Why Should You Open-Source Your Software?
The benefits of letting your software be free for the world
The most common questions asked about open-source software are ‘Why do people open-source their software?’ and ‘Do open-source developers earn money? If so, how?’ The answer is simply that it creates a bigger environment. Keeping a software private can lead to a path filled with hurdles like competing with similar sites, whereas open-sourcing it would mean thousands of people worldwide could use it to build more interesting tools, creating an even more vibrant ecosystem.
There are so many reasons why you should consider publishing, collaborating on, or supporting open-source software.
Great advertising
One of the first things is, if you do it right, its great advertising for you and your company. GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner says that “At GitHub, we like to talk publicly about libraries and systems we’ve written that are still closed but destined to become open-source. This technique has several advantages. It helps determine what to open-source and how much care we should put into a launch.” Maintainers of successful open-source software are usually market leaders, associating their brand with a particular solution.
Engineering Economics
Secondly and this is also very important, is the engineering economics. Releasing your work as open-source gives you a higher return on your initial investment versus the closed-source software process. There are 3 main things regarding this —efficiency, the ability to build on works of giants, and lastly, fueling the market with ideas. It's efficient in the sense that if we assume that all easy problems have been solved already by existing corporations, then open-source helps you move from low-level work to higher-level work.
Secondly, open-source allows developers to take already-solved problems, use your own expertise, and use that to innovate something even bigger. In addition to this, if a single person starts to develop something, (s)he will have a hard time figuring out the solution and will fail a number of times. If 2 or more people work on a problem, they will not only find 2 different approaches to the problem but in the process, with dialogue and communication, they can find five to seven more solutions and in turn make the society a better place.
Attracts Talent
A thing to take note of is that smart people like to hang around other smart people. Smart programmers like to hang around smart code. They want to solve some yet-unsolved problems. Open-source lets developers work on your code just because it looks more interesting and for the challenge that it may provide. In case they seriously like your code and want to work on it with you, it’ll be easier for them to apply as well.
Force Multiplier
When you expose your code to the world and it attracts enough attention, it acts as a force multiplier. Because of the exposure, communities are created which means the diversity of ideas that emerges creates better solutions. Along with this, interested organisations will provide additional human capital at no additional cost to you. The higher number of eyes on your code, more use cases are explored and hence more robust the code.
The right thing to do
Lastly but according to Tom Preston, it’s the most important — it’s the right thing to do. We use millions of line of open-source code, directly or indirectly. All those lines of code have been written by the efforts of countless people. Even after all the effort, they chose to give it away so that everyone can benefit from it. Since we all enjoy open-source software daily, it’s only fair that we give back to the community somehow.
If software is an ocean, then open-source is the rising tide that raises all ships.
Thank You for Reading!
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Inheaden is a young IT and software startup based in Darmstadt, Germany. As an “Idea and Tech Factory”, we have set out to be a driving force of innovation, digitization, and automation with a focus on the areas of services, products, and research. Under the Inheaden brand, we work on individual “high performance” software solutions that bring a change. Modern designs, innovative technology approaches, and IT security for our partners and customers are important components of our work profile.
