Making the Business Case for Contributing to Open Source

A presentation at InnerSource Commons Spring Summit 2019 in in Galway, Ireland by Tobie Langel

Making the business case for contributing to open source

Making the business case for contributing to open source

Why should companies contribute to open source?

Why should companies contribute to open source?

Open source ROI

Open source ROI

Risk

Risk

The “InnerSource solution”

The “InnerSource solution”

The “InnerSource solution” - Perception

The “InnerSource solution” - Perception

The “InnerSource solution” - Reality

The “InnerSource solution” - Reality

Understanding the value of contributing to open source

Understanding the value of contributing to open source

Commoditize Your Complement

Commoditize Your Complement

On-ramp developers

On-ramp developers

Understanding the value of contributing to open source

Understanding the value of contributing to open source

TWICE AS EFFICIENT

TWICE AS EFFICIENT

Mitigate the risk of contributing to open source

Mitigate the risk of contributing to open source

Lost competitive advantage

Lost competitive advantage

Lost IP

Lost IP

Now it’s your turn!

Now it’s your turn!

Now it’s your turn!

Now it’s your turn!

 Thank you!

Thank you!

Today, pretty much all companies have embraced open source. But while they’re all keen to use open source, at lot fewer actually contribute to it.

And yet, there’s real value in doing so. Companies use their contribution to open source to boost recruiting (Facebook claims 75% of their new engineering recruit mention Facebook’s open source program as a key reason they accepted their offer), increase their market, build a moat around their business, or position themselves as leaders in their field.

In this talk, we’ll look at the different ways contributing to open source can benefit a business and become a competitive advantage. We’ll look at the open source strategies of different companies, big and small, and provide you with the knowledge to start building a business case for open source in your own company.

Resources

The following resources were mentioned during the presentation or are useful additional information.

  • Event page

    The InnerSource Commons (InnerSourceCommons.org) aka ISC is a consortium of representatives from almost a hundred companies and institutions. It utilizes open source methods to provide organizations pursuing inner sourcing a forum for discussing and improving the practice of InnerSource through the sharing of experiences (under the Chatham House Rule), creation and review of InnerSource patterns, and the open exchange of ideas.

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