo in 2017 for $4.5 billion. Open source initiatives were viewed as risky and operations were slowed. ([Time 0:19:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4413aa61-80d7-4f5b-8ce1-f74c61d60ccb)) - **From Internal to Public Community Building** - At the startup, Ashley built a public support portal for developers, partners, and customers. - This extended her experience from internal communication to external community building. Transcript: Ashley Wolf That time, I was eager to continue to challenge myself to learn more about different roles in tech, perhaps. And I found an opportunity to join a cybersecurity startup as a product manager and help them to launch a brand new support portal. And for me, that was an opportunity to draw from a lot of the work and conversations I was having with people to drive them to one internal platform to create a public external facing platform Where developers, customers, partners could go to to get the answers they needed and to have a community of peers to go to to ask questions. So at that point, I left Yahoo and joined the cybersecurity company to set out on a new role in tech. Mark Miller While at Yahoo, Ashley focused on internal communication. The startup's support portal was the next evolution of that challenge to create a public-facing hub for developers, customers, and partners to ask and answer questions. ([Time 0:19:45](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a5db9f88-e220-4de4-82e7-b27ccfe68c74)) - **Networking with OSPO Leaders** - Ashley became part of the Linux Foundation's To Do Group, networking with OSPO leaders. - OSPOs saw GitHub as a strategic partner to amplify their effectiveness. Transcript: Mark Miller Was during this time at Verizon Media that Ashley became a member of the To Do group at the Linux Foundation. To Do's philosophy is talk openly, develop openly. It's a community of practitioners collaborating on best practices for OSPOs. Over the next three years, Ashley got to know most of the major players in the world of OSPO's. OSPO leaders had their eyes on GitHub as a potential partner in their initiatives. GitHub is an internet hosting service that is commonly used to host open source projects with a reported 83 million developers and 200 million repositories. It's the world's largest host of source code. ([Time 0:21:31](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c19c55d5-ff33-4d37-a79d-b00aacfb6897)) - **Persistence Pays Off at GitHub** - Ashley persisted through four interviews with Stormy Peters before leading GitHub's OSPO. - Joining GitHub matched her passion for open source and mentorship. Transcript: Ashley Wolf Was my fourth time interviewing with her for different roles over the years. Luckily, that didn't stop me. This fourth interview, I was able to get a job working for her. So I was very excited because the relationship I have with mentors and people I work with has always been something I feel really strongly about. And Stormy was always a person I respected in the community. So I was really excited about the prospect of joining and working for her since she greatly supports the idea of OSPOs and helping others. Mark Miller Yep, fourth time's a charm. ([Time 0:23:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d3bfaf2c-1860-48ec-a366-f162777ecb53)) - **GitHub's Open Source Culture** - GitHub embraces open source with minimal bureaucracy and gatekeeping. - All processes and policies must remain lightweight and purposeful to succeed. Transcript: Ashley Wolf I came to GitHub, I was surrounded by people that get open source and they will not put up with a lot of gatekeeping or bureaucracy associated with participating in open source. Mark Miller But that didn't mean anything goes. If you're going to create something at GitHub, there needs to be a purpose and it needs to meet a high standard. Ashley Wolf It's been a great challenge to ensure that any type of process or tool or policy we're working on is lightweight. ([Time 0:24:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/744d19e7-de52-457d-a002-fb52d93a7e16)) - **Leverage Linux Foundation Resources** - Use open public resources like Linux Foundation groups to grow your open source career. - Engaging with peer networks accelerates learning and opportunities. Transcript: Ashley Wolf Have a lot of positive things to say about the Linux Foundation because without groups like the To Do Group, which is focused on open source program offices, I wouldn't have been able To grow in my career as much without those public resources being made available without the peer network. ([Time 0:25:51](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1dd7e1ad-cc68-4024-81b9-bb7c3cfcd172)) - **Mentoring Future Open Source Leaders** - Ashley mentors young women in tech to raise awareness of niche OSPO roles. - She highlights career paths in open source program offices to new engineers. Transcript: Ashley Wolf For them, it was critical that they partner with OpenSSF and work closely with that group. Mark Miller Ashley's career has been defined by helping connect people so that others can find the information they need. People such as Gil Yehuda and Ellen Reese were the mentors she needed to find her place of value in the open source community. ([Time 0:27:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/454eef92-f1dc-475c-bde7-f31e9740d8cb))