--- /dev/null
+ THE HIDDEN BENEFIT OF GIVING BACK TO OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE \r
+ (WORKING KNOWLEDGE) \r
+\r
+ [Briefs] Sep 6, 2018 16:56 UTC (Thu) (corbet)\r
+\r
+ o News link: https://lwn.net/Articles/764321/\r
+ o Source link: \r
+\r
+\r
+ The Harvard Business School's "Working Knowledge" site has\r
+ [1]an article arguing that it can pay for companies to allow\r
+ their developers to contribute back to the projects whose\r
+ software they use. " And that presents an interesting dilemma\r
+ for firms that rely heavily on open source. Should they allow\r
+ employees on company time to make updates and edits to the\r
+ software for community use that could be used by competitors?\r
+ New research by Assistant Professor Frank Nagle, a member of\r
+ the Strategy Unit at Harvard Business School, shows that\r
+ paying employees to contribute to such software boosts the\r
+ company’s productivity from using the software by as much as\r
+ 100 percent, when compared with free-riding competitors. "\r
+ \r
+ \r
+ \r
+ [1] https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/the-hidden-benefit-of-giving-ba-\r
+ ck-to-open-source-software\r
+\r
+\r
+ ** The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software\r
+ (Working Knowledge)\r
+ \r
+ This is no surprise to me. Most of the open source software\r
+ improvements that might help a competitor are too general in\r
+ nature to really be giving the other guys a competitive\r
+ advantage.\r
+ \r
+ For instance, if Lyft contributed Linux kernel or PHP or Apache\r
+ or whatever fixes, the benefit to Lyft of having that improved\r
+ expertise far exceeds the general benefit to competitor Uber.\r
+ \r
+\r
+ ** The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software\r
+ (Working Knowledge)\r
+ \r
+ This is no surprise to me. Most of the open source software\r
+ improvements that might help a competitor are too general in\r
+ nature to really be giving the other guys a competitive\r
+ advantage.\r
+ \r
+ For instance, if Lyft contributed Linux kernel or PHP or\r
+ Apache or whatever fixes, the benefit to Lyft of having that\r
+ improved expertise far exceeds the general benefit to\r
+ competitor Uber.\r
+ \r
+\r
+\r
+ ** The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software\r
+ (Working Knowledge)\r
+ \r
+ Even having to debate it seems so farcical. If you're worried\r
+ about people who "do the same thing", the software they use\r
+ is not the main differentiator. How your company is\r
+ organized, how you treat your people and your customers, how\r
+ you organized projects etc are huge, and software is\r
+ ultimately minor. Fixes and changes to software? Incredibly\r
+ minor.\r
+ \r
+\r
+\r
+ ** The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software\r
+ (Working Knowledge)\r
+ \r
+ Perhaps this is too dismissive, as there is the part about\r
+ letting your programmers do their job to the best of their\r
+ ability. That seems pretty big.\r
+ \r
+\r
+ ** The Hidden Benefit of Giving Back to Open Source Software\r
+ (Working Knowledge)\r
+ \r
+ Perhaps this is too dismissive, as there is the part about\r
+ letting your programmers do their job to the best of their\r
+ ability. That seems pretty big.\r
+ \r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r