Tidelift Announces Upstream 2023: Third-Annual Event Celebrating Open Source and Maintainers

BOSTON, Mass. – March 14, 2023 –  Tidelift, a provider of solutions for improving the resilience of the open source software powering modern applications, today announced the theme and keynote speakers for Upstream 2023. Upstream is a one-day virtual event helping connect those who use open source to build applications with the maintainers who create the software they depend on.

This year, Upstream will be held on Wednesday, June 7, 2023 and consist of more than 30 virtual sessions that attendees will be able to attend live or access following the event. 

“With the increasing focus from both industry and government on open source software security over the past year, we are thrilled to continue to provide a forum via Upstream for open source maintainers and those who use their creations to come together and discuss ideas that will make open source work better—for everyone,” said Donald Fischer, Tidelift co-founder and CEO.

This year’s theme: the accidental supply chain

Over the past several years, the demands on open source maintainers to level up the maintenance and security practices around their open source projects have substantially increased. For good reason—security incidents like Log4Shell along with industry and government standard requirements have dramatically illustrated the importance of heightened security and maintenance measures. 

There’s one problem: the volunteer open source maintainers who create the code most organizations rely on did not sign up to be a part of an organization’s supply chain, and in many cases aren’t being paid to do the extra work they are being asked to do. 

How do we fix the accidental supply chain that open source has become in a way that benefits both the open source creators and those that rely on their work? 

This important question will be the focus of this year’s Upstream. The call for presentations is now open, and Tidelift welcomes proposals from interested speakers who have a point of view on this or related topics they would like to share.

“In U.S. politics, an ‘unfunded mandate’ occurs when a government requires someone else to do new work, while not allocating funding,” said Tidelift co-founder and General Counsel (and Upstream emcee) Luis Villa. “We chose ‘the accidental supply chain’ as our theme for Upstream this year because in many ways the new pressure being put on open source maintainers—many of whom are unpaid volunteers—is an unfunded mandate that needs to be addressed through partnerships between industry, government, and maintainers. We look forward to hosting a conversation about how to address this challenge at Upstream.”

Keynote Speakers Include Nithya Ruff, Allan Friedman, Mike Milinkovich, and Julia Ferraioli

This year's keynote speakers include Nithya Ruff, head of open source program office at Amazon; Allan Friedman, senior advisor and strategist at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; Julia Ferraioli, co-founder of Open Source Stories and formerly of Google, Cisco, and Twitter; and Mike Milinkovich, executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. Additional speakers will be announced soon, and the call for presentations closes on April 7, 2023.

Register for Upstream 2023 now at upstream.live.

About Upstream

Upstream is a virtual event which provides the opportunity for platform engineering, security, and enterprise architecture teams to mingle directly with the open source maintainers who build and maintain packages that their applications depend on. Upstream is a celebration of open source, the people who use it, and the humans who create and maintain it.

About Tidelift

Tidelift, a 2022 Gartner Cool Vendor, helps organizations improve the resilience of the open source software powering modern applications. Its proactive, maintainer-backed approach to managing the open source software supply chain reduces risk and increases development velocity, so development teams can create more incredible software, even faster. https://tidelift.com/

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