Open Source is not Altruism

Many of my peers mistakenly believe that open source is driven by altruism, volunteerism, and charitable giving.

This view has some historical validity. Open source, after all, descends from the free software movement. However, the traditional narrative of individual programmers donating their time and expertise for the greater good no longer captures the reality of today's open source ecosystem.

The modern open source landscape is heavily influenced by entrepreneurs, investors and corporate actors who view open source as a strategic asset, investing significant resources through direct contributions, funded maintainer positions, and corporate-backed foundations.

Major projects like Kubernetes, React, and TensorFlow are primarily maintained by full-time employees at large technology companies. Even smaller projects increasingly rely on corporate sponsorship through platforms like GitHub Sponsors or Open Collective. The "nights and weekends" contributor model has been largely superseded by professional developers, whose primary job responsibilities include open source maintenance.

Successful companies like Microsoft, Google, and Meta approach open source as a fundamental business strategy. Their investments in projects like .NET, Angular, and PyTorch aren't acts of charity – they're calculated moves to influence technical standards, attract top talent, and shape the future of critical technologies. These companies understand that meaningful open source participation creates tangible business value through ecosystem leadership, technical innovation, and market influence.

Core Infrastructure, Not Corporate Charity

Open source powers nearly every device and software program on the planet, yet it's still saddled with an outdated perception of being a charitable endeavor rather than a strategic business investment.

This fuels the misconception that open source participation is a form of corporate philanthropy—something companies do to "give back" to the community or fulfill social responsibility goals—rather than recognizing it as a crucial driver of innovation and competitive advantage.

When open source is viewed through a philanthropic lens, investment decisions become vulnerable to budget cuts during economic downturns, as charitable initiatives are often first to be scaled back. Companies may limit their participation to token contributions or surface-level engagement, missing opportunities for deeper strategic benefits. Even when organizations do maintain significant open source projects, they often struggle to secure resources because the initiatives are categorized alongside other corporate social responsibility efforts rather than core business investments.

Breaking Free from the Charitable Perception

Modern open source is a form of market-driven collaboration.

Simply put: It means independent entities, primarily motivated by their own economic interests, choose to work together because the benefits of cooperation exceed what they could achieve alone.

Open source, to be properly understood, must break free of its charitable perception. This shift in perspective is essential for organizations to fully capture the competitive advantages of open source.

Rather than justifying open source investment through the lens of "giving back," companies need to evaluate it against strategic business metrics like talent acquisition, market positioning, and technical leadership. It requires reframing how organizations think about and communicate open source value.

Competitors and Collaborators

Open source collaboration can act as a foundation for competition. By contributing to a shared pool of code and knowledge, companies can focus their resources on building unique features and optimizing for specific markets, rather than reinventing basic components. This allows collaborators to concentrate on true differentiation while benefiting from a common technological base.

The success of this model is evident in platforms like Android, which enables smartphone manufacturers to create distinct experiences, and Linux, which enables many companies to offer specialized versions of the operating system. Each company builds unique value on top of shared open source foundations, fostering a more competitive and innovative market.

Open Source is Rational Collaboration

Open source aligns with other successful collaborative models in the free market, such as standards organizations and patent pools, where companies recognize that cooperation, even among competitors, can lead to greater individual gains.

Patterns of rational collaboration can be seen across industries. Throughout the economy, we find sophisticated collaborative systems that follow similar principles. In each case, market participants recognize that establishing common foundations amplifies rather than diminishes their competitive advantages. These collaborations emerge not from altruism, but from careful calculation of long-term self-interest.

The sophistication of these systems varies considerably. Some, like patent pools, employ complex legal and financial mechanisms to balance cooperation and competition. Others, like industry standards bodies, rely more on consensus-building and shared governance. Yet, all of them demonstrate how competitors can systematically identify and isolate areas where collaboration creates more value than competition.

Modern collaboration patterns include:

• Standards organizations
• Industry consortia
• Patent pools
• Supply chains
• Joint ventures
• Insurance
• Credit Bureaus
• Business Improvement Distributes (BIDs)
• Interbank payment networks
• Airline alliances
• Carbon trading markets

Just as with open source, these market-driven collaborations emerge naturally when the structure of a problem makes cooperation more profitable than pure competition, even for entities that might otherwise prefer to operate independently. This creates stable, self-reinforcing systems that can persist and evolve without requiring altruistic motivation.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where I go into detail on each of these modern collaboration patterns and identify parallels with open source.