Techies like to joke that open source is free like a puppy. Indeed, open-source communities — with their large, varied collections of code and rapid cadence of change — can extract a ton of hours and hassles from those using the technologies in production. Still, the trending opinion is that it’s all worth it for the return on investment: early access to leading-edge innovation and community participation.

For a legacy tech company, Microsoft Corp. has its feet surprisingly deep in open source. Open-source technology is a core part of its development strategy now, according to Jeff McAffer (pictured), director of the Open Source Programs Office at Microsoft.

“We’ve got literally millions of uses of open source across all of our products and services,” he said.

If that sounds like a pain in the neck to manage and scale, it is. Building policies and tools to ease things has become a top priority, McAffer explained. This involves mining value from open-source communities to enrich the company and pushing tech back in for feedback and tweaking.

McAffer spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AT&T Spark event in San Francisco. They discussed the pains and profits of open-source and why Goliaths like AT&T Inc. are getting on board.

Straitlaced legacies get dirty in open source

McAffer helps organize open-source project teams at Microsoft. Beyond purely technical changes, adapting to the open-source way of life involves a cultural shift, he explained. Members that get their hands dirty bring value to the company and project.

“The folks who are doing it of their own volition, like, on their own time, and that sort of thing, that also brings back a bunch of energy into the workplace,” McAffer said.

Big corporations are increasingly looking to open source to advance at the pace of startups. AT&T has leveraged open-source to speed up its 5G networking innovation. Contributing to a project can accelerate the development of code and lead it to foreign — and fortuitous — territory.

“One of the most gratifying things that you can see as an open-source project is when people take your technology and use it in ways you never imagined,” McAffer concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AT&T Spark event. 

Photo: SiliconANGLE