Should we be thanking microsoft, apple and google for their contributions to open source software?: The case of multinational platform leaders

Abstract

Software producing organizations are contributing increasingly to open source software, by making their software open source or contributing to existing projects. Platform leaders contribute to open source software in different manners, but for whose interests are these companies contributing to open source software? Are contributions made by software developers as part of a software vendor or do these software producing organizations want to do what is right without benefits? So how do platform leaders contribute to open source software? By analyzing the data from GitHub repositories, the contributions to open source software by three platform leaders is researched in two dimensions, how are the developers connected and to which projects do these developers contribute. By analyzing their connectedness and analyzing the developed projects, the conclusion is drawn that contributions are made for the strategic advantage of the software producing organizations. The majority of the contributions made to open source software is to their own projects and by developers who contribute to these projects full-time.