** How Open Source contributions help you and your company to become smarter **

It is not exactly a secret or even something new that software development benefits a great deal with Open Source. One of the main reasons for this is because of the assertion commonly known as Linus's law (formulated by Eric S. Raymond) which says that "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". Other important factors are in play, too, of course, and recent research has been able to name and even quantify another one of these factors.

The research was done in 2017 by Frank Nagle who is now Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. His key finding is that companies whose employees actively contribute back to Open Source communities benefit twice as much compared to companies who only use Open Source software. The main reason for this effect, simply put, is this: When you contribute to an Open Source project, you are going through a feedback process, and in the course of this feedback process you learn a lot from experienced developers. So essentially, this is like a continuous internal training program. Which makes you better and better – learning by doing.

The paper actually focuses on monetary value ("contributing firms capture up to 100% more productive value from usage of OSS than their free-riding peers"). It is probably legitimate to assume that this also comes with more time-efficiency and faster development, which is something that basically every company is very keen on implementing. All the other advantages of Open Source still exist notwithstanding, of course.

What is also worth mentioning from Nagle's paper is:

• This is not a one-time only effect which merely occurs at the beginning; the advantages of the learning process don't decrease over time when the company stays active as OS contributor.
• Developers whose employer allows them to contribute to OS projects feel that the employer places a lot of trust in them – another significant factor of success.

The study was quite extensive, and according to my impression it was done scientifically diligent and the results seem trustworthy. I hope you also find this interesting. And so let's all Open Source it up!

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Reference for the paper:
Nagle, Frank. "Learning by Contributing: Gaining Competitive Advantage Through Contribution to Crowdsourced Public Goods." Organization Science 29, no. 4 (July–August 2018): 569–587.