Finding a good word for company-internal open source

Question

Open source is normally associated with making code available to the public.

I am looking to express another concept and (wrongly) associate it with open source.

Imagine a large distributed organization of competing units. These units develop and possess proprietary code.

Some of them decide to "open source" this code internally, that is, make it available to all members.

What is the proper term which is not misleading? Internal open source?

There is something like "semi-open source" (google for it). As far as I get it, it either restricts the free access to a specific part of the code or to a specific group of people e.g. scientists. If you consider "the organization" as a group of people, "semi-open source" could work here. Anyway, if using "semi-open source" one always has to define what "semi" means exactly. My semi-open source doesn't have to be the same as yours. By the way, there is nothing odd about "internal open source". — Ben A., Commented Feb 7, 2020 at 10:54
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs on Super User. — Hot Licks, Commented Feb 7, 2020 at 14:01
@jxh - Seems like until someone steps up it’s: Company Abandoned Source. :-) — Jim, Commented Feb 11, 2020 at 2:08

Allan · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-07 13:48:54Z

1

"Internal open source" is OK. Or "InnerSource" can be used. https://www.infoq.com/news/2015/10/innersource-at-paypal/

answered Feb 7, 2020 at 13:48

Allan

364 bronze badges

Add a comment |

1 Answer 1