>> [Voiceover] Live, from Los Angeles, it's theCUBE.
Covering Open Source Summit, North America 2017.
Brought to you by the Linux Foundation, and Red Hat.>>
Hello everyone, welcome back to our special Cube live coverage of Linux Foundation's Open
Source Summit North America here in LA, I'm John Furrier your co-host with Stu Mitiman.
Our next guest is Christine Corbett Moran, Ph.D. at astronomy, astrophysics post-doctoral
fellow at Caltech.>>
That's right, it's a mouthful.>>
Welcome to theCUBE, a mouthful but you're also keynoting, gave one of the talks opening
day today after Jim Zemlin, on tech and culture and politics.>>
That's right, yeah.>>
Which I thought was fantastic.
A lot of great notes there.
Connect the dots for us metaphorically speaking, between Caltech and tech and culture.
Why did you take that theme?>>
Sure.
So I've been involved in programming since I was an undergraduate in college.
I studied computer science and always attending more and more conferences.
hacker cons, security conferences, that sort of stuff.
Very early on what attracted me to technology was not just the nitty gritty nuts and bolts
of being able to solve a hard technical problem That was a lot of fun, but also the impact
that it could have.
So even as I went on a very academic track, I continued to make open source contributions.
Really seeking that kind of cultural impact.
And it wasn't something that I was real vocal about.
Talking about.
More talking about the technology side of things than the politics side of things.
But in the past few years, I think with the rise of fake news, with the rise of various
sorts of societal problems that we're seeing as a consequence of technology, I decided
I was going to try to speak more to that end of things.
So that we can focus on that as a technology community on what are we going to do with
this enormous power that we have.>>
And looking at that, a couple of direct questions for you, it was awesome talk.
You get a lot in there.
You were riffing some good stuff there with Jim as well.
But you had made a comment that you originally wanted to be lawyer, you went to MIT, and
you sort of got pulled in to the dark side>> That's right, yeah.>>
In programming.
As a former computer scientist myself, what got the bug take us through that moment.
Was it you just started coding and said damn I love coding?
What was the moment?>>
Sure, so I was always talented in math and science.
That was part of the reason why I was admitted to MIT and chose to go there.
My late father was a lawyer.
I didn't really have an example of a technologist in my life.
So, to me, career wise I was going to be a lawyer, but I was interested in technology.
What kind of lawyer is that?
Patent attorney.
So that was my career path.
MIT, some sort of engineering, then a patent attorney.
I got to MIT and realized I didn't have to be a attorney.
I could just do the fun stuff.
For some people that's the fun part.
For me it ended up being when I took my first computer science class.
Something that was fun, that I was good at, and that I really got addicted to kind of
the feedback loop of you always have a problem you're trying to solve.
It doesn't work, it doesn't work.
Then you get it to work and then it's great for a minute and then there's a new problem
to solve.>>
That's a great story.
I think it was very inspirational.
A lot of folks of watching will be inspired by that.
The other thing that inspired me in the key note was your comment about code and culture.>>
[Christine] Yeah.>>
I love this notion that code is now at a point where open source is a global phenomenon.
You mentioned Earth and space.>>
[Christine] Yeah.>>
You know and all this sort of space is now Linux based now.
But coding can shape culture.
Explain what you mean by that, because I think it's one of those things that people might
not see happening right now, but it is happening.
You starting to see the more inclusionary roles and the communities are changing.
Code is not just a tech thing.
Explain what you mean by code-shaping culture.>>
Well we can already that in terms of changing corporate culture.
So, for example, 10 or 15, 20 years ago it might be inconceivable to make contributions
that might benefit your corporate competitor.
And we all have corporate competitors whether that's a nation, the US having competitors.
Whether that's your local sports rivalry.
We all have competitors, but open source has really shown that you're relying on things
that you as a group, no matter what entity you are, you can't do as much as you can if
you share your contributions and benefit from people around the globe.
So that's one big way I've seen corporate culture in just every day culture change that
people have recognized.
Whether it's science, or corporate success, you can't do it alone.
There's no lone genius.
You really have to do it as a community.>>
As a collective too you mentioned some of the ruling class and you kind of referring
to not ruling class and open source, but also politics.
In that gerrymandering was a word you used.
We don't hear that often at conferences, but the idea of having more people exposed creates
more data.
Talk about what you mean by that because this is interesting.
This truly is a democratization opportunity.>>
[Christine] Absolutely.>>
If not handled properly could go away.>>
Yeah, I think am a little, I don't know if there's any Game of Thrones fans out there,
but you know at some point this season and previous seasons you know Daenerys Targaryen
is there and they're like well if you do this you're going to be the same evil person just
new face.
I think there's a risk of that in the open source community that if it ends up just being
a few people it's the same oligarchy.
The same sort of corruption just a different face to it.
I don't think open source will go that way just based on the people that I've met in
the community.
It is something that we actively have to guard against and make sure that that we have as
many people contributing to open source so that it's not just a few people who are capable
of changing the world and have the power to decide whether it's going to be A or B, but
as many people as possible.>>
Christine, the kind of monetization of open source is always an interesting topic at these
kind of shows.
You had an interesting piece talking about young people contributing.
You know contributing to open source.
It's not just oh yeah do it for free and expect them to do it.
Same thing in academia a lot of times.
Like oh hey, you're going to do that research and participate and write papers and you know
money is got to come somewhere to help fund this.
How does kind of the money fit into this whole discussion of open source?>>
So I think that's been one of the big successes of open source and we heard that from Jim
as well today.
It isn't you know some sort of unattainable in terms of achieving value for society.
When you do something of value, money is a reward for that.
The only question is how to distribute that award effectively to the community.
What I see sometimes in the community is there's this myth of everyone in open source getting
involved for just the fun of it and there's a huge amount of that.
I have done a bunch of contributions for free on the side, but I've always in the end gotten
some sort monetary reward for that down the line.
And someone talked today about that makes you more employable, et cetera.
That has left me with the time and freedom to continue that development.
I think it's a risk that as a young person who is going into debt for college to not
realize that that monetary reward will come or have it be so out of sync with their current
life situation that they're unable to get the time to develop the skills.
So, I don't think that money is a primary motivating factor for most people in the community,
but certainly as Linus said today as well.
When you don't have to worry about money that's when you do the really cool nitty-gritty things
that might be a risk that then grow to be that next big project.>>
It's an interesting comment you made about the US how they couldn't do potentially Linux
if it wasn't in the US.
It opens up your eyes and you say hmm we got to do better.>>
Yeah.>>
And so that brings up the whole notion of the radical comment of open source has always
been kind of radical and then you know when I was growing up it was a tier two alternative
to the big guys.
Now it's tier one.
I think the stakes are higher and the thing I'd like you to get your comment or reaction
to is how does the community take it to the next level when it's bigger than the United
States.
You have China saying no more ICOs, no more virtual currencies.
That's a potential issue there's a data point of many other things that can be on the global
scale.
Security, the Equifax hack, identity theft, truth in communities is now an issue, and
there's more projects more than ever.
So I made a comment on Twitter.
Whose shoulders do we stand on in the expression of standing on the shoulders before you.>>
[Christine] Yeah, you're standing on a sea.>>
So it's a discovery challenge of what do we do and how do we get to the truth.
What's your thoughts on that?>>
That is a large question.
I don't know if I can answer it in the short amount of time.
So to break it down a little bit.
One of the issues is that we're in this global society and we have different portions trying
to regulate what's next in technology.
For example, China with the ICOs, et cetera.
One of the phrases I used in my talk was that the math was on the people's side and I think
it is the case still with a lot of the technologies that are distributed.
It's very hard for one particular government, or nation state, to say hey we're going to
put this back in the box.
It's Pandora's box.
It's out in the open.
So that's a challenge as well for China and other people, the US.
If you have some harmful scenario, how to actually regulate that.
I don't know how that's going to work out moving forward.
I think it is the case in our community how to go to the next level, which is another
point that you brought up.
One thing that Linus also brought up today, is one of the reasons why it's great to collaborate
with corporations is that often they put kind of the finishing touches on a product to really
make it to the level that people can engage with it easily.
That kind of on ramping to new technology is very easy and that's because of corporations
is very incentivized monetarily to do that, whereas the open source community isn't necessarily
incentivized to do that.
Moreover, a lot of that work that final 1% of a project for the polish is so much more
difficult.
It's not the fun technical element.
So a lot of the open source contributors, myself included, aren't necessarily very excited
about that.
However, what we saw in Signal, which is a product that it is a non-profit it is something
that isn't necessarily for corporate gain, but that final polish and making it very usable
did mean that a lot more people are using the product.
So in terms of we as a community I think we have to figure out how keeping our radical
governance structure, how to get more and more projects to have that final polish.
And that'll really take the whole community.>>
Let them benefit from it in a way that they're comfortable with now it's not a proprietary
lock and it's more of only 10% of most of the applications are uniquely differentiated
with open source.
Question kind of philosophic thought experiment, or just philosophical question, I'll say astronomy
and astrophysics is an interesting background.
You've got a world of connected devices, the IoT, Internet of Things, includes people.
So, you know I'm sitting there looking at the stars, oh that's the Apache Project, lots
of stars in that one.
You have these constellations of communities, if you will out there to kind of use the metaphor.
And then you got astrophysics, the Milky Way, a lot of gravity around me.
You almost take a metaphor talks to how communities work.
So let's get your thoughts.
How does astrophysics and astronomy relate to some of the dynamics in how self-governing
things work?>>
I'd love to see that visualization by the way, of the Apache Project and the Milky Way,>>
[John] Which one's the Big Dipper?>>
That sounds gorgeous, you guys should definitely pursue that.>>
John you're going to find something at Caltech, you know our next fellowship.>>
Argued who always did the Big Dipper or not, but you know.>>
I think some of the challenges are similar in the sciences in that people initially get
into it because it's something they're curious about.
It's something they love and that's an innate human instinct.
People have always gazed up at the stars.
People have always wondered how things work.
How your computer works?
You know let me figure that out.
That said, ultimately, they need to eat and feed their families and that sort of stuff.
And we often see in the astrophysics community incredibly talented people at some stage in
their career leaving for some sort of corporate job.
And retaining talent is difficult because a lot of people are forced to move around
the globe, to different centers in academia, and that lifestyle can be difficult.
The pay often isn't as rewarding as it could be.
So to make some sort of parallel between that community and the open source community, retaining
talent in open source, if you want people to not necessarily work in open source under
Microsoft, under a certain corporation only, but to kind of work more generally.
That is something that ultimately, we have to distribute the rewards from that to the
community.>>
It's kind of interesting.
The way I always thought the role of the corporation and open source was always trying to change
the game.
You know, you mentioned gerrymandering.
The old model was we got to influence a slow that down so that we can control it.>>
So John we've had people around the globe and even that have made it to space on theCUBE
before.
I don't know that we've ever had anybody that's been to the South Pole before on theCUBE.
So Christine, maybe tell us a little about how's technology you know working in the South
Pole and what can you tell our audience about it?>>
Sure.
So I spent 10 and half months at the South Pole.
Not just Antarctica, but literally the middle of the continent, the geographic South Pole.
There the US has a research base that houses up to about 200 people during the austral
summer months when it's warm that is maybe minus 20 degrees or so.
During the cold winter months, it gets completely dark and planes have a very difficult time
coming in and out so they close off the station to a skeleton crew to keep the science experiments
down there running.
There are several astrophysical experiments, several telescopes, as well as many research
projects, and that skeleton crew was what I was a part of.
46 people and I was tasked with running the telescope down there and looking at some of
the echoes of the Big Bang.
And I was basically a telescope doctor.
So I was on call much like a sys-admin might be.
I was responsible for the kind of IT support for the telescope, but also just physical,
something physically broke, kind of replacing that.
And that meant I could be woken up in the middle of night because of some kind of package
update issue or anything like that and I'd have to hike out in minus a 100 degrees to
fix this, sometimes.
Oftentimes, there was IT support on the station so we did have internet running to the telescope
which was about a kilometer away.
It took me anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes to walk out there.
So if it didn't require on-site support sometimes I could do the work in my pajamas to kind
of fix that.
So it was a kind of traditional computer support role in a very untraditional environment.>>
That's an IoT device isn't it.>>
Yeah.>>
Stu and I are always interested in the younger generation as we both have kids who are growing
up in this new digital culture.
What's your feeling in terms of the younger generation that are coming up because people
going to school now, digital natives, courseware, online isn't always the answer, people learn
differently.
Your thoughts on onboarding the younger generation and for the inclusion piece which is super
important whether it's women in tech and/or just people just getting more people into
computer science.
What are some of things that you see happening that excite you and what are some of the things
that get you concerned?>>
Yeah, so I had the chance I mentioned a little in my talk to teach 12 high school students
how to computer program this summer.
Some of them have been through computer programming classes at their colleges, or at their high
schools, some not.
What I saw when I was in high school was a huge variety of competence in the high school
teachers that I had.
Some were amazing and inspiring.
Others because in the US you need a degree in education, but not necessarily a degree
in the field that you're teaching.
I think that there's a huge lack of people capable of teaching the next generation who
are working at the high school level.
It's not that there's a huge lack of people who are capable, kind of anyone at this conference
could sit down and help a high schooler get motivated and self-study.
So I think teacher training is something that I'm concerned about.
In terms of things I'm very excited about, we're not quite there yet with the online
courses, but the ability to acquire that knowledge online is very, very exciting.
In addition, I think we're waking up as a society to the fact that four year college
isn't necessarily the best preparation for every single field.
For some fields it's very useful.
For other fields, particularly engineering, maybe even computer science engineering, apprenticeships
or practical experience could be as valuable if not more valuable for less expense.
So I'm excited about new initiatives, these coding bootcamps.
I think there's a difficulty in regulation in that you don't know for a new coding bootcamp.
Is it just trying to get people's money?
Is it really going to help their careers?
So we're in a very frothy time there, but I think ultimately how it will shake out is
it's going to help people enter technology jobs quicker.>>
You know there's a percentage of jobs that aren't even invented yet.
So there's AI.
You see self-driving cars.
These things are easy indicators that hey society's changing.>>
Yeah.
And it's also good to be helpful for a professionals like us, older professionals who want to keep
up in this ever growing field and I don't necessarily want to go back for a second Ph.D,
but I'll absolutely take an online course in something I didn't see in my undergrad.>>
I mean you can get immersed in anything these days online.
It's great, there's a lot of community behind it.
Christine thanks so much for sharing.
Congratulations on a great keynote.
Thanks for spending some time with us.>>
[Christine] Yeah, thanks for having me.>>
It's theCUBE live coverage here in LA for Open Source Summit in North America.
I'm John Furrier, Stu Miniman, and we'll be right back with more live coverage after this
short break.