An Open Source Investment Realizes Sizable Results

An open source project is getting significant investment from a major American corporation.

Believe it or not Walmart, the mega retailer, has spent more than $2 million on the Hapi project, which is a “rich framework for building applications and services” that “enables developers to focus on writing reusable application logic instead of spending time building infrastructure” according to its website.

In a blog post, Senior Developer at Walmart Labs Eran Hammer explained the company’s decision to pursue open source. Every decision the company makes is done after performing a cost-benefit analysis, and it appears as though the mega retailer expects to see a return on its investment.

Here’s how: Because Hapi is open source, any company is free to use the code, primarily developed by Walmart’s programmers, for its specific purposes. As other companies use the code, their developers are likely to customize the code further to better suit their specific needs. Because those developers strive to improve the code when they go about changing it, they are likely to request that their additions be included in the project trunk.

In other words, Walmart is developing Hapi in hopes that external companies will adopt the framework. In turn, those companies will improve the code even more, and Walmart will benefit as a result.

“For example, every five startups using Hapi translated to the value of one full-time developer, while every 10 large companies translated to one full-time senior developer,” Hammer writes.

Essentially, by investing in Hapi, Walmart aims to benefit from high-quality improvements in code while not having to spend money associated with recruiting, hiring and training new internal staff. By paying a few coders to work on Hapi, the company is essentially getting the work of three individuals instead, for example.

Many businesses are attracted to open source technology because of its generally non-existent price tag. But businesses that see beyond that benefit are sure to see a better return on their investments, as Walmart has demonstrated.

An Open Source Investment Realizes Sizable Results