

Ask HN: Convince boss to open source - jacob9706

Hey everyone - Recently I have been doing a bit at work that if I was doing it at home I would open source it. Working for a corporation has its ups and downs but by far the biggest downer is not being able to give back to the community as much as I would like.<p>My question for HN is how do I convince my boss to open source things like wrappers around libs? I do not only have to convince my boss (a software developer) but the CEO (all business) as well.
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kuujo
I think the two business arguments for open source are:

Open sourcing software assists in its stability by creating a larger user base
(users who report bugs) and attracting contributors (free development).

At the same time, open source contributions can promote a favorable view of
the company as giving back to the community from which they presumably take.
This can be attractive to prospective employees. I've been fortunate enough to
be able to work on open source projects and indeed contribute them back to the
open source community, and I likely would not be interested in any position
where that were not the case to some extent.

Of course, there is always a need for a lot of software to remain proprietary.
But at the same time, there are plenty of cases where the benefits of the open
source community (testing and contributions) outweigh the risks of helping
your competitors (open source generally useful tools, not specific competitive
advantages in your industry).

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saniul
This is a great read on this topic, by Artsy’s CTO Daniel Doubrovkine –
[http://code.dblock.org/2015/02/09/becoming-open-source-by-
de...](http://code.dblock.org/2015/02/09/becoming-open-source-by-default.html)

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Someone1234
Make a business case.

Businesses are amoral, if you can make a business case for why it improves
their reputation/profitability/return then they'll likely agree.

For example, you might try suggesting that outside developers could contribute
bug fixes and or improvements which the business could benefit from for free.

However if the library could assist your company's competition then forget it,
it won't happen.

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thomasfl
What is there really to question about having others do code review and
development for you for free? Most software systems have 0.1% business logic
that you might want to keep for yourself. The rest can be candidates for open
source components.

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api
Turn it around:

Is there anything that you would _lose_ by open sourcing?

If the answer is "nothing" then argue that there's only upside -- which is
probably true.

