Justifying an Open Source Program Office in Dollars and Cents

Explore a 34-minute conference talk by Van Lindberg from OSPOCO, presented at a Linux Foundation event, that delves into the financial justification of Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs). Learn how to quantify the value of open source activities to an organization, including methods to attribute increases in corporate value to open source initiatives. Discover ways to measure the worth of GitHub stars, downloads, external pull requests, and sponsorship goodwill. Gain insights into viewing community relationships as a form of valuable "goodwill" and understand how OSPO-driven changes can lead to measurable differences in marketing costs, training expenses, cost of goods sold, and employee retention. Equip yourself with concrete strategies to communicate the tangible benefits of OSPOs, helping to secure their position and funding within organizations, especially during budget constraints.