How to embrace the open source revolution and be cool in 2017?
The software world is changing! Once an obscure movement, open source is the now the hottest trend in the industry.
This didn’t happen overnight. It took several phases and certain key events had to happen to be here.
If you look back no more than couple of years, open source was mostly used by small businesses trying to save some money by skipping the license costs for operating systems, databases, etc. Only a few big niche companies had their investments in open source. Nowadays, not only that open source is present in tenfold more products… but the interesting thing is the shift in mentality of companies: you have to give back to development community!
Don’t you believe me? Look around! Google, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Microsoft and others they all have open sourced many of their key projects!
And the best part: you don’t have to be a tech company to give back to the development community! React, Bootstrap, Angular are a few of the most popular open source components offered to the community by companies that their core business is not selling software. Hardware can be outsourced as well (schematics, PCB designs, etc.)
Goal: If you are an influencer in your organization, make yourself a goal to embrace the open source revolution in 2017!
You don’t have to open source your entire product (I don’t even recommend this). Instead look closely at your product. Maybe you have a nice technology engine, or you created some cool charts or maybe you have a nice set of graphics in your product! This is what you should open source!
By giving to the community a small part of your product you don’t hurt your business… instead you’ll see that you are growing it!!! Open source makes communities and engages people beyond common sense. If until now your small piece of technology was just a proprietary technology that scared people away, you’ll suddenly be based on a cool open source component that everyone wants it. You want to build communities and spread the knowledge about your technologies and products. Make your company presence on GitHub!
By doing this you’ll join the good companies of open source leaders such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and others.
Don’t get stacked in the past! Be agile!