>> From the palace of fine arts in San Francisco
it's the Cube.
Covering AT&T Spark, now here's Jeff Frick.
>> Hey, welcome back everybody,
Jeff Frick here with the Cube.
We're at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco
at the AT&T Spark event and it's all about 5G.
5G is this huge revolution and I haven't got a definitive
number but it's something on the order of hundred X,
improvement of speed and data throughput.
There's a lot of excitement but one of the things that
is less talked about here but it was actually up on the
keynote was really the roll of opensource
and AT&T talked a lot about opensource and how important
it is and really redefining the company around the speed of
software development versus
the speed of hardware development
and that's a big piece of it.
We're excited to have somebody who knows all about
opensource our next guest he's Jeff McCaffer.
He's the Director of Opensource Progress Officer at
Microsoft, did I get that right Jeff?
>> No, well it said Opensource Programs Officer.
>> Programs Officer.
>> Yep.
>> So you do all about opensource.
>> Yeah.
>> Well first off, welcome.
>> Thank you very much Jeff, it's good to be here.
>> So Microsoft, you know, no one would have ever thought,
I mean, you know, I'm probably dating myself.
15 years ago with that Microsoft would be a big component
of opensource but in fact they're a
huge proponent of opensource.
>> Absolutely, even just not so long ago you know,
it was not the foremost in everybody's mind that
Microsoft would be doing opensource.
But now it's a core part of our company.
It's a core part of how we work
and our engagement with the rest of the industries.
So it's really growing and it's continuing to grow.
>> So how did it kind of get there and
what are some of the real key components
that you have to worry about in your role to managing,
you know, participating in all these various communities
all over the place.
>> Yeah, well I mean it's been a long road
but it's really the way software's happening today,
you mention in the intro about the dispute of software
versus hardware and software's just going so fast
and you know, you can aspire to be world class
but when everybody else starts there with opensource,
you know it's really hard to start from zero get to there.
So we're really happy to be you know, using opensource
and contributing.
One of the real challenges we've had going forward is the
scale like simply we've got literally millions of uses of
opensource across all of our products and services.
And managing that, keeping track of it, engaging with those,
all those communities and
everything is a real big challenge.
So we've been building paulo season tools and
changing the culture to understand that you know,
you need to engage, push fixes back,
all those sorts of things.
And then when we look at our releasing our software,
we have thousands of opensource repositories on GitHub,
thousands of developers at
Microsoft working on GitHub repositories,
our own and others in the community.
So it's just managing all of that as being a
really big challenge.
>> Right and it's interesting cause the opensource projects
themselves, we've seen at time and time again.
You know,
they fork and they go a lot of different directions.
There's sometimes disagreement about direction.
>> Sure.
>> And prioritization, so you've got a kind of manage that
within the opensource thread but as well as within,
you know, where those products play a role in your products.
>> Right, right and we've taken a sort of federated model
in the company, we're very diverse as you know right
and so my team sort of helps put guidelines in place for
for project teams to run and
then those project teams run their own program.
How they engage with opensource, however they want to
and sort of at the level they want to that matches their
business requirements.
So it ranges everywhere from people who are fully opensource
to folks who are just you know, using a little bit of stuff
here and there within their products.
>> Right, what if you could speak a little to opensource and
the role that it plays in employee happiness,
employee retention cause you know,
there's so much goodness and you see it at these shows.
>> Absolutely.
>> Where there's particular contributors that you know,
they're rock stars in their community.
They've made super important contributions.
>> Yeah.
>> They've managed the community
and I always think back, if you're the person managing
that person back at the office you know,
how much time do they put into their opensource effort?
>> Sure.
>> How much time do they put in their company efforts?
How much of their time is really the company software
that's built on top of that opensource.
>> Yeah.
>> And how do you manage that because it is a really
important piece for a lot of people's personas.
>> Absolutely.
>> And their self values.
>> Yeah, well and there's been a lot of research that says
also that high performing teams, one of the traits of
high performing teams is engaging in opensource.
And at the personal level like individuals,
there's kind of a different set of possibilities there,
you know, either you're engaging in opensource for part of
your product work, right,
so that's sponsored by the company.
Or you might be doing some things on the side or
some tangential range in between there, right?
>> Right.
>> And sort of all of those you need to drive to the
appropriate level, the folks who are working on it day to
day for their, for the company.
There's some really interesting dynamics that can get setup.
Super exciting for the team, sometimes it can get a little
waylaid maybe but you know, you want to keep them,
keep them on task.
But then also the, the folks who are doing it of their own
volition, like on their own time and that sort of thing.
That also brings back a bunch of energy
and everything into the workplace.
New technologies that they'll discover in their area
and they'll bring back the energy and the excitement about
engaging back to the regular team.
>> Right.
>> So there's lots of possibilities there.
>> So what brings you here,
what brings you to AT&T Spark today?
>> Well they invited me to speak on a panel earlier today
about opensource and the future of opensource
and so I had a, there were a couple of other people
from Linux Foundation and from AT&T.
So we had a good conversation on stage.
>> Yeah it's pretty interesting how,
pretty much all these projects you know,
eventually get put in to the Linux Foundation.
That they, you know, they've just kind of become this
defacto steward for a wide variety of opensource projects.
>> Yeah, well there's a number of different foundations,
Linux Foundation's certainly one of the better known ones,
the Eclipse Foundation, Apache.
>> Right, Apache yeah, right.
>> Been around lots of times doing lots of good things.
So there's a ton of amazing projects out there
in all of these foundations.
And it's just super exciting to see them all be engaging
like in this sort of cohesive right,
and with a good governance model.
>> Right.
>> Yep.
>> So I'll give you the last word, one of my favorite lines
always that's opensource is opensource is free like a puppy.
>> Yes, it's totally free like a puppy.
>> So, you know, you're living in that world,
what is one of the things about opensource that
most people miss, one of the really positive attributes
that most people just don't see.
And then what's one of the big, you know kind of biggest,
kind of ongoing challenges,
that's just part of operating in this opensource world?
>> Well I mean, I phrase it in challenges and opportunities,
right, there are obviously lots of challenges,
like I was saying with scale and managing security.
And the culture change that goes around collaboration
and that sort of thing.
The opportunities, I think are boundless really,
I mean there's, one of the most gratifying things
that you can see as an opensource project,
is people take your technology and
use it in ways you never imagined.
Right, so there's, we can think of that as our products too
and we take our products and they've got opensource APIs.
They've got opensource frameworks and such.
And people take them and do amazing things with them
that we never imagined possible.
And that just,
that part is really exciting and invigorating.
>> Yeah, alright Jeff well thanks for taking a few minutes.
>> Sure.
>> Congrats on all your work and I guess we'll see you in
Orlando in a month or so.
>> Okay, possibly.
>> Alright, he's Jeff, I'm Jeff,
we're all Jeffs here and we're at the
Palace of Fine Arts at AT&T Spark,
thanks for watching, see you next time.
(upbeat music)