If you look at it from the input-output financial perspective, where the effort in open sourcing it produces X amount of money, I'd agree its not viable. But if

If you look at it from the input-output financial perspective, where the effort in open sourcing it produces X amount of money, I'd agree its not viable. But if you look at it from the advertising perspective, there are other advantages: - Appeal to potential employees for their exposure boost - External contributors to fix minor bugs and do testing, along with online presence - Availability after the entities maintaining it goes defunct. With any luck if the project has gained some momentum other companies will also have programmers using/wanting to maintain the same thing - Free to 'on board' or filter candidates even before hiring So I'd view it as a kind of branding strategy, helping spread good optics for the business. This in turn makes a system where it increases the pool of potential employees and external user support.