Lessons We Learned Working with Open Source at Microsoft

2021 CROSS Research Symposium Keynote

Monday, October 11, 2021

9:15am-10:00am

(Symposium Registration required for access to talk)

Abstract:

Come learn about Open Source Programs Offices and how to change the culture of an organization, create open source software policies and implement a compliance toolkit. Learn how to incorporate open source software into strategic decisions and run entire projects in the open, including product management.


Over the past decade, Microsoft’s approach to open source software has changed. Microsoft went from using no open source to leading some of the top open source software projects on GitHub. Along the way, Microsoft learned how to create an effective open source software policy, run entire projects in the open, including product management, strike a balance between open source expertise and business strategy, bring the best of our diversity and inclusion to open source and create easy to use compliance tooling. We are still learning, so we’d like to share our experiences and hear from yours!

Bio:

Stormy Peters is Director of the Open Source Programs Office at Microsoft. She works with people and teams across Microsoft to help make sure Microsoft uses and contributes to open source software in a way that makes it possible for the world to achieve more through open source software.

Stormy is passionate about open source software and educates companies and communities on how open source software is changing the software industry. She is a compelling speaker who engages her audiences during and after her presentations.

She has given keynotes at 4,000+ person events such as OSCON, PyCon and LinuxConf Australia as well as talks to small groups. You can find videos of her talks online.

Before joining Microsoft, Stormy held leadership positions in open source and developer roles at Red Hat where she was head of the Community Leads, the Cloud Foundry Foundation where she was VP of Developer Relations and Mozilla where she led Developer Relations. Previously, she served as executive director of the GNOME Foundation and at OpenLogic where she set up their OpenLogic Expert Community. Stormy graduated from Rice University with a B.A. in Computer Science.