Paperphyte/Glossary/Inner source

What is Inner source?

Inner source means taking ways of working from open source and applying them inside the organisation: open repos, open contributions, clear ownership and shared standards between teams.

The point is that teams don't just consume internal platforms and libraries — they can contribute to them via pull requests, just like in open source. The platform team stops being a bottleneck and becomes an enabler with a maintainer role.

It requires the same things open source does: good documentation, clear contribution guidelines and a culture where reviews are helpful rather than territorial.

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