Open Source in Industries

It was interesting to learn about how open source technologies are used differently in various industries including some that I did not expect to embrace open source. From one of the videos, I learned about the term InnerSource which is the use of open source practices in propriety software development. At first, I found InnerSource to be contradictory to the principles of open source but I learned how the use of innersource helps lead companies to create open source projects. InnerSource shares the same benefits and challenges as Open Source projects as both help foster innovation, improved collaboration, and better code quality. However, both face the challenges that come with a steep learning curve for new contributors and the importance of timely feedback. To me, it seems worth implementing Open Source practices in proprietary software to take advantage of its many benefits.

From the video “Why should you have an Open Source Program Office?”, I learned about more benefits of open source practices in non-tech companies including the bank industry. One large benefit of open source for these industries is in the build vs buy software dilemma. In which now instead of building completely on their own or buying proprietary software and being locked into a deal, they leverage open source to either speed up and improve build time or buy from a vendor that uses open source software that is more flexible. The video on open source in Film was most interesting as I was surprised to find open source in an industry that I would describe as far away from tech as possible. I was impressed to learn of the open source tools, OpenEXR and OpenColorIO. The creation of open source tools that could be used and improved by competing companies is very inspiring and displays a great level of collaboration.

Group’s Progress

At this point of the project, most of my group has been able to create some type of contribution to Bitwarden. However, none of my group members have made any code contributions. We have attempted to work on one issue on the client repo that revolved around a bug of authentication when the user’s machine is in clamshell mode and using the desktop application. However, we struggled to find the exact part of the codebase in which we would be able to implement a solution for this problem. We all lacked experience in dealing with biometric authentication and using the clamshell mode in laptops so we decided it was best to move on. I was able to make my first PR which was a simple fix to an important link in the Readme of the mobile repo. I was surprised to find that my PR had failed some workflow actions after following all of the instructions on the PR documentation. One of my group members pointed me to resources and communication board where I could inquire about my issue and I am awaiting a response.