Talking with management about open source
03-04, 16:05–16:35 (Europe/Berlin), Stage Auditorium

You're passionate about open source, but your management cares about different things. Let's talk about how to bridge that gap.


For those of us who already know how important open source is, it can be challenging to persuasively make the case to management, because we assume that everyone already knows the basics. This can work against us, confusing our audience and making us come across as condescending or concerned about irrelevant lofty philosophical points.

In this talk, we take it back to the basics. What does management actually need to know about open source, why it matters, and how to make decisions about consuming open source, contributing to open source, and open sourcing company code?

See also: Slides (1.8 MB)

Rich Bowen has been involved in open source since before we started calling it that. He's a member of the Apache Software Foundation, where he currently serves as a board member. Rich is an Open Source Strategist at AWS