How Companies Govern Their Open Source Software Contributions: A Case Study

Companies are increasingly involving themselves with open source software (OSS) communities. We lack knowledge about how companies ensure a compliant behavior, while granting a certain degree of flexibility to their employees in managing their OSS contributions. We approach this gap in an explorative case study at Siemens AG through the following question: How do companies negotiate the tensions between control and flexibility regarding their employees’ community interaction by means of governance mechanisms? Initial results show that Siemens introduced a formal template process, which the different organizational units within Siemens can adapt according to their needs. The extent to which the process is implemented depends on the level of closeness to core intellectual property of the organizational unit and the intensity of the involvement in OSS communities. Developers use several methods to shorten the process. Our study contributes to the literature on company-involved OSS development and the OSS governance literature.     «

Companies are increasingly involving themselves with open source software (OSS) communities. We lack knowledge about how companies ensure a compliant behavior, while granting a certain degree of flexibility to their employees in managing their OSS contributions. We approach this gap in an explorative case study at Siemens AG through the following question: How do companies negotiate the tensions between control and flexibility regarding their employees’ community interaction by means of governan...     »