Source: [Openness is an engineering decision](https://fireflysoftware.io/perspectives/open-by-design/)

Description: Why Firefly contributes to open-source foundations and how openness informs enterprise software decisions.

Language: en

[Home](https://fireflysoftware.io/)/Open-source thinking

# Openness is an engineering decision.

A Firefly perspective on reading, reusing, and adopting open-source code.

A perspective from Firefly Software

For a bank or insurer, choosing open source is a business and engineering decision. Visible code can help assess control, change costs and dependencies. It also leaves the institution with decisions about maintenance, security, operating responsibility and the evidence needed before adoption.

## Look beyond the interface.

Documentation explains what a project intends to do. Source code lets a team examine how it does it. Together, they let a team inspect architectural choices, integration boundaries, and the behavior a particular application depends on.

That visibility is useful during evaluation. It does not replace testing, security review, or an understanding of the operating environment.

## Most engineering problems are shared.

Enterprise applications repeatedly encounter similar engineering problems: handling a request, applying business rules, coordinating a workflow, or connecting to another system.

Open components give teams shared foundations on which to build what makes their institution different: credit policy, product rules, insurance workflows, actuarial knowledge and customer experiences. With AI assisting development, more of that work can become institution-owned software and knowledge that teams reuse across products and services.

Three products on one shared foundation. Each stands on the platform with the same two amber modules and adds a piece of its own on top: a customer channel, approved rules, or AI that assists a person. All three connect through the same APIs and events.  The same rules, workflows and interfaces can support several products. Shared foundations give each service room to develop its own role.

## What to check before you adopt a project.

Start with the license, then inspect the project’s implemented behavior, maintenance, release process and dependencies. Compare the full cost of integration, controls, data migration, support and eventual replacement. Different projects and deployments require different evidence.

Our thesis is that some value will shift from closed enterprise suites towards institution-owned services on open, connected components. Commercial tools, integration, engineering and support remain part of that model. The decision is where ownership gives the institution a stronger ability to change.

## Why we build in the open.

Firefly Software founded the Firefly Software Foundation to develop and maintain open-source initiatives, including Firefly OpenPlatform and Firefly Framework. These projects make our engineering available to inspect and extend. Specialized commercial applications can be built on those foundations, with their own scope and licensing.

[Explore the Firefly ecosystem](https://fireflysoftware.io/ecosystem/) to find the projects and their own documentation.

Your next step

## Tell us whathas to change.

It might be a customer need, a business priority or an operating problem. We will assess the case for change with you, map who and what it involves, and plan a first step.

[Start a conversation](https://fireflysoftware.io/contact/)