Open-source code is at the foundation of our modern technical world, especially when it comes to data-driven discovery including Machine-Learning and Artificial Intelligence. At the same time, projects you depend on are often under-funded, disconnected from your needs, or at risk of maintainer burn-out. If you don't manage it properly, the various benefits of open source that create a large feature to cost ratio can inadvertently leave you isolated. How will you run your business using open source with the feature-gaps, predictability, and support you need?

 

Open-source code is produced by communities of individuals who are generally not motivated or directed by traditional business processes. These communities demonstrate the processes and culture that govern democratic organizations and academic societies. Incredible innovations and developments occur in these communities, generating new products and services every day. The time-scales, accountability lines, and metrics needed by business are quite different and not always provided by un-aided open-source communities. Left alone, you may find yourself with insurmountable technical debt or reliant on software that is not well maintained. 

 

For the open-source projects you depend on, there are some questions you should ask yourself: 

 

• How will they be maintained?

• What is the development-health of their communities? 

• What dependencies do they have and how will those be maintained?

• What is the roadmap of the project and how will the features I need get implemented?

• What other projects should I be considering to solve my need?

• How do I find the kind of talent that produces/uses the open-source projects I depend on?

• How can I connect open-source communities to my own internal initiatives?

• What part of my internal initiatives should be open-source?

 

How Do We Help?

 

We are an impedance matching circuit between businesses and open-source communities.

 

Despite the challenges, open source will continue to grow and dominate the innovation landscape.  Companies that adapt and use open-source well will thrive, leaving behind those who don't. To use open source effectively, you have to engage with the communities that exist around the projects you depend on. This takes the right people, the right perspective, the right focus, and the right investment.  

 

You are not in the business of open-source, but we are! Let us be your advocate and your advisor. We will ensure your business needs are met while using the open source you depend on. We will get your priorities implemented in open-source projects while guaranteeing that your reliance on open source does not leave you unsupported and exposed. We work directly with communities to connect their roadmap ideas to consumable deliverables that you can fund. We connect you with the people that exciting projects attract, so you can hire them.

​

We connect open-source communities to your business by providing you with an advocate and a sponsor while also facilitating and organizing community roadmaps and ensuring the people who will do the work have the motivation, the time, and the resources to do it. 

​

With decades of experience creating and interacting with open-source communities, combined with a long history and passion for providing solutions for companies; our team at Quansight understands how to help you maximize the return on your open-source investment.

​

How Does It Work?

​

Our projects look like a traditional statement of work.  As a partner, you work with a Quansight manager who engages on your behalf with resources such as technical writers, release managers, evangelists, developers, designers, and others at Quansight Labs and elsewhere. We interact with the entire community to ensure your needs are aligned with community conversations and trends to ensure a sustainable, community-backed delivery.  Your project-based funds directly support the developers, writers, designers, managers, and evangelists that make open source code and communities work. Quansight helps you respect and support the community governance processes that are at the heart of healthy communities while making real progress towards your goals.

​​

Along with code and community development, we also provide you with updates on progress, as well as regular information and measurement on the communities you rely on.  With this information, you can understand risks and mitigate those risks through feature development, maintenance plans, and hiring plans, while sharing the development costs with other companies.

​

We can also help you hire from the communities you rely on by giving you direct access to the people you help to fund.  

​

​

Key Benefits of

OS Partnerships

​

• Audit your usage of open-source to discover dependencies and unveil your risk to under-resourced communities.

• Ensure your needs are prioritized in the open-source projects you care about with direct funding of developers who do the work you care about.

• Share needed technical investments into open-source with other partners.

• Accelerate your hiring practices by selecting from people working in the projects you sponsor, while connecting with the modern way to create technology.

• Mitigate risk of using open source at your organization as part of a vibrant and sustainable open-source strategy at your company.