Open Source Summit North America 2025

Maintainers are responsible for technical oversight and key decisions in open source projects. Contributor ladders, found in projects like OpenTelemetry and Apache, define the journey from contributorship to maintainership. Divya Mohan and Natali Vlatko exemplify this path, having "accidentally" risen to leadership as co-chairs of the Kubernetes Documentation Special Interest Group (SIG).
But how does one stumble into leadership, and how can we make this process intentional? In their talk, Divya and Natali will share their experiences alongside insights from other leaders in the CNCF ecosystem. They will discuss how contributions—like decision-making, completing essential tasks, and sharing knowledge—cultivate a community that fosters leadership. Discover how elevated permissions can be perceived as leadership roles, how contributors who answer questions become mentors, and recognize if you’re already demonstrating these leadership qualities.
Join along to learn about the leadership tasks Divya and Natali perform as SIG co-chairs and how you can leverage your skills to lead in your project.

InnerSource involves much more than just opening up the codebase for reuse & contribution. So much nuanced, time sensitive work is done by maintainers behind the scenes to nurture a community around an InnerSource project - answering queries from the community in a timely manner, finding & promoting project to right customers (potential contributors), maintaining regular communication & creating a safe space for community to provide feedback, to name a few. These activities require commitment by the maintainers. It may come naturally for those who are familiar with inclusive, open source ways of working. For teams new to InnerSource and/or not familiar with open source development models, there is a need for a mindset shift to open development models. What can prevent teams within the company from reusing and contributing to an InnerSource project? Will inclusivity matter while building an internal community? What factors in an InnerSource project affect this inclusiveness? Is there a difference in community building strategy between InnerSource and open source projects? In this talk, I will share my learnings on what works and what does not, while building internal communities.

Community management in open source is often a catch-all role, with one person juggling contributor engagement, content, events, and growth. But no single individual can—or should—do it all. As projects scale, a structured, team-based approach becomes essential.

This talk introduces a four-part framework for building an effective community team:

- Community Caretakers – Foster an inclusive, welcoming space, ensuring contributors feel heard, valued, and engaged.
- Content Creators – Develop documentation, blogs, and educational materials.
- Growth Drivers – Expand the community through outreach and advocacy.
- Organizers – Handle logistics, events, and data to keep things running smoothly.

We’ll explore why many projects struggle with community management, the pitfalls of prioritizing outreach over engagement, and how a scalable team structure prevents burnout, improves retention, and ensures long-term sustainability.

Whether you're launching or scaling a project, this session provides a practical roadmap for turning fragmented community efforts into a high-impact, sustainable team.

A profitable business is one of the best protections for commercial open source projects and communities that depend on them. This talk draws on the experience of companies that pulled it off to explain how to do it for your own projects. We’ll discuss commercial models that actually work, giving back to the community, and gracefully collecting money for free software. We'll also touch on topics for larger projects like foundations and taking VC funding. It is possible to balance a strong belief in open source communities with making payroll every two weeks. We've done it and will share our secrets.

Open Mobile Hub and LF Research partnered this year to explore the state of mobile application development in the face of a fragmented and monopolistic market with growing numbers of new devices to integrate. In this session, a panel of research team members from the Linux Foundation and Open Mobile Hub will discuss the findings of their research, examining the insights generated from interviews with mobile application experts across the community. Discussion topics will include hindrances to market entry, current pain points from integration with diverse services, and the APIs that developers care most about. Panelists will deliberate on, from a cross-platform perspective, the preferred frameworks to build mobile applications and the importance of open source in this context. An important use case in this discussion will be the development of wallets and payments ecosystems, with OpenWallet Foundation represented in the conversation. Grounded in the findings from this study, audience members will shift their thinking around accommodating a walled-garden approach to a more open, streamlined, and standardized application ecosystem.