everyone, and thank you for joining my session. My name is Ryo Ashikawa, Engineering Manager at NIFTY Corporation in Japan. Today, I’ll share how we started InnerSource at NIFTY, and three key points that accelerated it. I hope our story gives you some hints for your own InnerSource journey.
quick intro about me. I've worked for Nifty Corporation for 20 years. I started as a backend engineer in 2004, became a Scrum Master, and now I work as an Engineering Manager. I focus on team collaboration and developer productivity. That is why InnerSource matters to me.
What kind of company is NIFTY? 2. Discoveries and Efforts for InnerSource 3. Three points that accelerate InnerSource 4. Plans for the future Today’s STORY
today’s story. First, I’ll introduce NIFTY and what kind of company we are. Second, I’ll share our discoveries and efforts for InnerSource. Third, I’ll talk about three points that helped InnerSource grow inside our company. Finally, I would like to talk about what we are planning to do in the future.
is NIFTY Corporation? • Traditional Japanese internet company. • Established in February 1986. • Internet Service Provider • Security services、News、 Point Service and so on
Corporation is one of Japan’s traditional internet companies. We were established in 1986. And now, we are Internet Service Provider. All employees is about 500. We provide services like internet connection and security, plus web content such as news and weather forecast services , or point services and so on. So, you can say we are an “old but flexible” company, always adapting to new technology. This background helps us understand both legacy systems and modern practices like InnerSource.
Team ISP ISP ISP Web Web CS Enabling Team SRE QA Security Complicated-Subsystem Team ISP network Platform Team Membership Billing Data Analysis Cloud Strategy NIFTY`s engineer organization • 150+ engineers • 15+ teams • 1000+ repositories
engineering organization has more than 150 engineers in about 15 teams, and we manage over 1000 repositories. And We manage these repositories under a single GitHub organization account. We have frontend, backend, web, and customer support system teams , or SRE/QA teams. We were looking for a better way to collaborate beyond many teams,and that led us to InnerSource.
for Discovering InnerSource For Resource Management TASK TASK TASK TASK TASK TASK TASK TASK HELP team A team B Is there any way to do this without changing the team composition?
of the earliest motivations for adopting InnerSource was that we were having problems with resource management. Each team had its own tasks. And some teams are busy and some are not, depending on the time of year. At the time, It was hard to share tasks or skills or help across teams. I thought, “Is there any way to do this , without changing the team composition?”
I found InnerSource — an eye-opener for me. I read an article and case studies about InnerSource that inspired me. They showed that we can reuse open source practices inside a company. I first saw the website in this screenshot written by Mr Kobayashi at Toshiba Corporation, who is just there!!
with InnerSource Patterns Book https://patterns.innersourcecommons.org/ Here's how to get started with Innersource. Start with an experimental project!
has been shown so far, the InnerSource Patterns Book was very helpful. It explains how to start: begin with an experimental project,then expand gradually. I strongly recommend this book if you plan to start InnerSource in your company.
Strategic Cultural Installation Manager TOP DOWN !! Do InnerSource !! Member Manager Efforts to make activities appear member-driven. The company made appropriate commitments and evaluations, incorporating them into guidelines. VS
a side note, I'd like to explain how, as an engineering manager, I introduced innersource culture to my organization. As an engineering manager, I was also able to introduce InnerSource to members of my organization in a top-down way. However, in the context of autonomous collaboration between engineers, I wanted to make a culture that was bottom-up. So, I chose young engineer interested in InnerSource and made him field reps to promote it. Another thing I focused on as an engineering manager was telling other managers to properly recognize successful Inner Source activities in performance evaluations. In this way, Nifty's InnerSource was able to spread primarily through the field.
of NIFTY’s Efforts 2022 2023 2024 2025 InnerSource discovery Read the InnerSource Pattern Book Start an experimental project Deploy within the company Create guidelines & InnerSource portal Join the InnerSource Commons Community InnerSource activities are recognized within the company Support for the InnerSource Gathering Tokyo 2024 Contribution Practice Session Applies to 20 repositories We are making steady progress Support for the InnerSource Gathering Tokyo 2025
is our InnerSource timeline. We discovered InnerSource in 2022 and started an experimental project. In 2023, we created guidelines and an InnerSource portal. In 2024, we joined the InnerSource Commons community. Thank you so much, Hattori-san, for finding our company's activities. More recently, we provided operational support to the InnerSource Gathering Tokyo 2024 and 2025. And Now, about 15% of our engineers contribute to InnerSource projects of our company.
chart shows our contribution network as of October 2025. Each red circle represents a contributor. Each blue square represents a repository. The lines show contribution relationships that go beyond their own teams. About 15% of our engineers are active contributors. It’s a small step, but an important one for our culture.
to accelerate InnerSource 1) When interests align, InnerSource accelerates. 2) Incorporate InnerSource into your workflow. 3) Create a place to jump from user to contributor.
InnerSource works best when interests align. There are cases where InnerSource works well — For example, In the figure on the left , these are small tools and commands that one person have created to make their work a little easier. Everyone wants to finish their work quickly. This has the same interest.Maybe, they wanna go home on time. Nifty's innersource activity also started here. In the figure on the right , when stream-aligned teams share the same source like platform-T`s source. To give a specific and simple example: At Nifty, the definition file of user permission for the API is managed by Platform T inside the repository, and Users can submit pull requests to authorize their own use through contributions. This allows contributors to use the API quickly, and maintainers only need to approve it.
In the figure on the left, I think it would work well if teams with the same goal helped each other out. However, In the figure on the right, it doesn’t work well because each team is working towards a different goals. For example, differences in business domains, technology stacks,and so on In other words, ... If both contributors and repository maintainers benefit, contribution happens naturally. If only one side benefits, it doesn’t work well. So we always ask: “How can contributors and repository maintainers both win?” I think this is the most important thing.
InnerSource into your workflow • The business department can now directly submit corrections to email templates on GitHub WEB UI. • They felt that corrections could be made more quickly. The role of InnerSource in WORKFLOW. Knowledge 2
include InnerSource in daily workflows. This means incorporating innersource practices into established business workflows. A concrete example: our business department can directly edit email templates on GitHub with the web UI. They don’t need to ask engineers for small changes of email temlates.
a real example of contributing.md file: we just need to describe how to send a pull request — with screenshots — in the CONTRIBUTING.md file. So then, even people who can’t use git commands can contribute using only a browser. This lowers the barrier and speeds up improvements. In other words, … InnerSource is no longer just for engineers!
a place to jump from user to contributor https://levelup.gitconnected.com/how-to-grow-a-sustainable-inclusive-open-source-community-ce156214cc9f The hurdle from user to first time contributor is high. When we held a Contribution Practice Session, more than 10 people joined. User wanted to hold it regularly. Knowledge 3
create a safe place for first-time contributors. In the OSS world, it’s often said that there is a big hurdle when moving from a user to a first-time contributor. It's the first step in this figure. And it’s the same in InnerSource. So, We held a small “Contribution Practice Session.” More than 10 people participate every time and many asked to continue regularly. It helped users take their first step as contributors.
Practice Session`s Agenda (60 minutes) 1. What is InnerSource? (5 minutes) 2. Explaining the product and how to contribute with CONTRIBUTIING.md (5 minutes) 3. Explaining Good First Issue of the product (5 minutes) 4. Hands-on implementation (40 minutes) 5. A short survey and sticker giveaway! (5 minutes)
is the 60-minute agenda of the Contribution Practice Session: - What is InnerSource? (5 minutes) - How to contribute with CONTRIBUTING.md (5 minutes) - Explaining Good First Issues of the product (5 minutes) - Hands-on implementation (40 minutes) - Short survey and sticker giveaway (5 minutes) These stickers are always very useful! Please give them to me again！！！
far, I’ve talked about three points to accelerate InnerSource within the organization, based on my own experiences. Looking back, I realized that it’s difficult to bring everything from the open source world into an organization as it is. There are various constraints, so we need to change our way of thinking and find suitable ways to adopt it effectively. For example, in open source, contributors can contribute freely in their own time, but inside a company, there are usually working hour limits. On the other hand, since everyone wats to go home on time, people tend to be highly interested in improving work efficiency— you know, our interests align naturally at this point. And, Let's think about how to make InnerSource accessible to people who are not engineers. Furthermore, within the same organization, we often have multiple business goals and sometimes silos are formed. But rather than seeing these silos as something negative, we can see them as good silos that help reduce cognitive load. Instead of trying to break them down, maybe we should think about how we can carry out Innersource activities effectively within them.
Nifty, Volunteers work together to promote InnerSource activities within the company. We don’t have an OSPO or ISPO. We meet every two weeks to talk about our task progress. They are the InnerSource Officers of Nifty like inntersource heros!!. Among them, there are tech lead engineer and also business staff who is not engineer. They are not here today, but I really want to thank them for their help.
plan until March 2026 2025.10 2026.4 2026.01 We wanna make a Japanese manga that spreads InnerSource to Japan Meeting to check all new repositories Innersource proposal activities For repository maintainers Regular briefings Regular surveys Regular Contribution Practice Session For contributors We wanna find new ways for non-engineers to join InnerSource activitie NEW ways
is our plan until March 2026. We are working to support both repository maintainers and contributors. At Nifty, there are more than 1,000 repositories. We check the repositories one by one and try to find the ones that can grow as Innersource projects. Then, we suggest InnerSource ideas to the maintainers. We also hold “Contribution Practice Sessions” to encourage contributors, as I mentioned earlier. In 2025, we will continue these activities. And We also want to find new ways for non-engineers to join InnerSource activities. As I said earlier, we want to make InnerSource practices part of our daily workflow. We believe there are more use cases for this idea. For example, maybe we can apply it to internal documents that everyone uses.
Conclusion • NIFTY started InnerSource three years ago. • Now 15% of engineers became contributors • There were three points that accelerated InnerSource within the company. 1. Innersource accelerates when interests align 2. Incorporating InnerSource into your workflow 3. Creating a place to jump from user to contributor Knowledge While there is still much to be done, NIFTY aims to grow as a reference implementation of InnerSource for Japanese companies and share its knowledge with the community.
you so much for listening so far. To summarize: NIFTY started InnerSource three years ago. Now, about 15% of engineers are contributors. Three accelerators were: -Innersource accelerates when interests align -Incorporating InnerSource into your workflow with non-engineers. -Creating a place to jump from user to contributor We still have much to do, and we will keep sharing our learnings with the community. Thank you!!
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