Open Path

by Chad Whitacre

headshot of Chad Whitacre

Greetings! My name is Chad Whitacre, and I'm Head of Open Source at Sentry.

Open Path is a blog about topics that matter to the Open Source community, the wider tech industry, and society at large.

Thanks for visiting! 💃

Thank You, Ben

16 ❧ 2024-11-04 ❧ Ben Vinegar hired me into Sentry four years ago, and now he is moving on. Allow me a few words.

Leadership and Power in Open Source

15 ❧ 2024-10-14 ❧ Open Source offers a check on power, yet some ways of wielding power are still better than others.

A Tale of Two Leaders

14 ❧ 2024-10-11 ❧ Matt Mullenweg and Dries Buytaert are showing us starkly contrasting ways of leading an Open Source community.

The Historical Case for Fair Source

13 ❧ 2024-06-20 ❧ First there was Free Software, then Open Source. How did we get to Fair Source?

Widespread Use of a Fair Source Product

12 ❧ 2024-05-15 ❧ Self-hosted Sentry is a clear existence proof of the viability of the Fair Source model.

The Future of FOSS Foundations

11 ❧ 2024-04-26 ❧ With new EU legislation, Open Source foundations are growing up fast. Where are we headed?

Open Source Is a Restaurant

10 ❧ 2024-04-05 ❧ It was a great meal. Are we going to pay the tab?

A Vision for Software Commons

9 ❧ 2024-04-04 ❧ Imagine an indie Open Source contingent thriving alongside our corporations and governments.

Fair Source <> Software Commons

8 ❧ 2024-04-01 ❧ Fair Source is about licensing. Software Commons is about funding. Let's do both ... separately.

Relicensing and Rug Pulls

7 ❧ 2024-03-21 ❧ If a viable fork materializes, relicensing was a rug pull. If not, it wasn't ... and that's kinda sad.

The Case for an Institution

6 ❧ 2024-03-05 ❧ Software Commons is a great name. But for what? It should be an institution.

Towards Software Commons

5 ❧ 2024-02-22 ❧ The world is ready for something beyond Open Source. Is it Software Commons?

Funding the Five Thousand

4 ❧ 2024-02-05 ❧ We can solve the OSS sustainability crisis for less than $1 billion, priced to cost.

Questioning “The Value of Open Source Software”

3 ❧ 2024-01-25 ❧ The new HBS working paper seems fundamentally flawed to me, though it has some helpful parts.

The Open Source Sustainability Crisis

2 ❧ 2024-01-19 ❧ What is Open Source sustainability? Fair pay, no hoops. Why is it in crisis? Burnout.

Welcome to Open Path

1 ❧ 2024-01-04 ❧ Open Path is a new blog by Chad Whitacre about Open Source, tech, and society.
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