Leveraging Open Source Communities

What does it actually mean for a company to be “Open Source Friendly”? Like a lot of folks on this platform, I owe most of my success to open source technologies. From OSS programmes such as Google Summer of Code to The Linux Foundation mentorship programme, to working on #LLVM, I’d be nowhere if it wasn’t for Open Source. Naturally, many people want to continue contributing once they graduate - for gratitude, personal fulfillment and many other reasons. One thing that gets in their way is company policy and culture. Both the written and unwritten stuff. What does it mean for a company/team to be “Open Source friendly?” Does it suffice to contribute to OSS? Sponsor events? Not quite! I have a friend who’s a high ranked contributor to a very influential OSS project and also happens to work at a large company. They are forced to keep silent about their contributions because their management thinks it’s a distraction from their day job and is “a waste of time”. This is also a company that publicly contributes to the upkeep of some Open Source software! At my workplace, my manager is aware that I co-organise the LLVM Bangalore meetup. He not only knows this, He’s sponsored hosting the meetup at our office many times - funding the snacks and other arrangements, and also attending the meetup himself. When I organised Innovations In Compiler Technology Workshop, he suggested bulk registering our whole team to attend the event. About 25 of my teammates attended! He insists that I make a note of my community work in our annual performance review. Several members of my team contribute to open-source projects in their own time. Some of these are even for other compilers like LFortran and GCC! They’ve given talks internally about their contributions and work. Being open-source friendly doesn’t mean just paying people to work on public projects. It means encouraging team members to engage with the community, contribute to whatever projects they want (not just those that benefit the company), recognising good work and supporting their initiatives. A lot of companies fall far short. Some are apathetic, and some are outright hostile. What’s your workplace like? #OSS #OpenSource #FOSS #Software #gcc #llvm #llvmbangalore #llvmsocial

💡 Meta’s OSPO: Driving Innovation and Community Engagement Meta has built one of the most influential OSPOs in the world through code and by shaping the cultural & technical foundations of modern development. Projects like PyTorch, React, and GraphQL have redefined how we build, scale, and collaborate. In terms of OSPO headcount, most likely the smaller globally, with just a few individuals, as open source is embedded in the fabric of the company, and this is how Meta rolls right now. Some standout elements of Meta’s open source strategy: 🧠 AI at Scale with PyTorch: PyTorch, born at Meta, hosted in The Linux Foundation under its own PyTorch Foundation, is a cornerstone of the global AI/ML community. It is THE framework of choice for research & production from startups to hyperscalers. 🖼 Frontend Revolution with React: React changed the game in web development, introducing a declarative and component-based UI model. 🔎 Smarter APIs with GraphQL: Meta launched GraphQL, now under the GraphQL Foundation, providing a more efficient, flexible alternative to REST. It’s now an industry standard. 🌐 Infrastructure-Grade Open Source: From Presto, now in the Presto Foundation, to HHVM, Meta’s open source stack is built for the scale of its internal infrastructure and shared with the world. These tools power massive data workloads and inspire contributions across enterprise and research sectors. 🌱 Community Building and Developer Enablement Meta backs its code with community: ☑️ Developer conferences ☑️ Grants & funding for ecosystem projects ☑️ Educational content, docs, and tutorials to onboard new contributors 🛡 Governance and OSPO Culture: Meta’s OSPO leads with strategic alignment and sustainability: ☑️ Ensures license compliance & risk mitigation at scale ☑️ Empowers internal devs with contribution pathways and tooling ☑️ Fosters long-term project health 🔭 Looking Ahead: Expect Meta’s OSPO to go deeper on: ☑️ Open AI research tools & public datasets ☑️ Sustainable computing and energy-efficient frameworks ☑️ Web3 and decentralized infra ☑️ IoT-ready open source integration ☑️ Open cloud and edge-native platforms Meta’s OSPO is an innovation engine and community amplifier. Few companies have shaped the open source landscape in recent years as fundamentally as Meta. To view the scope of OSS efforts at Meta, check out: "Meta Open Source: 2024 by the numbers": https://lnkd.in/dK45KsrJ 🧭 This post is part of an ongoing series spotlighting the role of OSPOs in driving strategic value through open source. Tomorrow, I am covering Google. Tune in! 🔁 If you find this post valuable, please share it with your network. #OpenSource #OSPO #OpenStandards #DevRel #OpenSourceStrategy The Linux Foundation Linux Foundation Europe Linux Foundation Japan TODO (OSPO) Group OpenChain Project ⚠️ This post represents my views and does not reflect those of my current or past employers. ⚠️

The modern world runs on open source software -- everything from financial systems to modern public infrastructure. Yet, this critical digital infrastructure remains chronically under-resourced. 📉 Part of the issue is that most companies view open source as a choice between business value OR public good, and therefore focus mainly on transactional financial support. 💡 At Bloomberg, as an open source-first firm with philanthropy embedded into our business strategies, we take a different approach. Our Open Source Program Office (OSPO) and Corporate Philanthropy teams jointly develop and fund initiatives that view code contribution as volunteerism, create structured mentorship programs, and continually train the next generation of purpose-driven open source contributors to avoid maintainer burnout. 🤝 Learn more about Bloomberg’s unique approach to integrating open source and corporate philanthropy, how this proactive focus on healthy community development can ensure long-term sustainability for the OSS ecosystem, as well as examples of how other organizations can adopt a similar dual-impact model. 🔗 https://bloom.bg/4eCzzvd #OpenSource #CorporatePhilanthropy #TechForGood