Making the Business Case for Contributing to Open Source

Making the business case for contributing to open source Tobie Langel, Principal, UnlockOpen (@tobie)

“In short, software is eating the world.” —Marc Andreessen, WSJ, August 20, 2011.

“In short, software is eating the world.” open source —Marc Andreessen, WSJ, August 20, 2011. 96% 57% OF APPS CONTAIN OPEN SOURCE COMPONENTS OF CODEBASE IS OPEN SOURCE Source: Black Duck 2018 OSSRA

And yet…

Why should companies contribute to open source? Common good The Right Thing To Do™ Paying it forward Etc.

Lack know-how The Right Thing To Do™ Paying it forward Increased Risk Wasted resources Common good Lost IP Lost competitive advantage

The ROI of using open source is well understood. The ROI of contributing to open source: not so much.

ROI of contributing to open source Software Companies Tech Companies All Companies Business Model Strategic Leverage 2nd Order Consequences

Software Companies

Software Companies Tech Companies

S Tech Companies Commoditize Your Complement Company Focus Complement

S Tech Companies On-ramp developers

Software Companies Tech Companies All Companies

Problem Co!ee Engineer Sarcasm (by-product) Solution

Problem Co!ee Software Engineer Sarcasm (by-product) CODE

Problem Co!ee Software Engineer Sarcasm (by-product) Commons OPEN SOURCE CODE

Problem Co!ee Software Engineer Sarcasm (by-product) Commons OPEN SOURCE CODE Conversations Code reviews Mentoring Networking Etc. Software Engineer Sarcasm (by-product) Problem Co!ee

Problem Co!ee Commons Software Engineer Software Engineer OPEN SOURCE CODE Conversations Code reviews Mentoring Networking Etc. Sarcasm (by-product) Problem Co!ee Sarcasm (by-product) BY-PRODUCTS • • • • Increase code quality Improve documentation Lower technical debt Influence project direction • • • • Level-up engineers Improve soft-skills Adopt best-practices Access to expert network • • • • • Perceived as industry leader Access to talent pool Remote friendly Reduced churn Improved culture & morale • • • • Increase e"ciencies “Knowledge spillover” Serendipity Innovation

2× TWICE AS EFFICIENT Contributing firms capture up to 100% more productive value from usage of open source than their free-riding peers. Source: Franck Nagle, Learning by Contributing, 2017.

75% OF FACEBOOK’S NEW ENGINEERING RECRUITS MENTION FACEBOOK’S OPEN SOURCE PROGRAM AS A KEY REASON THEY ACCEPTED THEIR OFFER

"But we also noticed some effect that we didn’t expect. All the public visibility [sponsoring Webpack] have given us lead to a situation where we suddenly became one of the most interesting companies to work for as a JavaScript developer. […]” “We’ve hired a lot of really great engineers who mentioned during their job interview that our sponsoring for Webpack was one of their primary motivations for applying, […]” —Patrick Gotthardt, Lead JavaScript Architect, Trivago, 9 July 2018.

Lack know-how Increased Risk Lost IP Wasted resources Lost competitive advantage

Lost competitive advantage “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.” —Wayne Gretzky Photo: Rick Dikeman, 1997 (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Photo: O'Reilly AI Conference, 2016 (CC BY-NC 2.0) Lost IP “In today's world of fast-paced internet services deployment, owning IP has become considerably less important than turning research results into innovative products as quickly as possible, and deploying them at scale.” —Yann LeCun, Business Insider, Aug. 3, 2018.

• Focus on business outcomes. • Be reasonable. • Show empathy to other’s needs in the organization. • Aim for small wins. Start small. • Remember it’s a mindset shift.

Patent Troll Lost IP

Tobie Langel Principal, UnlockOpen tobie@unlockopen.com @tobie Thank you!