Making the Business Case for Contributing to Open Source
A presentation at All Things Open 2019 in in Raleigh, NC, USA by Tobie Langel
Making the business case for contributing to open source Photo: Dix campus, 2012 (CC BY 2.0) Tobie Langel (@tobie) Principal, UnlockOpen
“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…
…few companies contribute back.
Why should companies contribute to open source? Common good The Right Thing To Do™ Paying it forward Etc.
The Right Thing To Do™ Paying it forward Common good
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.
The risk of contributing to open source is: • not well understood, • generally exaggerated.
Understanding the value of contributing to open source 1. Strategic benefits 2. Operational benefits 3. Second-order benefits
Understanding the value of contributing to open source 1. Strategic benefits 2. Operational benefits 3. Second-order benefits
Commoditize Your Complement Company Focus Complement
On-ramp developers
Understanding the value of contributing to open source 1. Strategic benefits 2. Operational benefits 3. Second-order benefits
Photo: Pablo Andrés Rivero, 1997 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Payback Technical Debt
Economic Web browsers
Leverage external contributions React Router Redux React Ecosystem
Understanding the value of contributing to open source 1. Strategic benefits 2. Operational benefits 3. Second-order benefits
Problem Coffee Engineer Sarcasm (by-product) Solution
Problem Coffee Software Engineer Sarcasm (by-product) CODE
Problem Coffee Software Engineer Sarcasm (by-product) CODE Commons
Problem Coffee Software Engineer Sarcasm (by-product) Commons OPEN SOURCE CODE Conversations Code reviews Mentoring Networking Etc. Software Engineer Sarcasm (by-product) Problem Coffee
Problem Coffee Commons Software Engineer OPEN SOURCE CODE Conversations Code reviews Mentoring Networking Etc. Sarcasm (by-product) Adopt best-prac tices Increase code qua BY-PRODUCTS Software Engineer Problem Coffee Sarcasm (by-product) & morale e r u lt cu d e v o pr Im Improve soft-skills Lower technical debt Improve documentation Reduced churn Remote friendly Innovation Influence project directio Increase effi n ciencies Access to talent pool ry leader t s u d in s a d e iv Perce Level-up engineers y t i p i d Access to expert n “Knowledge spillover” Seren Better career opportunities etwork lity
BY-PRODUCTS PROJECT INDIVIDUAL TEAM ORGANIZATION Improve documentation Level-up engineers Increase efficiencies Improved culture & morale Increase code quality Adopt best-practices Serendipity Perceived as industry leader Lower technical debt Improve soft-skills Innovation Access to talent pool Influence project direction Access to expert network “Knowledge spillover” Remote friendly Better career opportunities Reduced churn
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% 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 The Right Thing To Do™ Paying it forward Increased Risk Wasted resources Common good Lost IP Lost competitive advantage
Lack know-how Increased Risk Lost IP Wasted resources Lost competitive advantage
Mitigate the risk of contributing to open source
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.
Increased Risk Wasted resources Lack know-how Etc.
Now it’s your turn!
Now it’s your turn! • Framework to think in terms of business tradeoffs. • A toolkit of benefits and mitigation strategies. • See how it applies to your organization.
Now it’s your turn! • Be reasonable. • Show empathy to others’ needs in the organization. • Aim for small wins. Start small. • Remember it’s a mindset shift.
Photo: Bill Dickinson, 2015 (CC BY-NC 2.0) Thank you! Tobie Langel Principal, UnlockOpen tobie@unlockopen.com unlockopen.com
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.
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