Why should developers push companies to open up?

Why should developers push companies to open up? Published in 2013-04-08 17:20| Times Read | SOURCE csdn| 0 Reviews | Author ran open source summary: For whatever purpose, enterprises often consider open source some internal projects, but why enterprises should open source, should open source which items are a headache. Ahmet Alp Balkan, a Microsoft engineer, has made recommendations, stressing that this is not just a matter for executives, but for developers themselves.

There's a saying in the IT world-"if the penis can't beat the boss, then open up the things that the boss relies on for survival." "Companies often consider opening up some of their internal projects, whether they are advocating open source or improving the image of the company, or trying to crack down on competitors." But it should be open source what kind of project is really a problem, open source the appropriate application can bring a good reputation for the company, but open source wrong project may even bring the company to the danger.

Microsoft engineer Ahmet Alp Balkan on the blog published article "What Should you open source in your company", won the recognition of developers.

Balkan that most engineers will find valuable code in the company or useful internal tools, these are things that are worth keeping; on the other hand, you will also spend a lot of effort on working to develop reusable assistive tools and libraries, which are often more creative than the pressure from deadlines. If you can release them as open source protocols, it makes sense for yourself and for other developers.

For enterprises, the open source of several not related to the core functions of the class library or auxiliary tools do not have a negative impact on their own, but through common efforts, it will certainly help to become better, IBM Open source Eclipse is to this end. In addition, if the enterprise is not in the industry's leading position, even consider open source core technology to combat competitors, but the entire industry can play a major role in the development of technology, Yahoo! Open source their own DFS and map-reduce implementation, and Microsoft's support for open source map Services OpenStreetMap is a good example.

In the worst case, it's nothing but a project, but at least it's a GitHub page for the company.

Take these names for example, they open source the technology can be used as a business reference:

Linguist--github: A class library in which the source code and binary files are written. Guava--google:java Extended functional classes. Mosql--stripe:mongodb to PostgreSQL streaming copy of the class library. Ponydebugger--square: Remote iOS Debugging Tools using Chrome Dev tools. Rogue--foursqure: Type-safe Scala DSL. Brackets--adobe: web-based Web Code Editor. Twitter's finagle, Bower, Zipkin and so on.

The Open-source tools of these companies, though very well known and useful, are not at the core of their own, because it is a dangerous move for technology companies to open up key technologies to rivals, as opposed to giving them weapons. The exception is Facebook, which has Open-source Corona, Cassandra and many other core technologies, and even Google appreciates its open Compute project. But it has to be admitted that, as a strong user sticky social networking site, its most valuable assets to more than 1 billion users, the immediate is the core technology is also slightly inferior.

Balkan also points out that developers often reuse previously developed components, especially when you are changing jobs, and are more likely to use tools that are familiar to old owners. For these purposes, you should also promote open source in-house development tools or class libraries. If you are the developer of the tool, after the project is seen by other IT companies, these companies will certainly recognize your technical strength and become your potential employer.

The same truth, Alipay front-end director Yuber also in the CTO club activities advocated between IT companies to abandon stereotypes, in the industry to establish a front-end ecological circle, sharing part of the development module. This will not only reduce the cost of development of companies, employees can also enjoy the benefits after leaving, while the circle developers can better collaborate.

In addition, there is one thing to note-the company open source a project more than a good heart, usually thanks to someone/someone behind the efforts, they put forward ideas, convince executives, ultimately for the benefit of all developers.

If you're planning to do this, the first thing you need to do is to sort out reusable code, write tests and documents, and convince business executives.