---
title: A talk that begins with an obvious statement about Open Source
pretalx_url: https://pretalx.seagl.org/2024/talk/J8HLAP/
beginning: '2024-11-08T09:40:00-08:00'
end: '2024-11-08T10:10:00-08:00'
keynote: true
presenters:
- name: Christopher Neugebauer
  pretalx_url: https://pretalx.seagl.org/2024/speaker/PTUBAX/
  biography: |-
    Australian developer, speaker, and serial community conference organizer, who presently lives in the United States.

    He serves as a Director of the Python Software Foundation, and is co-organizer of the acclaimed North Bay Python conference, a boutique one-track conference run in unusual venues — include an old vaudeville theater, and more recently a barn on a farm — in Petaluma, California.

    Christopher is also a contributor on the open source Pants build system, helping make Python’s testing, correctness, and style tools accessible and fast for developers, no matter how big their codebase.
---

In 2024, for the first time that we know of, the very social fabric of open source was exploited to create a security flaw in essential open source software. In this talk I won't be talking about the technical implications of xz; instead, I'll be talking about the history of the disconnect between what users expect of Open Source developers and how Open Source development actually takes place, and how that contributed to the context in which the xz exploit almost became widespread. I'm sure it will be fascinating.
