Posts by TODO Group

Comcast's involvement in open source was a gradual process that evolved over time. The company eventually created two open source program offices, one for the NBC business and another for the cable side of the business, which is the subject of this profile.

This guide explains how organizations can build leadership and influence within the open source projects they’re involved in and on which they are commercially dependent. Learn about leadership culture and roles within a project, how decisions are made, how an organization can build leadership, and tips for being a good leader in open source communities.

Open source development requires a different approach to software engineering than many organizations are accustomed to. It becomes easier if you have a clear plan to follow. Fortunately, many companies and individuals have already forged a path to success by contributing to significant open source projects in strategic ways. This practical guide will help you and your company improve your internal development process and prepare you to contribute to the open source projects that matter most to your company.

Open source program managers must demonstrate the ROI of their efforts. This guide provides an overview of some of the standard ways that organizations evaluate their open source programs, projects, and contributions. Learn what to measure, how to define success, and how to best use this information to advance your open source program objectives, demonstrate effectiveness, and gain support.

So what is an open source program office (or "OSPO")? It is the hub of an open source program. The OSPO is a designated place where open source is supported, nurtured, shared, explained, and grown inside a company. With such an office in place, businesses can establish and execute on their open source strategies in clear terms, giving their leaders, developers, marketers, and other staff the tools they need to make open source a success within their operations.

This guide covers what it means to contribute to open source as an organization and how to become a good corporate citizen. Learn how open source projects are structured, how to contribute, why it’s important to devote internal developer resources to participation, and why it’s important to create a strategy for open source participation and management.

NI (formerly National Instruments) has responded to the industry's shift toward open source by growing its open source footprint. This case study describes some successes and lessons learned in a growing open source program.

SAP’s climb to higher visibility is a sign of its continued commitment to excellence in open source. Peter Giese, director of SAP’s Open Source Program Office and Michael Picht, chief development architect, contributed this case study.

Dropbox was started and built on a foundation of open source code. But Dropbox did not always have a formal Open Source Program. This case study discusses the development of the open source function at Dropbox.

When you about how banks work, open source might not be at the top of your mind. But more and more companies—including those in the financial sector—have learned that open source software is often more reliable and secure than closed source.

As the largest open source company in the world, Red Hat is all-in on open source. This case study describes some of the lessons learned over two decades of working in the open source community.

Salesforce is well-known in the enterprise for its Software-as-a-Service offering. Many people don't know that open source is a key part of what keeps Salesforce innovating.

Autodesk is a traditional software company that has also embraced open source, as shown by its large and increasing presence on Github (at https://autodesk.github.io/ ). In this case study, Guy Martin (@guyma) talks about developing the open source program.

This open source office case study comes from Verizon Media (formerly Oath). Through its predecessor companies, Verizon Media has a long history with open source.

Uber is one of the best-known disruptors in the digital age. Its business model famously separated transportation services from the traditional underlying infrastructure with an app-based model offering on-demand and multimodal options. In many ways, this transformation, and Uber itself, also mirror the creative and collaborative aspects of the open source community.

It may be surprising to some that Microsoft is now one of the biggest contributors to open source. But that evolution was the result of deliberate work - and a thoughtful open source program.

"Open source is core to our engineering DNA. We believe that sharing our code and even hardware designs accelerates the pace of innovation in the world." Christine Abernathy, Open Source Developer Advocate at Facebook, features in this case study of the well-known tech giant.

Our next open source office case study comes from SanDisk, the maker of computer storage equipment. Open source is a key part of SanDisk's entire production pipeline.

From the very beginning, GitHub has been about open source. Scratching the itch of better code collaboration turned into a company built on and for open source; from the philosophies that founded the company, to the servers running the infrastructure, to the languages and libraries we use to build applications, to the millions of public repositories hosted on them. Even our business model - based on the premise that you shouldn't have to pay if you share - encourages open source.

This case study features Chris Aniszczyk (@cra) who established the Open Source Program Office at Twitter and is now the Executive Director of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

We're excited about what we've been able to accomplish and we look forward to seeing the projects emerging from other businesses in situations similar to ours. Being a part of the open source community is a rewarding experience and is totally achievable by companies working in enterprise capacities.

Yahoo had an early OSPO and was initial member of the TODO Group. This case study was provided by Gil Yehuda (@gyehuda), who is in charge of open source at Yahoo!. "You will find that open source participation is essential to long term tech health."

"It takes time and resources to build a great open source team, so you shouldn't take it on lightly, but .. in this day and age I don't know if you could build out a matrix and conclude 'we can afford not to'."