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

  1. Strategic benefits
  2. Second-order benefits

Commoditize Your Complement

On-ramp developers

Understanding the value of contributing to open source

  1. Strategic benefits
  2. 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)