Reflections on Open Source in Today's World

This week, our assignment was to explore http://opensource.com/, reading at least two medium-length articles from the site and blogging about what we learned and our response to the articles.

Mike Bursell delves into how open-source software often fosters a culture of trust in the product in the first article I chose: his opensource.com article titled “How open source builds distributed trust.” Open-source software is centered around creating a community of people who take on trusted roles such as architect, designer, developer, or reviewer within the software’s community. In time, this contributes to distributed trust, which he defines as a sense of trust created by the “distillation of collective experience.” Since such large groups of people contribute to open-source projects, this phenomenon creates a strong foundation for belief in the product. It leads to much of the success of open-source software.

I gained insight into the additional benefits of open-source through reading this article. Before reading the article, I didn’t realize that the sense of community open-source fosters by allowing extra hands lends to more than just increased productivity. It quickly forms an army of supporters who believe in the product over a small, inclusive group of developers.

With these benefits of open-source in mind, the second article I studied is “Comparing the similarities and differences between innersource and open source” by Nithya Ruff. I had never heard of “innersource.” I would be curious to know whether anyone else in the class has heard of or had experience with it. The term innersource refers to using open-source principles within a company.

This article notes two major benefits of open-source and its extension to innersource. The first is that open-source can be freely distributed, allowing for quick and widespread innovation. The second relates to Bursell’s point that open-source grows and develops through a diverse community of people who believe in the product. These people learn to communicate and work together despite differences in culture, organization, or geographical location. Now, when it comes to innersource, organization is common ground, but differences in geographical location, development culture, and several other factors may prevail. Innersource development reaps all of the same benefits as open-source, but stays within the company. Innersource bridges the gap between development teams within a company.

Teams within the company are akin to the volunteers that make up an open-source community; however, they are paid. In this way, innersource fosters not only Bursell’s distributed trust but also the company culture. Opening repositories to the whole company can be a first step to opening them to the world and becoming open-source. Another motivation for innersource development is saving company resources. More collaboration reduces the likelihood of duplicate work.

I found “Comparing the similarities and differences between innersource and open source” thought-provoking. The article suggests how applying open-source principles can be conformed to a smaller community within a company, creating a more cohesive culture by opening every project up to every team, even if it’s not the focus. I believe that in a smaller sense, this will be how our 462 team works. Although we will all have our assignments, all of our work will be open to the whole group. Because the project will be open-source, all of our work will also be open to the public. This will give us a sense of responsibility, trust, and cohesiveness within our tighter and broader communities.

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