Rackspace open door for open-source development

Rackspace is one of the few companies that takes open source software to an extreme.  Van Lindberg, Rackspace’s VP of Intellectual Property (IP), announced that Rackspace employees, Rackers, can “contribute to a project that is directly competitive with Rackspace.”

So if a ‘Racker’ decides to devote to Apache CloudStack, they can directly contribute to the project without question.

“This new policy will drive business opportunities for Rackspace and build leadership and expertise in our Rackers, also forcing us to focus on the services we pride ourselves on delivering.” – Van Lindberg

Rackspace has always been vocal about its commitment with the open cloud.  Now they are giving its’ employees the same benefits they offer to their corporate customers.  Free access to the marketplace of ideas and an open door to building on the innovations of others.

Lindberg stated that the company is changing its policy so that “Rackers are free to contribute and participate in any public open source project of their choice that has an established open-source license.”

In the past, Rackspace’s policy was that they had to check with the IP Committee/legal department prior to contributing.

To encourage the sharing and collaboration by contributing to open source projects, Rackers will be focusing on the services they deliver.

This new policy does have a couple discrepancies:

1. Rackers are encouraged to contribute on their own time, they can contribute during work hours but must first get approval from their manager.
2. If a Racker would like to contribute to a project that is competitive with Rackspace, they would like to know exactly why before anything is contributed.

Along with the collaboration and sharing, they can contribute to code, patches, tests, and documents even during work hours.

This will bring a closer more productive partnership, that builds leadership and expertise to the Rackers.
What do you think about this new policy?  Please give us your thoughts in the comments below!

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References:
Rackspace’s Policy On Contributing To Open Source – Rackspace Blog
http://www.rackspace.com/blog/rackspaces-policy-on-contributing-to-open-source/

Rackspace opens the door wide for open-source development – ZDNet
http://www.zdnet.com/rackspace-opens-the-door-wide-for-open-source-development-7000026021/