Why Open Source Keeps Winning
Open source has always been the starting line for software innovation, but the pace in 2025 is unprecedented. From AI agents to edge runtimes to climate-tech dashboards, the newest ideas begin life in public repositories where anyone can fork, remix, and improve them. Investing in that shared commons means funding more than code—it underwrites a global R&D engine.
The Hosts Behind the Mic
The podcast is hosted by a rotating crew of long-time open source contributors: Cassidy Williams, Kedasha Kerr, Andrea Griffiths, and Abby Cabunoc Mayes. Each brings a distinct angle—community building, open science, developer education, and building in public—to conversations about what’s exciting and challenging in the ecosystem today.
In the first episode, the hosts introduce themselves and trace how they got started. Kedasha discusses the paradox of creating beginner content in a field already flooded with it, while Cassidy recounts how overhearing a conversation as a teenager first sparked her interest in code. The episode also answers a pressing question: how do you run a hackathon on a plane?
Projects on the Radar
The hosts also spotlight a few open source projects they’ve been watching this week:
- Anime.JS — a JavaScript animation library built for visual creativity.
- Docs — a collaborative document editor developed jointly by the French and German governments.
- CSS Zero — a no-build frontend starter kit aiming to simplify web development.
The show runs every two weeks, featuring stories from maintainers, contributors, and builders. Upcoming guests include Jason Lengstorf, who produces developer-focused TV content, and Keeley Hammond, a core maintainer of Electron. Future episodes will cover the Model Context Protocol (MCP), exploring how it builds on the history of open standards to make AI tools more transparent and interoperable.
