How Open Source Software Has Changed Samsung

Software is a key differentiator for companies like Samsung and open source software is an essential piece of any software strategy. Samsung’s product portfolio covers a wide spectrum of vertical and consumer electronics, most of which are enabled with open source software – such as TVs, tablets, phones, cameras, etc. For the past few years, Samsung has been focusing more and more on triggering open source development from within, seizing this collaborative development opportunity and benefiting from the obvious advantages that comes with it. More importantly, we are witnessing the change of status from Samsung being a consumer of open source software to a contributor in a significant number of open source projects...

...As an organization, we [Samsung] are building open source excellence centers in key geographical locations (Silicon Valley, UK for our EU operations, and Korea). This build up in open source expertise is allowing us to set up the needed internal infrastructure to engage with the open source community around the world and attract different kinds of software developers with a diversity of backgrounds. The open source centers and their developers bring different approaches to software development that is challenging the status quo every day and allowing Samsung to renew itself constantly...

...Last but not least, we do realize that open source development within a big and complex company such as Samsung is as much about discipline as it is about bringing a wind of change.  With that in mind, we have established an open source compliance program which we are enforcing and constantly perfecting, which incorporates a clear separation of proprietary R&D and open source development...