# What a Healthy Relationship with Open Source Looks Like ft. GitLab's John Coghlan | Dev Interrupted Powered by LinearB

> John Coghlan, Senior Manager of Developer Advocacy at GitLab, discusses the importance of open source contribution & how to get started.

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What a Healthy Relationship with Open Source Looks Like ft. GitLab's John Coghlan

# What a Healthy Relationship with Open Source Looks Like ft. GitLab's John Coghlan

By John Coghlan

|

July 8, 2022

![John_Coghlan_Podcast_Card_f016679bb7](https://assets.linearb.io/image/upload/c_limit,w_2560/f_auto/q_auto/v1/John_Coghlan_Podcast_Card_f016679bb7?_a=BAVMn6ID0)

There’s an open secret about open source: Developers use it. Teams use it. Businesses use it. But no one really thinks about how they contribute to it.

That’s why we jumped at the chance to get a state-of-open-source discussion with Gitlab’s John Coghlan, Senior Manager of Developer Advocacy.

Someone who joined the open source community with the goal of making developers’ lives better, John came to the table with a wealth of insights into just how individual engineers leverage open source, how businesses leverage it and, most importantly, how to make our relationship with open source better - not just for you and me, but for the community as a whole.

We hope you find this candid conversation on how to be thinking about using open source in the right ways as empowering and insightful as we did!

### Episode Highlights Include:

* (1:18) From Wall Street to GitLab
* (5:02) Dev Relations? Dev Advocacy? What are we?
* (7:57) John's start in open source
* (14:00) How to start contributing to open source
* (23:44) Open source contribution makes teams happier
* (28:12) How open source has benefited GitLab

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