People never do things for no reason, just as open source never happens for no reason. In that case, why do we spend the tremendous effort to run this summit during an epidemic? Let’s hear from the initiators.

Blocking offline activities is hindering the growth of open-source

The various domestic anti-epidemic policies are significant barriers for every open-source activist. Long-term restrictions on cross-city transportation, such as airplanes and high-speed trains, make offline gatherings, which are very important for open-source projects, almost impossible.[1]

Although network technology and video conferencing technology are highly developed nowadays, we humans still rely heavily on face-to-face communications.

This makes community building, communication, and trust more difficult than it should be.

Constantly canceled OSPO events

Specifically for our OSPO-into-Enterprise Events [2], it was a miserable year. Almost none of the plans listed in December last year were completed, and all of them were interrupted, postponed, canceled, and then ended.

For example, in May, Dr. Li Xiang from ZTE and KuoSi prepared two topics for sharing:

• Exploring Open Source Risks and Avoidance - From Business to Country

• Open Source Project Office - A Management Perspective

Dr. Rui Li from Pengcheng Lab had even booked a meeting room in Shenzhen for us. However, due to various restrictions, our event had to be canceled. So much so that by the end of the year in November, we had not organized even one successful event.

And the OSPOs lined up in this queue are looking over their shoulders: ByteDance, Huawei, Ant Group, etc.

However, the world never stopped

While China acted so cautiously, the rest of the world took a more radical and courageous approach, gradually resuming all activities and got outstanding achievements.

The TODO Group, an OSPO advocate and leader, hosted in-person OSPOCon conferences in North America and Europe as well as the OSPOlogy.live event. Papers based on the OSPO have also been published, such as “The Rise of the Open Source Project Office,” which summarizes the literature. All of this is based on the rising demand for open source in the enterprise.[3]

We don’t want to distance ourselves from the world; all we need is to be in sync.

Embrace open source in the right way

With the release of the country’s 14th Five-Year Plan, the emphasis on open source has been put under the spotlight, and speculators have begun to focus on this piece. They arbitrarily distort and destroy the open source, which requires us to properly sort out and point them out.

A minority of malicious merchants are recklessly misinterpreting the policy of autonomy and control, arbitrarily interpreting open source, and hindering the development of open source, which makes local governments and enterprises suffer. Facing this situation, companies serving the community with the mission of open source are hesitating and torn, and need to unite.

For the special local cultural and institutional background, establishing an open source project office is obviously the best choice to embrace open source in a business/institution/organizational way, which not only can avoid detours, but also improve your competitiveness.

Learning to work together in competition

Nobody doubts the numerous benefits of enterprises embracing open source[4]：

• Lower cost
• Use of Industry De-facto Standards
• Faster Time to Market
• Increased Consumer Trust
• Collaboration on A Global Scale
• Newer, More Scalable Technologies
• Expanded Transparency and Openness
• Digital Transformation Benefits

But recognizing this is not enough; collaborating is also necessary when you are in the same open-source community as your competitors. We need this atmosphere so much to be on the same platform as our competitors to talk. We collaborate on open-source projects and compete in business for the common good.

More to Learn

These are excellent reasons to have a large gathering of peers, but we still need something practical.

• Practice for OSPOs, lessons, and takeaways.
• How to win the support of management and what the consequences are in different management approaches.
• How to balance open-source projects and corporate profits.
• How to evangelize in such different cultures.
• How enterprises can handle the increased use of open-source projects under the legal, economic order
• Peer-to-peer communication
• ……

So we initiated an in-person summit about enterprises embracing open source to network, connect and share. That is OSPO Summit 2022! [5]

References

1. 《开源之迷 - The Mystery of Open Source》，适兕 Kuosi，人民邮电出版社 People’s Post and Telecom Press，2022-02
2. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/F6q2Jv0FMMu8Oi0joI5BXg ，Last visit time：2022-11-04
3. Open Source Summit EU 2022
4. https://openinventionnetwork.com/media/oin-resources/benefits-of-open-source/ ,Last visit time： 2022-11-16
5. OSPO Summit 2022 Official Website：https://ospo.events/