Open source in a capitalist world – Martin Woodward, VP, Github

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5 • 6 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2025

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Martin Woodward, vice president of developer relations at Github, discusses how the benefits of open source culture still exist in a hyper-capitalist society, but tech has moved away from the idealism of early open source, what the future of software development might look like and way coders don't necessarily have to be afraid that AI will take their jobs.

Github is a platform for software developers to collaborate, create and share projects. The service has over 150 million users globally and has been at the heart of countless software innovations. In 2018, the platform was acquired by Microsoft for $7.5bn. Woodward is both an executive at the company and a member of the British open source advocacy group OpenUK.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The healthiest ecosystems in nature are the most diverse, are the ones that have a broad range of opinions that come in.
0:15.0	It would be great to live in this world where if you're creating awesome things, then
0:24.6	you, you know, magic.
0:26.6	Enough money flows to you that you're happy and, you know, the rewards flow to you.
0:29.6	That's sadly not how kind of the world works.
0:32.6	That's not how capitalism works kind of thing.
0:36.6	The introduction of the automatic cash register doesn't mean that we got rid of salespeople.
0:42.5	It doesn't mean that we have less people selling things, you know?
0:45.2	It just took away some of the toil and earned some of the effort there.
0:50.8	From the first time founders to the funds that back them, innovation needs different.
0:56.0	Our episode partner, HSBC Innovation Banking, is proud to accelerate growth for tech and life science businesses,
1:03.0	creating meaningful connections and opening up a world of opportunity for entrepreneurs and investors alike.
1:10.0	Discover more at www.h.hbc Innovationbanking.com
1:15.1	slash EM-GB. Hello and welcome to the UKTN podcast, a weekly chat with the movers and shakings of the UK tech
1:29.3	industry and the destination for all things UK tech related. I am your host, Jane Wakefield,
1:35.6	and today I'm joined by Martin Woodward, Vice President of Developer Relations at GitHub,
1:40.9	a platform for software developers to create, store and share their code.
1:45.7	Welcome, Martin.
1:47.0	Thank you for having me.
1:48.0	And you're in a very professional-looking podcast studio there that you've set up at home, is it?
1:52.8	Well, you know, the joys of homework.
1:54.8	I'm based in rural Northern Ireland, and I'm one of these people that's been doing remote work
	...

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