Ask HN: How to advocate for an open development process? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to advocate for an open development process?

I work for a company that has committed to open-sourcing a piece of software, and work is already under way to make an open-source release possible (IP review, code cleanup, etc.).

However, it looks like the development process is going to largely stay the same, with in-house development and periodic source code dumps to the outside world. (For legal reasons, there will always have to be some differences between the open-source release and the internal version of the software.) That would lose quite a bit of the benefit of open-source in my opinion.

I'm looking for ways to convince the less open-source-affine part of the company to change to an open-source-first development model. In particular, I'd be curious if there are published post-mortems and experience reports (writeups, conference talks, etc.) that would support the argument, but other ideas are welcome, too.

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One argument that may appeal to management is that your open source codebase becomes a powerful recruiting tool.

Many companies open source non-core code, like UI components designed for their domain or server widgets that can be pulled out into a standalone library. It's unlikely that your company will want to deal with the overhead of many outside contributors, unless it's an open source business model which it seems like it isn't. However, a couple of contributors here or there, or even better, someone who forks the codebase but doesn't cause extra work for you by submitting PRs, is a very strong signal that they'd make a good hire. They're interested, know some of the code already, like what you're working on, etc.

Since hiring is very expensive (costs 10k - 50k to make a single hire), this has real business value and you can use it to sway management.

Also, maybe they don't want to dive right in. Can you take the lead on the open source project for a small component and run that the way you want to for 3 months to show them how it could work? Maybe let each team naturally adopt the open source style if they want to, until a critical mass is hit?

Making a business case that shows the bottom line is likely to be a compelling advocacy method.

What's the purpose of open-sourcing this specific piece of software?

That's a good question, actually. There's customer demand for having it open-source, and there seems to be a vague sense among management that open is good.

I think that most of the people involved don't see it as a chance to get outside contributions, and that's part of the issue. Thing is, I'd like us to avoid that becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The answer to that question might help to frame your suggestions. E.g. creating a community around your project can help lessen support load – but also make paid support offerings less attractive. If open-sourcing is seen as a source of unnecessary work, attracting contributions can provide a gain to counteract that "waste". etc pp.

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