Pattern idea: Requiring InnerSource before Open Source #285
Description
Going straight from closed-source to Open Source is not always possible, and it can also be a hard transition for the maintaining team as the required processes are very different.
To address that, somebody floated the idea that one could be requiring InnerSource before Open Source, sort of like an incubation phase inside of the company to see if a project has the potential to become Open Source. The InnerSource Incubation Phase would also allow the maintainers of the project to practice all the things required when a project starts to receive contributions from outside of the core team, including improving documentation and review processes accordingly. For the time being let's call this InnerSource Incubation.
There might be another branch of this idea, where Open Source isn't possible for some reason e.g. any intellectual property that the company doesn't feel comfortable sharing in the open. In that case InnerSource could be an attractive alternative to Open Source because through InnerSource the maintainers still get some of the benefits of exposing their project to a wider audience. For the time being let's call this InnerSource as next best alternative.
Focusing on the InnerSource Incubation for now, some specific ideas that would make such a pattern really interesting and valuable for readers:
- how is the InnerSource Incubation phase is explained to the maintainers of a given project?
- interview the maintainers of a project that have done through the InnerSource Incubation and have eventually released their project as Open Source. Ask them what the experience was like especially what of the incubation phase was most useful for them to prepare for Open Source
- how long should the incubation phase be?
- who would facilitate the incubation phase? Is that drive by the OSPO of the company? (assuming there is one)
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spier commentedon Jan 31, 2021
One other possible tag line that may spark additional thoughts about this:
"InnerSource as a stepping stone to Open Source"
spier commentedon Oct 8, 2022
There are some interesting aspects mentioned in this ISC Community Call:
InnerSource to Open Source - taking the next step
spier commentedon Oct 8, 2022
@mishari would it be possible to get the slides from your ISC community call "InnerSource to Open Source". I might try to incorporate some of the text or visuals into this pattern idea here.
mcobby commentedon Oct 9, 2022
Hi @spier - PDF of the slides is in Slack https://innersourcecommons.slack.com/archives/C04PXKRN4/p1665315070585709?thread_ts=1663659054.262749&cid=C04PXKRN4.
Are you also wanting an editable version?
spier commentedon Oct 12, 2022
Thanks @mcobby.
As the messages in Slack will disappear after some time, would you be fine to attach the PDF to this issue here as well?
I don't think I need an editable version for now.
yenk commentedon Jan 27, 2025
@spier - can you verify if it's already in the pattern doc? Move to external column post verification.
spier commentedon Jan 27, 2025
@yenk your question is whether we already have a pattern for this, right?
No, this is just an idea so far. We don't have a pattern for it yet. But of course if somebody in the ISPO WG wants to write a pattern about this, that would be awesome!
Aside:
Other readers of this repo here might not know which "external column" you are referring to. I believe it is a column on this board of the ISPO working group right?
spier commentedon Feb 23, 2025
@yenk did the last comment answer your question? Is this topic something that you are interested in working on?
spier commentedon Feb 23, 2025
@mcobby I forgot that Slack history is purged at some point. Sorry about that :(
Would you mind attaching the PDF the slides for this community call here?
InnerSource to Open Source
You can can do that by writing a new comment here and then just drag&drop the PDF in the comment box. Thank you so much!
yenk commentedon Feb 25, 2025
Thanks for checking on this one @spier. I can pick it up if you can please direct me to the right place, that'll be super helpful! Thanks!
spier commentedon Feb 25, 2025
@yenk is your own organization/company applying this pattern (or some form of it)? In that case the easiest way would be to start with a brief description of how you are using this approach, and the experiences that you have made with it.
There is also a first draft of this pattern in #776. If you like, you can also review that PR and leave your suggestions there.
jeffabailey commentedon Mar 24, 2025
@yenk are you open to joining a working session to create a v1 of this pattern?
jeffabailey commentedon Jun 30, 2025
Is anyone on this thread willing to push this forward?
spier commentedon Jul 1, 2025
@jeffabailey I could do this.
However my org is not practicing this pattern.
Hence I could only work on the PR associated with this issue here, and get that merged as an initial pattern. That would at least make it easier to discover this idea in our repo, and give future contributors something that they can add to (and disagree with.
If I remember correctly the I asked AI for help for the associated PR.
Still worthwhile to put this forward?
jeffabailey commentedon Jul 2, 2025
Yes, an initial pattern with AI would be awesome.
Also, only related in that we could use it, do we want to create some prompts for Cursor & VSCode that will help people build patterns?
If you haven’t used them yet, here’s some background & fodder.
https://docs.cursor.com/context/rules
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/copilot/copilot-customization#_prompt-files-experimental
https://github.com/PatrickJS/awesome-cursorrules
I’d be happy to start a PR with some and we can use them to build an initial version of this pattern.
spier commentedon Jul 5, 2025
Alright, I will get to it then 😃
spier commentedon Jul 5, 2025
By all means, I won't stop you from being awesome ;)
I myself have only done fairly rudimentary stuff with ChatGPT so far. So it would be great to see how it works with other solutions.
spier commentedon Jul 17, 2025
@jeffabailey this is now available in the main branch of the repo. Enjoy!
https://github.com/InnerSourceCommons/InnerSourcePatterns/blob/main/patterns/1-initial/innersource-before-open-source.md