A COMPANY's GUIDE to OPEN SOURCE and SOCIAL IMPACT
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a COMPANY’S GUIDE to OPEN SOURCE and SOCIAL IMPACT ISBN 978-952-93-8203-3 Graphic design and layout: Ville Repo License: CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode Copyright: Futurice Oy, http://www.futurice.com Teemu Turunen & Katri Kemppinen A COMPANY’S GUIDE TO OPEN SOURCE AND SOCIAL IMPACT CONTENTS p. 7 — CHAPTER 1 where we observe the company p. 8 — CHAPTER 2 where we contemplate open source and its importance p. 9 — CHAPTER 3 where we briefly wonder why companies exist p. 13 — CHAPTER 4 where we learn the story of the spice program p. 23 — CHAPTER 5 where we consider the goals of our endeavour p. 27 — CHAPTER 6 where we justify the sponsored activities p. 34 — CHAPTER 7 where we dissect the lifecycle of a sponsored activity p. 66 — CHAPTER 8 where we measure the created value p. 88 — CHAPTER 9 where we look at the metrics 99 — APPENDIX A — Communication examples 116 — APPENDIX B — Early spice program feedback 120 — APPENDIX C — Employee engagement survey data 126 — APPENDIX D — The purpose of the company 131 — REFERENCES A Company’s Guide to Open Source and Social Impact CHAPTER 1 where we observe the company We at Futurice have built a unique system to help our employees advance causes important to them. We have achieved this through CHAPTER 2 where we contemplate open source and its importance research, trial and error, sheer stubbornness, and trusting people nearly CHAPTER 3 where we briefly wonder why companies exist to the point of naivety. CHAPTER 4 where we learn the story of the spice program Our people can teach kids and teachers, advance open source CHAPTER 5 where we consider the goals of our endeavour projects, help NGOs with their digital challenges, or fight the good CHAPTER 6 where we justify the sponsored activities fight for inclusivity, equality or sustainability. They can do all this with a CHAPTER 7 where we dissect the lifecycle of a sponsored activity strong support from the company and their peers. The benefits to the CHAPTER 8 where we measure the created value company are remarkable. This book attempts to give you a thorough understanding of how CHAPTER 9 where we look at the metrics and why we have made open source and social impact activities a very significant part of our company culture. It describes our coordinated APPENDIX A — Communication examples approach to support employee free time activities and measure the APPENDIX B — Early spice program feedback value created. Our approach is a program, which we call the Spice APPENDIX C — Employee engagement survey data Program. This book should be particularly interesting for professionals APPENDIX D — The purpose of the company interested in company culture, developer relations, and employee REFERENCES engagement. At the time of writing our sustained supported activities are Open Source and Open Education. These activities encompass a large number of different initiatives carried out by roughly a third of our employees. This work describes our approach to achieving this rate of adoption of the program and what we have learned in the process. We begin with some definitions and the story of our program and continue with a more analytical look at how and why to do these things. The third segment dives into the science of measuring things. At the end you’ll find a number of appendices with all the relevant data we could think of. 5 All the information in this document is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike International 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0), unless otherwise specified. This means you’re free to copy and redistribute this material in any medium or format, and you can remix, transform, and build upon the material. These rights we grant to you for any purpose, including commercial use. There’s a catch. You need to let people know it’s originally from us, Futurice, and you need to share the modified work with the same license. Please also provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes have been made. 6 CHAPTER 1 where we observe the company We are a digital agency! The company introduction in trochaic tetrameter*: Futurice, the agile agency, Together three-hundred strong, Weavers of dimensions digital, Counselling the leaders on winds, From the land of the Finns, Concepts to cut out confusion, Helsinki housing the headquarters, Drawing true the dazzling dreams, Tampere indisciplined and innovative, Architects avoiding awkwardness, Berlin coalescing with creativity, Engineering the ever-efficient, London leveraging laconic love, Safely sailing the shoals of legacy, Stockholm suavely stepping it up, For the better digital services, Munich making miracles to mammoths, For the better digital future. If you want information about us that is actually useful, check out http://www.futurice.com. * Like Kalevala, the work of epic poetry on Finnish folklore. Our marketing did not provide a fresh company intro text fast enough. Yes, the blood is on your hands, marketing! 7 CHAPTER 2 where we contemplate Open Source and its importance A knotty puzzle may hold a scientist up for a century, when it may be that a colleague has the solution already and is not even aware of the puzzle that it might solve. — isaac asimov, the robots of dawn To understand our approach, it is important to hear how we view open source. Open source refers to any work that can be modified and shared because its design is publicly accessible. The term also designates a set of values and approaches, such as open exchange, collaborative participation, rapid prototyping, transparency, and com- munity development. The term originates from computer software development, but has gained popularity in other contexts as well. This document you are reading is open source. The Creative Commons license we have chosen for it allows you to take these words, make changes, and redistribute the modified version. In fact, it would be great if you did! Our company both advocates and benefits from making use of open source software when we build software solutions for our cus- tomers. It is the one ideology that the majority of our people subscribe to. It would be absurd not to make use of the available frameworks, libraries, databases, and other types of solutions available to us. There is a lot of value in this. Open source builds on prior success and fuels greater innovation. Collaborative development can achieve amazing things that we alone couldn’t. This is specifically true for soft- ware projects due to their notorious complexity. We return to why we support free time open source activities later in this book. 8 CHAPTER 3 where we briefly wonder why companies exist Does morality play a role in running a company? What is the pur- pose of companies? Should a company be ethically and morally considered a single entity, or a collection of individuals? These questions are worthy of at least a shelf metre of books, and there are many good ones on the subject. Here we will only scratch the surface on the topic by contemplating our position as a company. This is quite relevant when you consider whether your company should have a social responsibility program, and even more importantly, what should the goals of that program be. For our purposes let’s establish that we have three types of compa- nies (see also related criticism below). The company can be an amoral entity, the sole purpose of which is to maximise shareholder returns within the parameters of the law. Considering ethics is only relevant as a tool; if shareholder wealth increases more through ethical business, then ethical business it is. The business can also be guided by enlightened self-interest. The company recognises that the health of the society in which it operates is crucial for its continuity, and wants to be a good corporate citizen to ensure this. This type of company also avoids upsetting any stakeholders and interest groups, which may, in addition to your basic customers, subcontractors, and competitors, include parties such as the education system, nature preservation, etc. Finally the company can be run based on an ethical imperative, making it a moral agent and a part of the surrounding society — even, at least to some degree, an entity that owes its existence to the society. There are companies with triple bottom line accounting, where in ad- dition to financial profit and loss the company also considers social and environmental value as a measurable part of their core business. 9 Let’s look back at the questions and answer them — this is the personal viewpoint of the Futurice Lead Social Responsibility Engineer, who also happens to be the author — hi there! Does morality play a role in running a company? Teemu: Yes. A thousand times yes! What is the purpose of companies? Teemu: Different companies have different purposes to exist. In my opinion our primary purpose is to give good people a chance to grow professionally and make this world a better place. For proper impact we should then convince other companies to do the same. Should a company be considered an entity, or a collection of individuals? Teemu: Depends on the context, but if ethics are considered, then a collection of individuals. Of course, if you asked someone else in Futurice, you would probably get different answers. In fact let’s find out! We recently made a survey to our employees. The purpose of the company survey Which type of a company are we; what do you assume to be our current shared goal? An amoral entity, our purpose is to maximise shareholder returns Enlightened self-interest, we recognise the health of the society as a key to our success Ethical imperative, we are a moral agent, our primary mission to make the world a better place Other..