FLOSS Weekly

FLOSS Weekly

Hosting	Leo Laporte, Randal L. Schwartz, Jono Bacon & formerly Chris DiBona
Language	English
RSS	http://leoville.tv/podcasts/floss.xml
Length	60 minutes +/-
Audio format	mp3
Debut	April 7, 2006
Genre	Interview
Provider	TWiT.tv
Website	http://www.twit.tv/floss

FLOSS Weekly is a free software / open source (FLOSS) themed podcast from the TWiT Network. The show premiered on April 7, 2006, and features prominent guests from the free software/open source community. It is hosted by Leo Laporte; his cohost for the first seventeen episodes was Chris DiBona and subsequently Randal Schwartz.

Many influential people from the free and open source community have appeared on the show, including Kent Beck, Ward Cunningham, Miguel de Icaza, Rasmus Lerdorf, Tim O'Reilly, Guido van Rossum, Linus Torvalds, and Jimmy Wales.

History

FLOSS Weekly was started by Leo Laporte who runs the TWiT podcast network, and Chris DiBona, the open source program manager at Google. FLOSS is an acronym for Free/Libre Open Source Software. The show was intended to be a weekly interview with the biggest names and influences in open source software. Episode one of FLOSS Weekly appeared on April 7, 2006.

Towards the end of 2006, episodes began to appear less frequently, dropping to a monthly basis. DiBona's newborn baby and commitments at Google were cited as reasons for the show's stagnation, and on the seventeenth episode, Laporte appealed for other co-hosts to share the burden.^[1] This was DiBona's final appearance on the show.

The show went on an unannounced three-month hiatus, re-appearing on July 21, 2007, with a new co-host, Randal Schwartz^[2], who had previously appeared on the show as a guest. Schwartz has since taken over organizing guests for the show, and has restored the show to a predominantly weekly schedule (with occasional gaps from scheduling conflicts or last minute cancellations). Starting with episode 69, Jono Bacon has been a somewhat regular co-host, even filling in for Randal when Randal wasn't available.

The show has been nominated for the 2009 Podcast Awards in the Technology / Science category.^[3]

Format

Most episodes feature the primary developer or developers of a particular open source software project. The show is an open discussion, with Laporte and Schwartz asking questions about the nature of the project. Typically, the interviewers will ask the guests about the history of the project, and its development model (such as which language it is written in, which version control system is used, and what development environment the author uses). Some shows, such as the interviews with Jon "maddog" Hall and Simon Phipps, are not specific to an open source project, and feature more general topics, such as the philosophy of free and open source software. Shows begin and end with a brief discussion between Laporte and Schwartz, before and after calling the guest. Often the guests are interviewed via Skype, with Laporte's staff at TWiT being responsible for the audio recording and production. FLOSS Weekly has been supported by advertising and donations. In October 2006, FLOSS Weekly had 31,661 downloads of episode 14.^[4]

Shows

Below is a table, consisting of all the shows that have been produced, up to date. Most of the potential guests for 2009's schedule have been identified, although the show is only scheduled two months out.^[5]

References

Free software portal

External links

• Official website
• Official wiki
• FLOSS Weekly future schedule
• FLOSS Weekly videos
• InsightCruises News-es, another podcast by Randal Schwartz