For most Indian IT companies, open-source initiatives were limited to a one-way participation of consuming the code, until a critical question at Infosys changed the way the firm approached open-source: What’s the gain in giving back to the open-source community?

The query led Infosys to discover that open-source meant more than coding, “it’s a way of thinking,” said Prabhat Kumar, global head of the Open-source Program Office (OSPO) at Infosys. 

The company moved from being consumers of open-source to becoming active participants, eventually undergoing a cultural shift, he said while addressing a session on “Building open-source culture in an enterprise: The Infosys OSPO story” at the Linux Foundation India open-source summit in Hyderabad, recently.

By encouraging diverse ideas and collaboration across teams, he said, the company saw improvements in how its products like iLEAD and IQE were being built.

The iLEAD platform, built entirely on open-source, supports over 40 patterns across app development and modernisation lifecycle. Developers from multiple units continuously enhanced its features, keeping costs low while driving expert-led, industry-grade automation.

Besides this, recently, over 10 GenAI features, like Agentic, RAG, MCP, and Extensions, were added to iLEAD through open-source and internal community efforts.

Another benefit became clear through reuse. Across such a large organisation, it’s easy for teams to duplicate efforts. But with an open approach, Kumar explained, teams could reuse existing components built by others, which meant faster development, reduced costs, and better efficiency.

He said that freedom was another powerful byproduct. By moving away from lock-ins, Infosys teams could experiment with new ideas, explore fresh architectural patterns, and bring in creative solutions.

Employee satisfaction, too, saw a boost, he shared. 

Engineers who contributed to open-source felt empowered and motivated. They weren’t just completing tasks, but “owning projects”, and participating in impactful work that extended beyond the company walls.

An engineer shared that the company has made a strong mark, especially in projects like Backstage and KubeVirt, earning credibility and prompting others to seek its support.

He noted that Infosys’s contributions span code, whitepapers, and success stories, which have helped spark client interest and even business deals. “Many reach out just by seeing our GitHub activity,” he said, adding that open contributions offer visibility and attract professional opportunities without formal interviews.

“Now we’re not just contributing to others’ projects; we’re donating our own,” he said. Some of these are being shaped into internal products with revenue potential, based on feedback from users.

“Maintainer status is the next milestone,” he added. “That badge speaks volumes — about both the individual and the company.”

Tools Matter

One key tool the company brought out is an open-source portal, a single stop shop where employees find everything open-source related – dashboards, community collaborations, contribution processes, and consumption workflows.

To promote reuse, Kumar said, “We created CodeScope, a portal where developers can post reusable code snippets, utilities, or tools. These are discoverable and usable by anyone in the company, regardless of direct connections.”

Additionally, Infosys developed an internal freelancing or gig economy platform, Infosys Accelerate. Managers can post work packages, and employees can pick up tasks during free time, enabling flexible contribution.

“This approach connects contributors and project owners, reducing red tape and confusion about how to contribute,” he said, adding that this infrastructure required a people-centric approach ensuring it is liked and enjoyable. 

Employee engagement and motivation

Kumar said that Infosys runs campaigns throughout the year to engage employees: CodeCon focused on contributions, partnerships like CNCF’s Zero to Merge, where the company guides new contributors through their journey. 

“Over the last two years, we’ve added more than 50 new contributors,” he highlighted. 

The company, he said, also runs local cohorts for events like Hacktoberfest, and has a local tech community chapter, TechConHack, which hosts industry speakers (internal and external).

Kumar said the company rewards contributions in any form (code, testing, documentation, or management) with incentives.

“Employees can include their contributions as part of KPIs and appraisals. Recognition is key. We publicly acknowledge contributors across our more than 22 offices by engaging local leadership to highlight their impact,” he said. 

In the last year alone, the contributions amounted to more than 7.5 lakh lines of code, more than 200 node contributions (defects, docs, etc.), via over 150 active contributors, he said.

Earlier this year, Infosys contributed its Responsible AI Toolkit and AI application development framework, part of Infosys Topaz AI offerings, to Linux Foundation Networking. 

Salus (toolkit), as referred to by the Linux Foundation, offers advanced technical guardrails to detect and mitigate AI risks like bias, privacy breaches, and harmful content, while enhancing model transparency. 

Essedum leverages its AI application development framework to accelerate the integration of AI data, models, and applications within the networking industry.

Others on open-source

Tech Mahindra’s Project Indus is an open-source foundational language model, “a civilizational initiative tailored for India to empower all Indic languages”. The company’s R&D teams “engage robustly” in the broader open-source community, contributing code and thought leadership, said Nikhil Malhotra, chief innovation officer at Tech Mahindra.

While other Indian firms, including TCS, Cognizant, LTIMindtree, did not respond to queries, global tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Red Hat significantly advance open-source by developing and stewarding major projects, like Kubernetes (Google), VS Code (Microsoft), and Linux (IBM/Red Hat). 

They dedicate substantial resources, code, engineering talent, and direct financial support to foundations, governance, and community initiatives. 

Infosys may be “financially supporting the FOSS ecosystem as a member of the Linux Foundation,” but much of its recent work “appears to either be plugins for existing projects or the new AI frameworks that don’t seem to have meaningful traction,” said Sai Rahul Poruri, CEO of FOSS United (Free and open-source software) community. 

He emphasised that real culture change requires both top-down and bottom-up buy-in, where management incentivises contributions and engineers genuinely want to participate.

Cultural factors do contribute to the lag in contribution from Indian companies, Linux Foundation India head Arpit Joshipura had earlier told AIM. Many companies, according to Joshipura, continue the outsourcing legacy where client-driven priorities in the US and Europe do not emphasise open-source contributions.

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