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Ask HN: Convince boss to open source

by jacob9706 on 2/13/15, 7:36 PM with 5 comments

Hey everyone - Recently I have been doing a bit at work that if I was doing it at home I would open source it. Working for a corporation has its ups and downs but by far the biggest downer is not being able to give back to the community as much as I would like.

My question for HN is how do I convince my boss to open source things like wrappers around libs? I do not only have to convince my boss (a software developer) but the CEO (all business) as well.

  • by kuujo on 2/14/15, 3:00 AM

    I think the two business arguments for open source are:

    Open sourcing software assists in its stability by creating a larger user base (users who report bugs) and attracting contributors (free development).

    At the same time, open source contributions can promote a favorable view of the company as giving back to the community from which they presumably take. This can be attractive to prospective employees. I've been fortunate enough to be able to work on open source projects and indeed contribute them back to the open source community, and I likely would not be interested in any position where that were not the case to some extent.

    Of course, there is always a need for a lot of software to remain proprietary. But at the same time, there are plenty of cases where the benefits of the open source community (testing and contributions) outweigh the risks of helping your competitors (open source generally useful tools, not specific competitive advantages in your industry).

  • by saniul on 2/13/15, 7:52 PM

    This is a great read on this topic, by Artsy’s CTO Daniel Doubrovkine – http://code.dblock.org/2015/02/09/becoming-open-source-by-de...

  • by Someone1234 on 2/13/15, 7:44 PM

    Make a business case.

    Businesses are amoral, if you can make a business case for why it improves their reputation/profitability/return then they'll likely agree.

    For example, you might try suggesting that outside developers could contribute bug fixes and or improvements which the business could benefit from for free.

    However if the library could assist your company's competition then forget it, it won't happen.

  • by thomasfl on 2/13/15, 8:09 PM

    What is there really to question about having others do code review and development for you for free? Most software systems have 0.1% business logic that you might want to keep for yourself. The rest can be candidates for open source components.

  • by api on 2/13/15, 10:22 PM

    Turn it around:

    Is there anything that you would lose by open sourcing?

    If the answer is "nothing" then argue that there's only upside -- which is probably true.