Open at Intel

From Fear to Confidence: Navigating Open Source Security

In this episode, we welcomed back Christopher Robinson, aka CRob, to discuss his extensive work in the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF). We chatted about the importance of open source software security, detailing the various initiatives aimed at improving security standards. CRob shares insights into the working groups and projects within OpenSSF, focusing on their efforts to educate developers and security researchers. We also touched on the upcoming SOSS Fusion event, and its role in fostering community engagement and collaboration in open source security. We encourage listeners to join these endeavors and contribute to solving significant security challenges. 

 

00:00 Welcome Back, CRob!
00:52 Diving into Open Source Security
01:20 Understanding the OpenSSF
04:18 Key Personas in Open Source Security
09:44 Educational Resources for Developers
12:17 Getting Involved with OpenSSF Projects
15:27 Upcoming Event: SOSS Fusion
17:47 The Value of Open Source Events
21:48 Final Thoughts and Future Plans

Resources:

OpenSSF

SOSS Fusion

Guest:

Christopher Robinson (aka CRob) is the Director of Security Communications at Intel Product Assurance and Security. CRob is a 41st level Dungeon Master and a 24th level Securityologist.  He has worked at several Fortune 500 companies with experience in the Financial, Medical, Legal, and Manufacturing verticals, and spent 6 years helping lead the Red Hat Product Security team as their Program Architect. CRob has been a featured speaker at Gartner’s Identity and Access Management Summit, RSA, BlackHat, DefCon, Derbycon, the (ISC)2 World Congress, and was named a "Top Presenter" for the 2017 and 2018 Red Hat Summits. CRob was the President of the Cleveland (ISC)2 Chapter, and is also a children's Cybersecurity Educator with the (ISC)2 Safe-and-Secure program. He holds a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification, Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional (CSSLP) certification, and The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) certification. He is heavily involved in the Forum for Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) PSIRT SIG, collaborating in writing the FIRST PSIRT Services Framework, as well as the PSIRT Maturity Assessment framework. CRob is also the lead/facilitator of the Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) Vulnerability Disclosures and OSS Developer Best Practices working groups as well as a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) member.  He enjoys hats, herding cats, and moonlit walks on the beach.

Understanding Milvus: The Power of a Vector Database

In this episode, Steven Batifol, a Developer Advocate at Zilliz, discusses his role in fostering the MLOps community, the significance of vector databases like Milvus, and the importance of open source ecosystems. We covered the excitement of developing creative demos, the challenges facing developers in the AI space, and the rapid advancements in LLMs and AI agents. We even learn some trivia about Germany and fax machines! 

 

00:00 Introduction

00:16 Developer Advocacy

01:02 The MLOps Community in Berlin

01:51 Joining Zilliz and Working with Milvus

04:46 Fun and Creative Demos

10:21 Challenges in the AI/ML Community

13:00 The Importance of Open Source

17:02 Upcoming Open Source Summit Presentation

20:14 Future of AI and LLMs

24:24 Conclusion

 

Guest:

Stephen Batifol is a Developer Advocate at Zilliz. He previously worked as a Machine Learning Engineer at Wolt, where he created and worked on the ML Platform, and previously as a Data Scientist at Brevo. Stephen studied Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence. He is a founding member of the MLOps.community Berlin group, where he organizes Meetups and hackathons. He enjoys boxing and surfing.

 

What is RAG?

Katherine Druckman talks to fellow Intel Open Source Evangelist Ezequiel Lanza about building and deploying AI applications using Retrieval Augmented Generation. We break down RAG concepts and processes involved in providing additional context to general AI models for specialized use cases.

Guest:

Passionate about helping people discover the exciting world of artificial intelligence, Ezequiel Lanza is a frequent AI conference presenter and the creator of use cases, tutorials, and guides that help developers adopt open source AI tools.

 

Unlocking Developer Potential

Katherine speaks with Demetris Cheatham, the Chief of Staff to the CEO of GitHub, about her unique perspective on the open source landscape. The discussion covers her experiences in various sectors and the impactful 'All In' project created to elevate developers from underrepresented backgrounds. They highlight the significance of community, the power of relationships, and the pivotal role of natural language and AI in making coding more accessible globally. The talk also addresses critical challenges like the digital divide, funding for diversity programs, and the importance of evolving diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in tech.

 

00:00 Introduction
00:26 Connecting Through Open Source
02:02 Role and Responsibilities at GitHub
05:06 Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
09:16 Challenges in Computer Science Education
12:51 Equity and Systemic Change
16:21 The Journey to a Billion Developers
24:07 Building Relationships in Open Source
31:37 Final Thoughts and Takeaways

 

Sitting on GitHub’s Executive Leadership team, Demetris Cheatham is currently the Chief of Staff for the CEO of GitHub, where she acts as the CEO’s trusted partner to move all of software development forward. Demetris is particularly passionate about the evolving nature of open source in the age of AI. Before her time as COS to the CEO, Demetris was Senior Director for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Strategy at GitHub, the Global Diversity and Inclusion at Lead at Red Hat, and was the first woman and youngest Executive Director to lead the National Bar Association, the United States’ oldest and largest international network of over 65,000 predominantly African-American attorneys and judges.

AI Development and Guardrails

Ezequiel Lanza and Katherine Druckman from Intel's Open Ecosystem team chat with Daniel Whitenack, founder and CEO of Prediction Guard. They discuss the importance and implementation of guardrails for securing generative AI platforms and cover the operational challenges and security considerations of running AI models, the concept of responsible AI, and practical advice for integrating guardrails into AI workflows. Additionally, the conversation touches on multi-model integrations, open source contributions, and the significance of vendor-neutral frameworks in achieving a secure and efficient AI ecosystem.

00:00 Introduction
01:28 What is Prediction Guard?
03:31 Understanding Guardrails in AI
06:49 Security Risks and Responsible AI
13:30 Open Source and Model Security
19:00 Open Platform for Enterprise AI
20:26 Contributing to Open Source Projects
27:12 Final Thoughts

 

Guest:

Daniel Whitenack (aka Data Dan) is a Ph.D. trained data scientist and founder of Prediction Guard. He has more than ten years of experience developing and deploying machine learning models at scale, and he has built data teams at two startups and an international NGO with 4000+ staff. Daniel co-hosts the Practical AI podcast, has spoken at conferences around the world (ODSC, Applied Machine Learning Days, O’Reilly AI, QCon AI, GopherCon, KubeCon, and more), and occasionally teaches data science/analytics at Purdue University.

The Fork in the Road: Understanding Community Dynamics

Taylor Dolezal from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation discusses his role as the Head of Ecosystem, working closely with end-users implementing CNCF projects. He shares his open source origin story, tracing back to high school programming experiences. We touched on community dynamics, experiences with project forks, and the evolving landscape of AI and its intersection with open source. We also discuss the importance of sustainability in open source communities and the critical role of vendor neutrality.

00:00 Introduction
01:45 Open Source Origin Story
11:04 Project Forks and Community Dynamics
17:20 HashiCorp and OpenTofu: A Fork in the Road
19:46 Navigating the AI Frontier
23:28 The Challenges of AI Standardization
26:17 The Importance of Vendor Neutrality
28:02 Balancing Priorities in Open Source
29:51 Sustaining Open Source Communities

 

Guest:

Taylor Dolezal navigates the cloud native universe with a knack for puns and a keen eye for psychology. Living in the heart of LA, he blends tech innovation with mental insights, one punny cloud at a time. Avid reader, thinker, and cloud whisperer.

Open Source is Critical Infrastructure

In this episode, we chat with Luis Villa, co-founder of Tidelift, about everything from supporting open source maintainers to coding with AI. Luis, a former programmer turned attorney, shares stories from his early days of discovering Linux, to his contributions to various projects and organizations including Mozilla and Wikipedia. We discussed the critical importance of open source software, the challenges faced by maintainers, including burnout, and how Tidelift works toward compensating maintainers. We also explore broader themes about the sustainability of open source projects, the impact of AI on code generation and legal concerns, and the need for a more structured and community-driven approach to long-term project maintenance.

 

00:00 Introduction
03:20 Challenges in Open Source Sustainability
07:43 Tidelift's Role in Supporting Maintainers
14:18 The Future of Open Source and AI
32:44 Optimism and Human Element in Open Source
35:38 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

 

Guest:

Luis Villa is co-founder and general counsel at Tidelift. Previously he was a top open source lawyer advising clients, from Fortune 50 companies to leading startups, on product development, open source licensing, and other matters.  Luis is also an experienced open source community leader with organizations like the Wikimedia Foundation, where he served as deputy general counsel and then led the Foundation’s community engagement team. Before the Wikimedia Foundation, he was with Greenberg Traurig, where he counseled clients such as Google on open source licenses and technology transactions, and Mozilla, where he led the revision of the Mozilla Public License.  He has served on the boards at the Open Source Initiative and the GNOME Foundation, and been an invited expert on the Patents and Standards Interest Group of the World Wide Web Consortium and the Legal Working Group of OpenStreetMap.  Recent speaking engagements include RedMonk’s Monki Gras developer event, FOSDEM, and as a faculty member at the Practicing Law Institute’s Open Source Software programs. Luis holds a JD from Columbia Law School and studied political science and computer science at Duke University.

 

When You Have to Fork a Project: All About Valkey

In this episode, Madelyn Olson, a maintainer of the Valkey project and an AWS engineer, joins us to discuss the life of an open source maintainer and the experiences surrounding the launch of the Valkey project. We cover the pivotal moments that led to the creation of Valkey, a Redis fork, following the Redis license change. Madelyn also shares insights on the challenges and pressures of being a maintainer, strategies to manage burnout, and the significance of creating a community-driven, open source project. The episode highlights the technical advancements and future directions for Valkey, working to leverage modern hardware, manage large clusters, and expand the extension ecosystem.

 

00:00 Introduction

00:48 Redis License Change and Birth of Valkey

06:17 Maintainer Life and Burnout

14:54 Forking a Repository: When and Why

19:30 Community-Driven Open Source Projects

21:32 Future of Valkey and Closing Remarks

 

Guest:

Madelyn Olson is a co-creator and maintainer of Valkey, a high-performance key-value datastore, and Principal Engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS). She focuses on building secure and highly reliable features, with a passion in working with open-source communities.