Open Source @ Equinor

In Equinor we develop open source software. Open source is both an individual strategy chosen by our projects, as well as a strategic direction for software development in the company as a whole.

Open and Collaborative

We do so, because we believe in collaboration. Collaboration with developers and users, vendors and educational institutions, partners and competitors. Within and outside our industry.

Open source is our most important tool in removing obstacles that prevent our software development projects to collaborate freely.

This strategy increases our combined knowledge when developing software. It gives us access to, and increases the possibility for, innovation.

An open development model enables a healthy and sustainable environment for our projects, in a way we cannot achieve alone.

For our engineers, open source is the foundation of our modern IT platform and not only speeds up the development process, but increases the flexibility and security in our IT solutions.

For us as a company, open source software significantly reduces the risk of vendor lock-in. It prevents situations where technical incompatibilities and limited freedom in closed source products become a hindrance for our business objectives.

The value of receiving contributions

We benefit from contributions to our projects. This could be as a direct improvement of the product, like bug fixes and new features.

Valuable contributions may also come in other forms. Several of our open source projects are often targeted tools, developed for a specific domain and purpose, for a small user group within our company. However, when together with external communities, the combined user base is able to collectively give the feedback and level of user interaction needed for a healthy software development process.

After all, we see software as an expression of our current knowledge within a domain – and the process of developing it as an integrated part of this continuous learning process. Collaboration and receiving contributions lifts that learning to outside our teams, outside our projects and outside Equinor.

The value of contributing

Our product development is based on open source software. We depend on open source components for our infrastructure, as well as the tools and frameworks we use to build our own solutions.

Through contributions to open source projects, our projects are enabled to take an active part in improving the products that we depend on. We see this as a valuable mechanism in fulfilling our IT strategy.

As we want to enable more collaboration in Equinor maintained projects, we also seek to increase our engagement in projects maintained by others.

Flexibility and autonomy

Any environment for collaboration is naturally shaped by the different parties involved. A condition for getting the most value of such a collaboration, means the freedom to adapt and take part in or create a community for its specific purpose.

Our approach to open source software development, also means that our projects and teams have the necessary freedom to decide how they want to form and implement their individual open source strategy.

This includes choice of license, and other decisions on how the projects choose to approach an open development model for their products.