Don't "give back" to open source

Words matter, which is why the open source community needs to stop talking about giving back.

Giving back is all about charity. When I mentor a high school student, I’m giving back. When I donate money to a homeless shelter, I’m giving back. When I buy groceries, I’m not giving back — I’m taking care of my basic needs.

Charity is all well and good. But no one should be surprised that when things get tough, the first thing people cut back on is charity. When open source communities chastise companies for not giving back, they are positioning open source in general as a charity; in other words, as something that you do when you can. That is very, very different from positioning open source communities and projects as a business-critical part of a company’s strategy. If the open source community wants companies to support open source through thick and thin, it needs to change the conversation around being involved in open source from one that’s about charity to one that’s about taking care of the company’s basic needs.

This is really a blog post about positioning. There are so many levels of positioning to think about when it comes to open source, from individual projects to the relationship between a project and a commercial offering to how open source as a movement is positioned. I think open source, generally speaking, is business critical for the vast majority of organizations, but it’s positioned poorly.

So what should you say instead of ‘give back?’ I’m not sure, but “get involved,” “contribute” and just “participate” are all better, and don’t imply being scolded about how you should donate more to people in need.

PS interestingly, I’ve had two recent conversations with people who are both engineers (one a software engineer, one a ‘bridges and roads’ engineer) about open source in their workplaces, and neither were big fans. Just a reminder that open source doesn't have 100% positive connotations for everyone.

Do you know a founder who needs help positioning their open source project and commercial project, individually and in relation to each other? Put us in touch.