Consumers To Contributors: Open Source As a Competitive Advantage

The presentation discusses the challenges faced by organizations and individual contributors in contributing to open source projects and the importance of understanding the bigger picture beyond software supply chain security.

• Open source software has become critical in the world and is eating into organizations that employ them
• Incentivizing and understanding the contribution to revenue is a challenge for organizations
• Maintaining sustainability of open source projects is a big question
• Understanding the people connections and relating it to the finance side of things is critical for open source projects
• Individual contributors face challenges in understanding collaboration, transactional vs social relationships, and software incentives

The speaker mentions that open source teaches individuals how to collaborate with others on a software project, interact with people in different time zones and with different languages. However, the education system is not necessarily set up for this type of collaboration. Additionally, incentivizing oneself to contribute to open source can be challenging as it may not always result in financial gain. Turning it into a transactional relationship changes the way one thinks about and incentivizes themselves, which is not conducive to the thriving of open source.

As open source software has eaten the software world, it can be your biggest asset or cause your biggest problems. Most of the time, we consume open source without really considering the long-term impact on our business. So why would a business, enterprise, or organization decide to become a Contributor instead of just a Consumer? In this talk, we'll look at some of the biggest success stories in enterprise open source software partnerships and some of the cautionary tales. The more an organization is involved in co-creating the open source packages they use, the more both the organization and the open source project benefit. This session is for everyone: open source maintainers, OSPO leaders, or open source advocates in large enterprises. At the end of our session, you'll be able to articulate the tangible and emergent benefits organizations and enterprises gain when they stop just consuming open source software and instead embrace "Everyone can contribute."