Emma Irwin

I'm on my way home now from CHAOSScon and FOSDEM, where I ran two complimentary sessions called 'AI Alignment for Open Source' . AI alignment is the effort to design Artificial Intelligence systems so their goals, behaviors, and decisions are consistent with human values and intentions, making

I'll be at CHAOSScon (January 29), the Open Source Policy Summit (January 30 although still on the waitlist), and FOSDEM (February 1-2). If you're around, I'd love to connect over coffee ~ learn from and share with you! Digital Sovereignty in Canada There's

The question of 'how to moderate AI contributions' is a hot topic: My OSS project is over two years old and leverages AI if the user chooses to use it. However, this also seems to attract vibe coders who submit pull requests that absolutely do not follow coding

I started this post intending to 'look back' (a year in review), but found my spirit lowering as I described loss of power and fear - what has felt like an extraction of open culture, value and effort in service of the already very powerful; the role of

We're in a strange moment for open source careers. Many people who built the infrastructure, shaped the standards, crafted the policies, and nurtured the communities that open source depends on are increasingly being hit by layoffs and a shifting grant landscape. In parallel there's a rallying

Or How we might build on Drupal Credits approach to standardize attribution Evaluating open source contributions, especially at the organizational level,remains frustratingly opaque. Who's actually investing in the projects we all depend on? Right now, there's no reliable way to say definitively. That lack of

The open source origin story describes a time when transparency, collaboration, and inclusion helped us build software that shifted power and value over the tools and infrastructure we depend on away from corporations and toward people and communities. It worked. Not without its own inequities and blind spots, but it

Despite countless calls for open source sustainability, there's still no clear pathway for maintainers to express needs and receive help. In my personal time, I've built a working proposal for how this problem might be solved using a community-based approach. It's called Open Source

Launching next week: Open Source Wishlist Every open source security incident teaches us something new; but more often than not we are reminded of past lessons. Projects and maintainers need help, succession plans, modern security practices, trusted governance as well as moderation and funding strategies. Minimally. Despite years of experiments