A Vision of FOSS @Mercedes-Benz
At Mercedes-Benz, we decided that we don’t want to “just use FOSS”, but to fully embrace all aspects of it. This means we needed a dedicated Open (and Inner) Source strategy and an Open Source Program Office – but first we had to define what it really means to “embrace FOSS”. Come with me on our journey which we started about 6 years ago. Let me show you what we learned, what the crucial points were in implementing the strategy, and what we wish we had already known at the beginning.
Inspired by the Inner Source movement more than five years ago, Dr. Wolfgang Gehring turned into an ambassador for Inner and Open Source and has been working on enabling and spreading the idea within Mercedes-Benz and its IT-subsidiary Mercedes-Benz Tech Innovation. A software engineer by trade, Wolfgang’s goal is to enable Mercedes-Benz to fully embrace FOSS and become a true Open Source company. He leads MBTI’s FOSS Competence Group, is a member of the Mercedes-Benz FOSS Center of Competence, and a Director of the Eclipse Foundation.
In his free time, Wolfgang likes to engage in conversations about soccer and is a passionate traveler and scuba diver. He calls Albert Einstein’s birth city of Ulm his home in Southern Germany.