Title
Taking Open Source to the Next Level — and Beyond
Speaker(s)
Michael Henning
Date and time
2025-10-24T15:30:00Z
Session type
Talk (25 minutes)
Abstract
Open source has given us some of the most powerful tools in the world — but it can give us more. Too often, we build alone or in silos, driven almost entirely by engineering, with design and product thinking rarely integrated. That limits not just usability, but the scale of our impact. This talk examines why true cross-disciplinary collaboration is harder in OSS than in commercial work — and how we can change that. We’ll look at small but transformative shifts in process and mindset that unlock massive creative potential, welcome more diverse contributors, and deliver tools that don’t just match but surpass the best commercial offerings. The challenge: to raise the bar and redefine how open source is built — setting a new standard for what’s possible – together.
Speaker(s) bio
I have been working at the intersection of design and engineering for more than 25 years. Along the way, I’ve helped shape multiple products from idea to exit, mostly in the messy, creative world of early-stage startups and developer tooling. My recent goal is to pay back all my learnings to the FOSS community by reshaping how we build open source. Through experiments like contribute.design - with small, practical steps to make design a natural part of FOSS — and to raise the bar for the tools we create.
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