Upstream is June 7. Will you be there?

We’re busy finalizing the agenda for Upstream, which takes place virtually June 7. And wow, do we have some great talks in the lineup. We’ll be sharing the full agenda soon, but let’s dig into the theme and keynote speakers a little bit first.

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This year’s theme is the accidental supply chain, which is a topic we’ve been thinking about a lot here at Tidelift, especially amid all the recent attention on improving cybersecurity from government and industry around the world. Most open source maintainers did not sign up to be a part of a global software supply chain; instead, they started working on open source to fulfill a need, or to learn new skills, or for a myriad of other reasons.

But as more organizations are focused on the security of open source, and governments around the world increase their focus on cybersecurity, open source maintainers are being asked to do more and more. 

The good news: this increased attention on open source software security will hopefully produce more resilient software. The bad news: Who exactly do we expect to do that work? The unpaid volunteer maintainer who finds themselves a part of an accidental supply chain?

That’s the theme we’re exploring this year at Upstream, and we have an excellent group of keynote speakers who will guide us through the day. 

• Luis Villa, Tidelift co-founder, will kick off the day by introducing the accidental supply chain theme—and give us some ideas for how the open source community can make it a little less...well... accidental.
• Nithya Ruff, head of the open source program office at Amazon, asks the question: How do we live in this world of unintended relationships between supplier and consumer, and who is responsible for making it work for both?
• Allan Friedman, senior advisor and strategist at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, will share a unique perspective as someone within the agency responsible for strengthening cybersecurity and infrastructure protection.
• Julia Ferraioli, co-founder of Open Source Stories, will discuss how the sustainability and supply chain conversations oftentimes leave out a critical factor in the equation: the people and social systems without which there would be no open source.
• Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation, will discuss how well-meaning attempts to regulate the global open source phenomenon run the risk of killing the very thing that made it successful in the first place.

Interwoven between these keynotes, we’ll share talks from maintainers and enterprise technologists alike. We are still finetuning the agenda, but, spoiler alert: it’s shaping into an epic day you won’t want to miss.

The first 500 U.S.-based registrants are eligible for a free t-shirt. Stock is running low, so don’t hesitate. RSVP now!