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Open source is the foundation of the technology industry. Although most enterprises today focus on proprietary code, almost all organizations today benefit from open source principles in some way. Open source is more than just code – Adopting a culture centered around open source can affect many core areas of business beyond the code itself.
Traci Robinson-Williams
Traci is a market insight at GitLab focused on driving DevOps transformation with market, technology and customer insights that influence the direction of GitLab’s platform strategy and roadmap. As a technology go-to-market strategist, she works on bringing together teams to execute innovative ways to address industry challenges.
Gartner recently reported that 70% of enterprises will increase IT spending on open source software by 2026. And why not wonder: open source enables organizations to innovate faster and more securely, and ultimately, faster time to market. This in turn delivers more flexible, actionable products and a better, more robust digital experience for customers. Some of today’s most impactful technologies are open source and now turning into big commercial successes.
But building an open source culture is about more than implementing open source software. Done properly, it can contribute to and participate in the broader open source community, as well as the adoption of open source principles within the organization, resulting in an improved developer and employee experience.
Open source has the potential to differentiate your organization from the competition and drive change and innovation within and across your industry. But to maximize your investment of time, people, and money, organizations must create a strategic and intentional program to center open source innovation.
Let’s go over a three-pronged approach that all organizations can take to implement and build an open source program.
Finding (and Determining) Your Why
In order to communicate the value of an open source program to management and other internal stakeholders, it is important to identify why this program is needed and the value it provides to the business. Start by describing why you’re building this program and the growth it envisions. This should include specific goals and metrics – define your objectives and clearly describe how you will get a return on your investment.
Regularly check progress on these goals and metrics and report on how you’re achieving your goals. This reporting ensures that you are constantly reviewing your goals and working towards them. This foundation of strong relationships helps establish credibility with all stakeholders, and this information can be reused by partners, users, and developers.
You may also consider establishing a dedicated open source program office to help you achieve your strategy and goals. All executive communications plans should include a robust risk management approach to secure sponsorship and necessary resources.
Creating an open source culture
Metrics are only one measure of success, however—putting community development at the center of all discussions about integrating open source is critical. When creating goals around open source, it’s important to consider the value it can bring to both your business and external communities.
Some dimensions to consider when developing open source plans are your organization’s involvement in the open source community, its influence and reputation, as well as the health of your organization, its open source projects, and any projects you contribute externally.
It’s impossible to truly invest in open source without making major changes to your company’s culture. Transparency and collaboration are two core values to ensure are embedded in your company’s ethos. According to McKinsey, organizations that allow their software teams to experiment and embrace failure—key tenants of the open source methodology—consistently deliver better results.
Convincing internal stakeholders to champion open source ethics and act as advocates within the community can be challenging. While that work may not directly affect the company’s product, your organization will ultimately benefit from a wider network of contributors.
Giving back to society
Above all, don’t forget to participate in the virtuous circle, contribute and reap. Look for great projects to contribute to, and opportunities to contribute upwards. For example, GitLab works closely with the FINOS (FinTech Open Source) Foundation’s legendary project led by Goldman Sachs. Legend is engaged in using GitLab to shape source control and is fully available to the open source community for more innovation in the financial services industry. This has helped to simplify processes and increase efficiency, which further strengthens institutions and the clients they serve.
Gabriele Columbro, CEO of FINOS, has seen this open source community of financial services contributors grow to critical mass over the past five years.
“FINOS members working together on open source projects like Goldman Sachs and GitLab are more than just a vendor-client relationship. Their work with community members on this one project has had an impact on other open source projects within the foundation and has shown tangible results. Legend Global The Swaps and Derivatives Association Common Domain Model (ISDA CDM) will be used to advance modeling and further collaborative work in financial regulation with Morgan Stanley’s open source Morpher project.
Other open source projects led by FINOS financial institutions have found legacy points that continue to help the wider community. Open source opens doors to many opportunities, especially if you give back to the community.
There is great value and potential innovation in the word open source, and endless ways to apply these principles to your business. Everyone in your organization and community has an important role and great ideas to contribute, whether it’s an employee within your organization, an external contributor, a customer, or a competitor. When consumers are contributors, everyone wins.
Feature image via Pixbay.
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