To maintain today’s software and create the software of the future, organizations, and beneficiaries of open source need to expand their collaboration with the community.
The software is the invisible backbone enabling future innovations in every field, including the automotive industry, healthcare, and climate technology. The global open-source community, comprised of millions of people, is driving this development. It’s unlikely that there will ever be another significant discovery that isn’t supported by software because technology drives human progress.
Without open source, the future of software development would not be possible.
To maintain current software and develop future software, the most prominent organizations and open source’s biggest supporters must increase their cooperation with the community and foster its expansion.
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Companies need to engage more actively in the open-source community to close this gap and maintain the number of developers, maintainers, and contributors. Although it may seem like a difficult task, open-source program organization can be done in a variety of ways by businesses. Here are three methods for them to start:
Understand the organization’s engagement and processes with open-source software
Developers may be prevented from contributing upstream to open-source projects if there is a lack of a defined process for doing so. Although large organizations often take a week or longer to approve the use of new open-source components, there is a formal approval process for introducing new open-source features.
By attempting to open source everything that can be and posting code online to invite developers to use their software, businesses can make it simpler for developers to release open-source code. Establishing simple rules for developing open-source projects will also be advantageous for companies. In practice, this will quicken the approval procedure and assist in defining what good governance and maintenance mean to them.
Manage the company’s participation in open source and provide a structure through an open-source program office
An open-source program office (OSPO) can help accelerate growth for open-source processes if understanding current work and setting up procedures are the first steps. An official OSPO works cross-functionally with the organization’s divisions to minimize potential obstacles like engineering, security, human resources, and legal.
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An OSPO can also lessen developer friction and boost organizational trust in open source. The program offices can be established by start-ups and big businesses in the tech, financial services, and academic sectors to help manage open source at scale. When developers have questions about open source, this group is the first point of contact.
Various professionals create OSPOs; program managers, engineers, and developers have taken the initiative to launch their respective industries.
Support developers and the open-source community through sponsorships and investments
Everyone must give back to the community as open source is used more and more globally. This assistance boosts the overall community’s efforts. For instance, many open-source developers committed their own time and resources to address fixes for the code library that many businesses relied on during recent software supply chain vulnerabilities, such as Log4j. For their efforts, these developers deserve praise and encouragement.
Open-source projects power major software systems and the global economy, but this relationship is reciprocal. Companies that rely on the community must promote and work more closely with developers, maintainers, and contributors to jointly produce innovative software.
Organizations can deliver exceptional experiences more quickly, engage the developer community, support the projects that are important to them, and jointly shape the future of software by implementing an open-source strategy.