Vasquez to Speak on Open Source Stewardship at All Things Open 2026

The session, scheduled from 1:15 to 2:15 p.m. in Ballroom B, aims to explore the often-overlooked aspects of open source stewardship beyond just writing code.

Vasquez, with extensive experience in managing communities and high-performance teams, will delve into the critical role of open source stewardship. Drawing on her five years of experience in building AlmaLinux from a community response to crisis into a trusted foundation, she will highlight the work that goes into maintaining and growing open source projects. The session will also address why many individuals and organizations are hesitant to contribute to open source projects and the myriad ways they can support these projects.

Attendees can expect to gain a comprehensive understanding of the full spectrum of open source contribution and why every aspect of it matters. Vasquez will provide concrete examples of what happens when critical open source projects lack sustained support, such as OpenSSL before the Heartbleed vulnerability, XZ Utils, and the CentOS end-of-life. These examples will underscore the importance of ongoing support for open source projects.

In addition to the keynote, attendees can visit AlmaLinux booth #79 to experience the new Certification Station. This interactive station allows visitors to boot directly into AlmaLinux and run the certification suite without installing anything on their system. Most certification runs finish in under 10 minutes, providing attendees with a hands-on look at the recently expanded AlmaLinux Certification Program, which now includes both hardware and software certification.

AlmaLinux OS is an open source, community-governed, and forever-free enterprise Linux distribution focused on long-term stability and delivering a robust production-grade platform. Distributed from a network of over 400 mirrors, AlmaLinux is compatible with RHEL and pre-Stream CentOS, and powers projects for governments, the defense sector, and scientific research institutions, as well as numerous global business sectors and the web hosting industry. Adopted by some of today’s foremost open source ecosystem projects such as VMware, GitLab, and Tenable, it is available on all major public cloud platforms including AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle OCI.

The AlmaLinux OS Foundation, a 501(c)(6) non-profit, was created to support the AlmaLinux OS community. The foundation’s mission is to ensure the long-term sustainability and growth of the AlmaLinux project, fostering a vibrant and inclusive community of contributors and users.