0The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software (Working Knowledge)	null/LWN/0000764321		70
i  [Briefs] Sep 6, 2018 16:56 UTC (Thu) (corbet)
i
i    The  Harvard  Business  School's  "Working  Knowledge" site has
i    [1]an  article  arguing  that it can pay for companies to allow
i    their  developers  to  contribute  back  to  the projects whose
i    software  they  use. " And that presents an interesting dilemma
i    for  firms  that rely heavily on open source. Should they allow
i    employees  on  company  time  to  make updates and edits to the
i    software  for  community use that could be used by competitors?
i    New  research  by  Assistant Professor Frank Nagle, a member of
i    the  Strategy  Unit  at  Harvard  Business  School,  shows that
i    paying  employees  to  contribute  to  such software boosts the
i    company’s  productivity  from  using the software by as much as
i    100 percent, when compared with free-riding competitors. "
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i    [1] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/the-hidden-benefit-of-giving-ba-
i    ck-to-open-source-software
i