test/expected/LWN/0000764321

   1       THE HIDDEN BENEFIT OF GIVING BACK TO OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE
   2                          (WORKING KNOWLEDGE)
   3
   4   [Briefs] Sep 6, 2018 16:56 UTC (Thu) (corbet)
   5
   6   o Reference: 0000764321
   7   o News link: https://lwn.net/Articles/764321/
   8   o Source link:
   9
  10
  11     The  Harvard  Business  School's  "Working  Knowledge" site has
  12     [1]an  article  arguing  that it can pay for companies to allow
  13     their  developers  to  contribute  back  to  the projects whose
  14     software  they  use. " And that presents an interesting dilemma
  15     for  firms  that rely heavily on open source. Should they allow
  16     employees  on  company  time  to  make updates and edits to the
  17     software  for  community use that could be used by competitors?
  18     New  research  by  Assistant Professor Frank Nagle, a member of
  19     the  Strategy  Unit  at  Harvard  Business  School,  shows that
  20     paying  employees  to  contribute  to  such software boosts the
  21     company’s  productivity  from  using the software by as much as
  22     100 percent, when compared with free-riding competitors. "
  23
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  25
  26     [1] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/the-hidden-benefit-of-giving-ba-
  27     ck-to-open-source-software
  28
  29
  30   ** The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software
  31      (Working Knowledge)
  32
  33      This is no surprise to me. Most of the open source software
  34      improvements that might help a competitor are too general in
  35      nature to really be giving the other guys a competitive
  36      advantage.
  37
  38      For instance, if Lyft contributed Linux kernel or PHP or Apache
  39      or whatever fixes, the benefit to Lyft of having that improved
  40      expertise far exceeds the general benefit to competitor Uber.
  41
  42
  43      ** The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software
  44         (Working Knowledge)
  45
  46         This is no surprise to me. Most of the open source software
  47         improvements that might help a competitor are too general in
  48         nature to really be giving the other guys a competitive
  49         advantage.
  50
  51         For instance, if Lyft contributed Linux kernel or PHP or
  52         Apache or whatever fixes, the benefit to Lyft of having that
  53         improved expertise far exceeds the general benefit to
  54         competitor Uber.
  55
  56
  57
  58      ** The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software
  59         (Working Knowledge)
  60
  61         Even having to debate it seems so farcical. If you're worried
  62         about people who "do the same thing", the software they use
  63         is not the main differentiator. How your company is
  64         organized, how you treat your people and your customers, how
  65         you organized projects etc are huge, and software is
  66         ultimately minor. Fixes and changes to software? Incredibly
  67         minor.
  68
  69
  70
  71      ** The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software
  72         (Working Knowledge)
  73
  74         Perhaps this is too dismissive, as there is the part about
  75         letting your programmers do their job to the best of their
  76         ability. That seems pretty big.
  77
  78
  79         ** The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software
  80            (Working Knowledge)
  81
  82            Perhaps this is too dismissive, as there is the part about
  83            letting your programmers do their job to the best of their
  84            ability. That seems pretty big.
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