Recently I had the chance to interview John Mertic, Director of Strategic Partnership at Linux foundation, who is attending the Open Source Summit 2019 in Lyon, France.
What is Open Mainframe Project all about?
The Open Mainframe Project (OMP) is a focal point for deployment and use of Linux and Open Source in a mainframe computing environment. There is incredible interest and energy around updating mainframe technologies, but it is critical that these efforts are done in a vendor-neutral, open source environment.
The advantages in data integrity, security, availability, and scalability of mainframes is obvious, but connecting new skill sets in a mainframe environment is not always easy. The Open Mainframe Project’s growing list of projects (ADE, Atom, Feilong, TerseDecompress, Zorow, Zowe) are addressing a wide range of technical issues to make mainframes more widely available to developers who are accustomed to application server development or widely used languages/frameworks like Node.js or REST APIs, so they can develop for mainframe systems.
Exactly what are you looking to solve?
Open Mainframe Project is supporting open source projects that are developing shared tool sets and resources. Zowe, as just one example, is a software framework that provides solutions that allow development and operations teams to securely manage, control, script and develop on the mainframe like any other cloud platform. Zowe is the first open source project based on z/OS.
A full list of the projects and the problems that they solve are listed here: https://www.openmainframeproject.org/projects
What your objectives behind the project?
Fundamentally, we want to include a new generation of developers in mainframe technology. The path to that includes leveraging open source technologies, the power of community, and actively reaching out with mentorships and other programs increase skills and awareness. The Open Mainframe Project mentorship program helps students become contributors to open source on mainframe, as well as develop the skills for a long career in technology.
Our vision is to make sure that open source on the mainframe becomes the standard for enterprise class systems and applications. This is a tall order, and we believe building a community that supports these efforts is a critical component.
From our mission statement, the Open Mainframe project is “focused on eliminating barriers to open source adoption on the mainframe; Demonstrating value of the mainframe on technical and business levels; and strengthening collaboration points and resources for the community to thrive.”
Who are your target audience?
Enterprise developers who want access to the mainframe, but thought that was outside of their skill set. It is not! As well as students, software developers, engineers and passionate mainframe users who want to learn more about modern mainframes.
The readers would also like to learn about you, can you give a brief presentation of yourself?
I love what I do. I’ve been in open source for over two decades, including being a contributor, a community leader, and also as part of open source foundation leadership and strategy. My passion is bringing open source to new audiences and industries, for example in the visual effects industry though the Academy Software Foundation. I pay especially close attention to supporting diversity in open source communities. In particular, I’m interested in those suffering from the effects of trauma and how to bridge differences. I’m also a kids soccer coach, and we just won our most recent game, right near the end of the season!
What are your plans for the future with the project?
Our primary focus for 2020 is growing the ecosystem of hosted and supported projects, with a focus on building sustainable projects through the project lifecycles developed by the Open Mainframe Project TAC (https://github.com/openmainframeproject/tac/blob/master/process/proposal_process.md). This path puts Open Mainframe Project on track to continue its growth towards being major umbrella foundation, similar to CNCF and Hyperledger.
What will you be talking about at this event? (brief taster)
We are thrilled to bring all of 2020 mentees to the event, where they will be presenting on the projects they worked on over the past few months. https://www.openmainframeproject.org/blog/2019/06/05/join-us-in-welcoming-the-2019-open-mainframe-project-interns.
There is also a great talk on Zowe being led by Jiri Aichler from Broadcom which will dig into the project internals and how to get involved. More information about the OMP sessions can be found here: https://www.openmainframeproject.org/event/open-source-summit-embedded-linux-conference-europe.
What excites you the most about this event?
We love the cross collaboration across communities that happens at events like this. Being in Europe brings us to a new audience that comes with different experiences and insights that help increase the diversity within the communities we serve.
I usually ask this question to get others as motivated as you in your career. Which influencers and websites do you follow to keep up to date with the latest developments?
I tend to look broadly on news related to open source, focusing on sites like Hacker News to watch top trends and find some interesting projects.
Finally, how can people find out more about what you are working on?
You can get involved with the Open Mainframe Project immediately, on whatever level interests you most. Here are some of our resources available to you:
Read through our overview presentation: https://github.com/openmainframeproject/foundation/tree/master/overview_deck
Read through our blog: https://www.openmainframeproject.org/news/blog
Listen to “I’m am a Maintainer” Podcast: https://www.openmainframeproject.org/news/podcast
Proposal a project: https://github.com/openmainframeproject/tac/blob/master/process/proposal_process.md
Become a member: https://www.openmainframeproject.org/about/join
Join the community! We’d love to have your input!
About John:
Under his leadership, he has helped ASWF, ODPi, Open Mainframe Project, and R Consortium accelerate open source innovation and transform industries. John has an open source career spanning two decades, both as a contributor to projects such as SugarCRM and PHP, and in open source leadership roles at SugarCRM, OW2, and OpenSocial. With an extensive open source background, he is a regular speaker at various Linux Foundation and other industry trade shows each year. John is also an avid writer and has authored two books “The Definitive Guide to SugarCRM: Better Business Applications” and “Building on SugarCRM” as well as published articles on IBM Developerworks, Apple Developer Connection, and PHP Architect.
About Open Source Summit:
OSS is the leading conference for developers, architects and other technologists – as well as open source community and industry leaders – to collaborate, share information, learn about the latest technologies and gain a competitive advantage by using innovative open solutions.
For more info about the Summit: https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/events/open-source-summit-europe-2019/
See more articles by Rick here.
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