Key factors for adopting inner source

Abstract

A number of organizations have adopted Open Source Software (OSS) development practices to support or augment their software development processes, a phenomenon frequently referred to as Inner Source. However the adoption of Inner Source is not a straightforward issue. Many organizations are struggling with the question of whether Inner Source is an appropriate approach to software development for them in the first place. This article presents a framework derived from the literature on Inner Source, which identifies nine important factors that need to be considered when implementing Inner Source. The framework can be used as a probing instrument to assess an organization on these nine factors so as to gain an understanding of whether or not Inner Source is suitable. We applied the framework in three case studies at Philips Healthcare, Neopost Technologies, and Rolls-Royce, which are all large organizations that have either adopted Inner Source or were planning to do so. Based on the results presented in this article, we outline directions for future research.

Open innovation using open source tools: a case study at Sony Mobile

“…However, the focus is mostly limited to management and strategic aspects, e.g., (Dahlander and Magnusson 2008;West and Wood 2013;Stuermer et al 2009), with some exception of inner sourcing (Morgan et al 2011;Stol et al 2014). Little is still known about what triggers software organizations to adopt OSS from an OI perspective and how this affects SE practices (Munir et al 2016).…”

“…Inner Source (Stol et al 2014) has gained interest among researchers and practitioners as a way to adapt OSS practices at software organizations. Such hybrids of commercial and OSS practices (Mockus and Herbsleb 2002) could include using the OSS style project structure, where a core team of recognized experts has the power to commit code to an official release, and a much larger group contributes voluntarily in many ways.…”

On Infrastructure for Facilitation of Inner Source in Small Development Teams

“…We conclude that this framework is useful for this purpose, and we believe that it includes the relevant factors. There is an updated version of this framework which is more generalized [18]. We believe that by the application of the older version, this paper can also support the validity of the new version as well.…”

“…The framework has to our knowledge not been evaluated before by others than the author. In a later publication Stol et al [18] presents an updated version of the framework where it has been restructured and made more generalized, still covering the same elements described in original version [17] and now applied on three new cases by the author. By using a theoretical framework the assessment is more focused, and also framed to previous findings within the research of inner source.…”

“…The elements can be found in the left column of Table 1. In a later publication Stol et al [18] present an updated version of the framework where it has been restructured, now consisting of nine elements divided into three groups; Software product, Practices and Tools, and Organization and Community. The elements are more generalized and covers all of those described in the initial framework [17].…”