The presentation will explain why Two Sigma, a company in a space notorious for protecting IP, thinks it's important to contribute to the open source community. I'll talk about the evolution of our thinking and policies over the past five years, and make a case for why other companies should make a commitment to the open source ecosystem.
Two Sigma, an investment company based in NYC, is just one of a large number of organizations that relies daily on open source software. Like any forward-looking business, we need to be confident that the ecosystem we depend on will still be functional far into the future. Where will the tools crucial to our business be in 10 years if we don't invest in them now? The dangers are real. The public digital infrastructure that we rely on is not free, nor invulnerable. The challenge of sustaining digital infrastructure for the public good is a relatively new one, and since Two Sigma is in a position to support the unseen labor maintaining a healthy open source ecosystem, we have a chance to be a leader in this space. Supporting OSS can take many forms: making substantial contributions to projects we use regularly, open sourcing tools we’ve developed in house, and financially sponsoring non-profits that contribute to a healthy open source ecosystem. In this talk, I’ll outline the way Two Sigma’s thinking about open source and our involvement with it has changed over the past 5 years, and present a few of the ways we’re trying to give back to the open source community.