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
InnerSource practitioners edition
Tobie Langel, Principal, UnlockOpen (@tobie)
Why should companies contribute to open source?
Open source ROI
The ROI of using open source is well understood.
The ROI of contributing to open source: not so much.
Risk
The risk of contributing to open source is:
- not well understood,
- generally exaggerated.
The “InnerSource solution”
The “InnerSource solution” - Perception
The “InnerSource solution” - Reality
Understanding the value of contributing to open source
- Strategic benefits
- Second-order benefits
Commoditize Your Complement
On-ramp developers
Understanding the value of contributing to open source
- Strategic benefits
- Second-order benefits
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.
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)
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.
Photo: O’Reilly AI Conference, 2016 (CC BY-NC 2.0)
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.
Thank you!
Tobie Langel Principal, UnlockOpen tobie@unlockopen.com unlockopen.com Photo: Robert Linsdell (CC BY 2.0)
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.
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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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