Corporate News

We go open source

avodaq's way to the release of their first open source project

open source Beispielbild - wellenartiger Farbverlauf

The decision was made some time ago. Our development team was committed quite early on to becoming actively involved in the open source community. For them it was clear, we not only want to use license-free software, but also share our knowledge and developments with others.

The first step was already taken when the software development department was founded. For Thimo-Christian Göllnitz, Manager Software Development, it was clear from the beginning. We at avodaq would rely on open source and use license-free software for internal and external projects. Since then, the team has grown strongly. Particularly in the software innovation area, several highly qualified IT talents have been hired in recent years. They often are already active in communities during their studies or parallel to their first jobs. Due to the demanding customer projects, the team has limited capacities, but nevertheless they have founded an internal open source initiative. Since then the project team has been meeting on Friday afternoons to work on their common goal.

„Open source helps us to better position avodaq for the future. It enables us to act more efficiently in customer projects, to deliver higher quality, but above all to inspire talents for us and retain them in the long term.“

Thimo-Christian Göllnitz, Manager Software Development

The management buy-in

When our CEO and founder, Andreas Kusch, heard about their heart project in one of the software development “dailies” he was impressed. However, there were still some unanswered questions. Andreas was convinced for some time that the use of open source software in the company brings many advantages. Nevertheless, sharing internal know-how as well as own developments and products with other companies creates some new challenges.

Intellectual property and open source

As an IT service provider, we want and need to protect our intellectual property (IP) and thus our capital. Together with management, we were faced with the question of what knowledge we could freely share with the outside world without compromising our business. We had to rethink processes as a company and employer. But on the other hand, we see companies such as Cisco, Microsoft and Google that have been relying heavily on open source for years. They publish their own libraries while maintaining and improving them at considerable expense. Always with the premise of continuing to strengthen their position in the market. And that was our goal, too.

Together with the internal departments, we have worked over the last few months to create a basis for reconciling what at first glance appear to be contradictory goals.

The launch and what happens next

In the meantime, open source has already become a fixed element of our corporate strategy and part of the success of our software development projects. As a collaborative partner and employer who likes to give employees the freedom to try out new things, the step was exactly right. We are clearly going with the trend and are positioning ourselves to meet the needs of customers in the future. Open source not only allows a certain speed in development processes. Through the exchange with the community it is possible for the company to deliver more efficiently and with a higher quality and security.

With the publication of our first open source project and the launch of the GitHub library, the first step in this direction has been taken. The project team has worked with a lot of dedication on the designs, texts and documentation. Now they can proudly present the first results to the outside world.

Learn more about our project

For us, this is just the starting point. Within our developed solutions there are still many libraries that we can publish open source. Now it is up to the team to continue this journey. Stay tuned …