# Episode 197: FOSSY 2023 with Joe Castle  ## Episode metadata - Episode title: Episode 197: FOSSY 2023 with Joe Castle - Show: Sustain - Owner / Host: SustainOSS - Guests: [Joe Castle](https://share.snipd.com/person/2c49dfe7-e7f5-4f22-b9b4-522dbf982226) - Episode publish date: 2023-09-01 - Episode AI description: Joe Castle from SAS, a global analytics and AI company, discusses their involvement with open source software and their plans for future engagement. Topics include integrating open source tools, the influence of corporations on open source, combining AI and open source for model management, advocating for open source in a proprietary company, and excitement about opening source and positive changes in the organization. - Duration: 19:42 - Episode URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/episode/5d94db71-1583-4167-aacd-97c75ab3d8bc) - Show URL: [Open in Snipd](https://share.snipd.com/show/0692a062-4bc7-4dce-9318-0f57031ff1d4) - Export date: 2026-02-17T23:27:25 ## Snips ### [SAS Engages Multi-Layered Open Source](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4da5c6d3-81c5-4a10-b57d-3db39479338d) 🎧 03:39 - 05:25 (01:46) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/605ddf63-b38b-4b10-8625-dfd6e113e9fb" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - SAS spans all aspects in open source: usage, development, and community contribution. - They maintain Python/R packages on GitHub and engage actively with open source foundations. #### 💬 Quote > It's actually in all of those places... There's the development of packages to then interact with our software itself... We obviously welcome contributions that way... we helped to plan Falsy that we have a track here that's open source with AI and data... we're members of that foundation, basically trying to expand our Ospo or open source program office. > — Joe Castle Joe Castle on SAS's open source involvement #### 📚 Transcript Wow, that's a lot. That's a lot. It's actually in all of those places, which sounds somewhat maybe cliché, but there's the using of open source software to build our products internally. Like I said, most organizations do that. There's the development of packages to then interact with our software itself. And we are the biggest contributors, maintainers of that. Now these things sit on GitHub, right? We have our developers page at developers.sas.com. All of our packages are on GitHub. We obviously welcome contributions that way, but it's largely maintained by us for our SaaS user community to interact with our products that don't necessarily want to go through the interface or the no code, low code, because they can code and their data scientists in a lot of cases or developers, right? And they can use Python or R and they can just go directly to Jupyter and have VS code, those sorts of things. And then that sort of third aspect that you talked about was the community contribution, the things like Linux Foundation Falsy. So we helped to plan Falsy that we have a track here that's open source with AI and data that I saw that. That's a track that I'm speaking in, but our Ospo director, Ruth Sealy is one of the leads for that. And Linux Foundation, we were just in Vancouver about a month ago. Ruth and I both gave different talks. Didn't even know that each of us were going to be there because we're in different parts of the organization. Cool. But obviously met up there. And so we're members of that foundation, basically trying to expand our Ospo or open source program office to become more involved with organizations. I don't know so much about sponsorship. Maybe that becomes a thing later or funding open source projects and things like that, but at least getting involved with various groups and potentially governance and some of the things that you mentioned in that third. --- ### [Newcomer Drives SAS's Python Focus](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f5a6b739-3976-4aa4-a49b-974bc40d1751) 🎧 09:51 - 11:00 (01:09) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/eb5649e8-62bf-4d11-bd7e-564d6c1a50a4" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Joe joined SAS nearly a year ago as a Python open source expert without prior SAS experience. - He exemplifies SAS's pivot to meet the Python-savvy developer community. #### 💬 Quote > I come to SAS as a Python open source person... I'm still like learning SAS. I didn't know anything about SAS when I walked in the door. So I'm sort of that prime example of like why we're in some sense becoming more open source friendly, becoming more Python because that's where the audience is. > — Joe Castle Joe Castle on joining SAS and adopting Python #### 📚 Transcript I mean, I'll give you an example of that too. Like I just joined the company almost a year ago in August. Cool. And I come to the company with Python and Lee skills. I'm an open source person. I'm a ran the US federal government's hospital open source program office. Started as called code.gov. It's still there. It's kind of kind of defunct now. If you want to talk about sustainability, I can give you a horror story on that one. But I was engineering for a while doing the DevOps pipeline kind of get back into front end engineering with react and things and launching from code.gov and engineering and Python was also working on my PhD dissertation at the same time. And was using that's where I got into Python. So I was doing open source with HTML CSS JavaScript react in particular with code.gov engineering that and then got into Python because I needed to do data analysis for my PhD dissertation on open source software. Totally. So I come to SAS as a Python open source person, experts me, whatever you want to call it. But I didn't. And I'm still like learning SAS. I didn't know anything about SAS when I walked in the door. And so I'm sort of that prime example of like why were in some sense becoming more open source friendly, becoming more Python because that's where the audience is. --- ### [Preach and Contribute Internally](https://share.snipd.com/snip/8be15e31-a641-4b61-8ca9-37de1918e070) 🎧 11:50 - 12:43 (00:52) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/41bec43f-7ad7-4e80-86e2-bf137b9d8bfa" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - Advocate internally to use and contribute to open source, not just consume it. - Encourage teams to publish and engage with open source communities to leverage collective innovation. #### 💬 Quote > Part of the advocating, though, also is to have folks inside to basically say, okay, we're using these things. We should also be publishing. We should be contributing. > — Joe Castle Joe Castle on preaching open source internally at SAS #### 📚 Transcript Yeah. It's surprising in a proprietary company that there are actually a lot of advocates that are open source. And it's pretty largely because we're using a lot of open source, like everyone else, right? Like we're using packages. We're bringing in all sorts of, you know, we're trying out when we do various baseline testing and things like that. We're using open pie torch and other things. And we're actually looking at ways to integrate some of those tools in machine learning packages and stuff like that. So the value add for us is we want to leverage what's out there, just like everyone else. Part of the advocating, though, also is to have folks inside to basically say, okay, we're using these things. We should also be publishing. We should be contributing. And that's probably more of the advocating that happens as opposed to we should use people recognize it as superior, not superior, but as a alternative or leverage the community leverage what's out there. --- ### [Open Source Meets Business Goals](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7912ba3c-1be8-4e89-ae68-615f0d940c5a) 🎧 13:51 - 16:20 (02:28) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/bc36d525-ca46-4c64-b99d-e82f70f13dae" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - SAS balances competitive financial motives with authentic open source engagement. - Building superior products using open source fosters both innovation and market advantage. #### 💬 Quote > Obviously we're competitive motivated, right? We're financially met and we were a company, right? We want to stay in business... but also it's capturing that audience, right? Like hey, we are open source friendly and come use this and we'll contribute back. > — Joe Castle Joe Castle on SAS's motivations for open source involvement #### 📚 Transcript Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, obviously we're competitive, motivated, right? We're financially met and we were a company, right? We want to stay in business. We want to meet people where they are because we want to help them in that sense, but also it's capturing that audience, right? Like, hey, we are open source friendly and come use this and we'll contribute back, obviously. Like a lot of commercial companies, right? Like Microsoft is one of the biggest contributors to GitHub, and then they bought GitHub, right? And then you have a 5 V M and all that. So, I mean, there's obviously a financial incentive there as a company, for sure. I guess I'm just trying to figure out like how much is a financial incentive a high versus sustainable in the long term based on the entire model that you're working on? Or is it we're giving away stuff now for free? And we'll do that as long as it keeps working. And I would say too, like, I'm finding some motivation, obviously, we're a company. I would also say there's more to that of when we use it internally, obviously, we want to build the best product that we can build because then it goes back to that competition. Right. If we build a superior product by quality algorithms, the IP, the things that we have put together, then it's a no-brainer for others customers when they come to us like, oh, my gosh, you really got to use SaaS because they have all of this, right? Yeah. And actually, we'll see that a lot of times too, where it's like, hey, what about this reporting tool? Or what about that dashboard tool? Or what? And it's like, that's great for that one thing. So if you're okay with like basic statistics, descriptive statistics or something, or if you're okay with just Python pandas, right? Or if you just want to plot something for a PhD dissertation, that's great. But the reality is if you want to go from, and obviously, like, big data is worn out, obviously, petabytes, terabytes. We're working with a financial customer that has, what does it say, like, 40 gigs of RAM or something? No, it's bigger than that. 40 terabytes of RAM. I mean, it's huge thing. The financial institution around the world. And that's just the RAM to process the amount of data that they click. And they're using our software to support that. Not so much the processing itself, but the actual like analysis of it, the modeling of it and all that. Cool. Good stuff. Right. So if you, if we can do a product like that, like we could, you could scale that to almost any government, any organization. And we're doing that with open source as well. So it's what's build the best product we can build. What I'm saying is like, obviously, and we're headed this direction, not just Joe Castle out there saying this stuff, but we're headed this direction where it's like, okay, let's contribute back. Let's be able to have the dialogue with open source developers. You know, we're open to play. We're not just a proprietary software company. --- ### [SAS's Open Source Future Plans](https://share.snipd.com/snip/33f71752-a44a-48ce-bb62-06d35a5cae34) 🎧 16:25 - 16:55 (00:30) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/c7903044-372a-42dd-9636-866179da181a" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - SAS considers opening proprietary components but cautiously to protect business interests. - They prioritize making Python packages first-class citizens and will announce updates at SAS Explorer conference. #### 💬 Quote > I'm talking today, we had a conversation about like opening some of the proprietary stuff. And that's hard because obviously we are a business... We're doing a lot of Python packages, making it first class citizen... We actually have our software developer conference called a SAS Explorer. > — Joe Castle Joe Castle on SAS's approach to open sourcing parts and upcoming announcements #### 📚 Transcript Yeah, that's interesting. So I'm talking today, we had a conversation about like opening some of the proprietary stuff. And that's hard because obviously we are a business, right? Keep going back to that. So it's like Microsoft doesn't open windows, but they have VS code. So we'll see. We'll see what comes down the pipeline. I know we're doing a lot of Python packages, making it first class citizen and things like that. We're going to see some changes. We actually have our software developer conference called a SAS Explorer. Cool. That comes up in September of this year and there'll be some announcements there. Cool. --- ### [R&D Embraces Open Source](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5d269f2c-22eb-4946-9fde-d854ee4004bc) 🎧 17:38 - 18:03 (00:24) <iframe src="https://share.snipd.com/embed/obsidian-player/snip/baf0ae37-54ad-435e-aac5-ddb170e80f70" width="100%" height="100" style="border: none; border-radius: 12px;" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-popups allow-clipboard-write" ></iframe> - SAS's R&D team is enthusiastic about open source and recognizes its importance. - This internal support signals a genuine company-wide acknowledgment of open source as crucial for their future. #### 💬 Quote > When I talk to different folks and they're like ecstatic about various open source things we're doing and using. Yeah, this is, it's definitely here as a company. > — Joe Castle Joe Castle describing internal attitudes toward open source at SAS #### 📚 Transcript Cool. Right. Internally. And so I'm excited about that. And then I was talking about like the allies internally as I talk to folks in R&D. So our R&D department builds our base part in our profit line. And when I talk to different folks and they're like ecstatic about various open source things we're doing and using. And I'm just like, yeah, this is, it's definitely here as a company. We are realizing this is a real thing now. And we need to not just now, but it's a real thing. --- Created with [Snipd](https://www.snipd.com) | Highlight & Take Notes from Podcasts