For years, the open source community has championed the idea that contributions are a crucial measure of commitment and credibility. But what if that belief doesn’t hold up in practice? A conversation at KubeCon challenged this notion when a Postgres contributor dismissed the idea that hiring open source contributors would appeal to customers. This was surprising because it contradicts the long-held assumption that contributing to open source projects gives developers and vendors a competitive advantage. However, real-world evidence suggests otherwise.
Take AWS, for example. It has reaped enormous benefits from open source software while contributing relatively little in return. Though AWS has recently made efforts to change this, the question remains: does it even matter? While contributions may boost employee morale and demonstrate goodwill, they don’t seem to influence customer decisions in a meaningful way. In most cases, enterprises prioritize other factors over whether a cloud provider actively contributes to open source projects. But there are exceptions worth considering.
One of the most significant factors in AWS’ success with open source isn’t its level of contribution but its ability to make open source software easy to use. AWS has positioned itself as the best place to run open source applications, a claim backed by its massive customer adoption. When I led AWS’ open source strategy and marketing team, we conducted surveys to understand what developers valued most. Contribution to open source was on the list, but the top priority was clear: developers wanted a cloud provider that made deploying their preferred open source software as simple and seamless as possible.
This insight suggests a shift in perspective. While open source contributions are valuable, they are not the primary factor driving adoption or commercial success. Instead, the ability to package, support, and streamline open source software for end users holds greater weight. For companies looking to succeed with open source, focusing on usability and accessibility may be more impactful than merely demonstrating a track record of contributions.