It is no secret that open source software is a foundational element to many enterprise IT and software development strategies and it's also not a secret that the rate of participation, contribution, or support amongst many enterprise companies lags significantly behind the adoption rate. Higher rates of participation are seen in software-based or forwarded companies founded in the past decade, but older companies have been slow to adapt. The solution to participation is often seen as a cultural shift, but this only accounts for a portion of the lack of participation. Motiviation and incentive structures, legal structures, and project governance and management structual alignments can have a bigger impact on enterprise participation in open source projects. In this talk I'd like to discuss a mixture of academic research and my personal real-world experience in bridging the gap between enterprise development and open source projects. |