>> From the palace of fine arts in San Francisco it's the Cube. Covering AT&T Spark, now here's Jeff Frick. >> Hey, welcome back everybody, Jeff Frick here with the Cube. We're at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco at the AT&T Spark event and it's all about 5G. 5G is this huge revolution and I haven't got a definitive number but it's something on the order of hundred X, improvement of speed and data throughput. There's a lot of excitement but one of the things that is less talked about here but it was actually up on the keynote was really the roll of opensource and AT&T talked a lot about opensource and how important it is and really redefining the company around the speed of software development versus the speed of hardware development and that's a big piece of it. We're excited to have somebody who knows all about opensource our next guest he's Jeff McCaffer. He's the Director of Opensource Progress Officer at Microsoft, did I get that right Jeff? >> No, well it said Opensource Programs Officer. >> Programs Officer. >> Yep. >> So you do all about opensource. >> Yeah. >> Well first off, welcome. >> Thank you very much Jeff, it's good to be here. >> So Microsoft, you know, no one would have ever thought, I mean, you know, I'm probably dating myself. 15 years ago with that Microsoft would be a big component of opensource but in fact they're a huge proponent of opensource. >> Absolutely, even just not so long ago you know, it was not the foremost in everybody's mind that Microsoft would be doing opensource. But now it's a core part of our company. It's a core part of how we work and our engagement with the rest of the industries. So it's really growing and it's continuing to grow. >> So how did it kind of get there and what are some of the real key components that you have to worry about in your role to managing, you know, participating in all these various communities all over the place. >> Yeah, well I mean it's been a long road but it's really the way software's happening today, you mention in the intro about the dispute of software versus hardware and software's just going so fast and you know, you can aspire to be world class but when everybody else starts there with opensource, you know it's really hard to start from zero get to there. So we're really happy to be you know, using opensource and contributing. One of the real challenges we've had going forward is the scale like simply we've got literally millions of uses of opensource across all of our products and services. And managing that, keeping track of it, engaging with those, all those communities and everything is a real big challenge. So we've been building paulo season tools and changing the culture to understand that you know, you need to engage, push fixes back, all those sorts of things. And then when we look at our releasing our software, we have thousands of opensource repositories on GitHub, thousands of developers at Microsoft working on GitHub repositories, our own and others in the community. So it's just managing all of that as being a really big challenge. >> Right and it's interesting cause the opensource projects themselves, we've seen at time and time again. You know, they fork and they go a lot of different directions. There's sometimes disagreement about direction. >> Sure. >> And prioritization, so you've got a kind of manage that within the opensource thread but as well as within, you know, where those products play a role in your products. >> Right, right and we've taken a sort of federated model in the company, we're very diverse as you know right and so my team sort of helps put guidelines in place for for project teams to run and then those project teams run their own program. How they engage with opensource, however they want to and sort of at the level they want to that matches their business requirements. So it ranges everywhere from people who are fully opensource to folks who are just you know, using a little bit of stuff here and there within their products. >> Right, what if you could speak a little to opensource and the role that it plays in employee happiness, employee retention cause you know, there's so much goodness and you see it at these shows. >> Absolutely. >> Where there's particular contributors that you know, they're rock stars in their community. They've made super important contributions. >> Yeah. >> They've managed the community and I always think back, if you're the person managing that person back at the office you know, how much time do they put into their opensource effort? >> Sure. >> How much time do they put in their company efforts? How much of their time is really the company software that's built on top of that opensource. >> Yeah. >> And how do you manage that because it is a really important piece for a lot of people's personas. >> Absolutely. >> And their self values. >> Yeah, well and there's been a lot of research that says also that high performing teams, one of the traits of high performing teams is engaging in opensource. And at the personal level like individuals, there's kind of a different set of possibilities there, you know, either you're engaging in opensource for part of your product work, right, so that's sponsored by the company. Or you might be doing some things on the side or some tangential range in between there, right? >> Right. >> And sort of all of those you need to drive to the appropriate level, the folks who are working on it day to day for their, for the company. There's some really interesting dynamics that can get setup. Super exciting for the team, sometimes it can get a little waylaid maybe but you know, you want to keep them, keep them on task. But then also the, the folks who are doing it of their own volition, like on their own time and that sort of thing. That also brings back a bunch of energy and everything into the workplace. New technologies that they'll discover in their area and they'll bring back the energy and the excitement about engaging back to the regular team. >> Right. >> So there's lots of possibilities there. >> So what brings you here, what brings you to AT&T Spark today? >> Well they invited me to speak on a panel earlier today about opensource and the future of opensource and so I had a, there were a couple of other people from Linux Foundation and from AT&T. So we had a good conversation on stage. >> Yeah it's pretty interesting how, pretty much all these projects you know, eventually get put in to the Linux Foundation. That they, you know, they've just kind of become this defacto steward for a wide variety of opensource projects. >> Yeah, well there's a number of different foundations, Linux Foundation's certainly one of the better known ones, the Eclipse Foundation, Apache. >> Right, Apache yeah, right. >> Been around lots of times doing lots of good things. So there's a ton of amazing projects out there in all of these foundations. And it's just super exciting to see them all be engaging like in this sort of cohesive right, and with a good governance model. >> Right. >> Yep. >> So I'll give you the last word, one of my favorite lines always that's opensource is opensource is free like a puppy. >> Yes, it's totally free like a puppy. >> So, you know, you're living in that world, what is one of the things about opensource that most people miss, one of the really positive attributes that most people just don't see. And then what's one of the big, you know kind of biggest, kind of ongoing challenges, that's just part of operating in this opensource world? >> Well I mean, I phrase it in challenges and opportunities, right, there are obviously lots of challenges, like I was saying with scale and managing security. And the culture change that goes around collaboration and that sort of thing. The opportunities, I think are boundless really, I mean there's, one of the most gratifying things that you can see as an opensource project, is people take your technology and use it in ways you never imagined. Right, so there's, we can think of that as our products too and we take our products and they've got opensource APIs. They've got opensource frameworks and such. And people take them and do amazing things with them that we never imagined possible. And that just, that part is really exciting and invigorating. >> Yeah, alright Jeff well thanks for taking a few minutes. >> Sure. >> Congrats on all your work and I guess we'll see you in Orlando in a month or so. >> Okay, possibly. >> Alright, he's Jeff, I'm Jeff, we're all Jeffs here and we're at the Palace of Fine Arts at AT&T Spark, thanks for watching, see you next time. (upbeat music)