Everything You Need to Know About Software Repositories
As more & more companies continue to reap the benefits & adopt to open source software, it’s no question why the software repository market is expected to increase to roughly $23M by 2033. Organizations that learn to uncover the power of software libraries not only promote a healthy devops culture, but position themselves for faster release cycles & better decision-making.
In this article, we will be defining what exactly a software repository is as well as some of the key differences between going private or going public.
What is a Software Repository?
It’s important to distinguish the “old” vs. the “new” software repository landscape. Software repositories have always been around. NPM, APT, RubyGem just to name a few.
The “new” software repository is a centralized location for managing all different types of software packages you may work with on a day-to-day basis, regardless of the language or framework.
Rather than having separate libraries for every single language or framework, modern software repository solutions aim to address key challenges around dependency management, version control, & collaboration.
As an example, let’s say you have a team looking to build a brand new application or update an existing one on a continual basis. In the beginning, developers can get away with downloading their own libraries & frameworks individually. However, overtime as the project becomes more complex, team members are forced to share code changes manually, waste time checking for updates for each software package, and spend time resolving inconsistencies in dependencies instead of contributing to product development.
The modern software repository looks to solve these common problems by centralizing all software packages in a single source of truth, regardless of the language or framework that is being used. At any given moment, developers know which package & version is being distributed.
There are two types of software repositories that developers & organizations use: private & public.
Private Repositories
With internal distributions, dev teams can set up private repositories for their software packages. When certain dependencies or projects are only used internally, dev teams do not need to rely on public package libraries. This allows them to share, distribute, & manage packages all from their internal server.
There are three main reasons why a team would need to work with a private repository:
Proprietary Code: In some cases, when there’s confidential software or updates being made, a public repository just can’t provide a secure way to make sure only certain developers have access. A private repository ensures that sensitive code is stored & managed within the organization.
Custom Internal Applications: When an organization is using custom software throughout the company, dev teams can find themselves recycling the same software or dependencies for multiple applications & projects. Having a private repository can ensure that the libraries & frameworks are easily accessible to other teams within the organization.
Compliance & Security Requirements: Industries like finance & healthcare find themselves wrestling with strict data requirements, whether it be HIPAA, SOC II, or GDPR compliance. These regulations require certain industries to ensure that software supply chains are secure by having software packages maintained & distributed internally in a private repository.
Public Repositories
When there are no security requirements or need for a private repository, organizations & developers opt for a public repository. A public repository allows anyone & everyone to use software packages. Think of it like an open marketplace where anyone is free to collaborate, share, & install the software they need.
There are three main reasons why an organization would be willing to setup a public repository as opposed to keeping it private:
Community Building: A good example of this is Microsoft. Although Windows is proprietary & alot of their development is in fact private, Microsoft has quite a few software projects on GitHub that allow anyone to contribute, including Visual Studio Code, .NET core, & TypeScript. Through a public repo, Microsoft was able to build a community of over 34,000 developers that are collaborating on 5,500 repositories.
Ecosystem & Partnership Opportunities: A public repository can serve as a platform for building an ecosystem around the existing core product of an organization. In Facebook’s example, developers were able to add complimentary extensions & applications to the existing marketplace.
Learning and Education: By making the source code of software projects openly available, organizations can provide a learning platform for aspiring developers, students, and researchers to study, analyze, and understand the software. Google is a great example of this. By setting up public repositories to specific programming languages, Google offers all types of free classes & courses so you can learn different frameworks like Python for free.
The choice between using a public or a private repository depends on an organization’s specific needs & requirements.
More often than not, companies utilize both private & public repos. Depending on the use case and situation, certain repos will be made public, while others will be made private.
