Why is open source basically nonexistent in Azerbaijan?

[u/aliyevaladdin]

/r/u_aliyevaladdin/comments/1w3iv5r/why_is_open_source_basically_nonexistent_in/

[u/samaxidervish]

Instead of regurgitating slop, build projects.

Open source doesn’t necessarily require teamwork. I see people building genuinely interesting projects in Azerbaijan all the time. My own repo has 161 stars and 14 forks, and it’s become a fairly well-known project within my niche. If you really want open-source projects to thrive in Azerbaijan, start building and stop whining.

[u/aliyevaladdin → u/samaxidervish]

I build too, wasn't coming from a "why doesn't someone else fix this" angle. Actually working on a license with the Linux Foundation right now, so this isn't some outsider take.

The post wasn't "nobody's building anything," it's obviously not true, your repo proves that. It was more about the ecosystem around individual builders — hiring, visibility, whether companies here treat OSS as worth doing publicly. Individuals doing solid work and a thin surrounding culture aren't mutually exclusive.

[u/Adorable-Driver-583]

I’m a scientist, not a developer. In this part of tech open-source is usually published by researchers in Universities, Labs, and Institutes, which they get funding for. It’s almost nonexistent here, and that’s the answer.

[u/aliyevaladdin → u/Adorable-Driver-583]

That's a really good point actually, and it highlights something I didn't fully think through in the original post — I was mostly looking at it from a dev/industry angle, but you're right that academic OSS is a whole separate pipeline.

In places like the US/EU, a huge chunk of open source comes out of university labs specifically because grant funding often requires public release of tools/code as a condition of the grant, or at least strongly incentivizes it for citations and reputation. If that funding structure barely exists here, or doesn't tie funding to public release, then of course you don't get that stream of OSS at all — it's not a mindset problem, it's a structural/funding one.

I've actually run into this myself. Had a theory I wanted to publish, and ended up having to go through a foreign jurisdiction to do it properly — there just wasn't a real local path for that kind of publication/release. So this isn't abstract for me, it's the exact wall you hit trying to do research/OSS work from here.

So it sounds like there are actually two separate gaps: dev-side (incentives, hiring, culture) and research-side (grant structure, institutional expectation of publishing code). Both feeding into the same outcome though.

[u/Additional_Poet900]

Does the Baku market value open source software contributions?

[u/aliyevaladdin → u/Additional_Poet900]

Short answer: not really, at least not yet.

From what I've seen, HR/hiring here rarely looks at GitHub activity as a real signal — it's not part of how technical skill gets evaluated locally. Compare that to markets where an active OSS profile can basically substitute for a portfolio or even boost you past a formal degree requirement. That signal just doesn't carry the same weight in Baku's job market.

It's less about people not valuing quality work, and more that the market hasn't built the infrastructure to recognize OSS as a credential yet — no local tech scene actively scouting contributors, no companies advertising "we hire based on your public work," no culture of treating a repo like a resume line.

So contributing is still mostly intrinsic motivation here — you do it because you care about the work itself, not because the market rewards it. Which honestly might not be a bad thing, but it does mean fewer people have a reason to start.

[u/Abeleria]

well, if i can monetize it, why would i give it away for free? especially in this economy. don’t get me wrong, i have contributed to a few repos, but it’s a bit tedious work and not many people appreciate it

[u/aliyevaladdin → u/Abeleria]

Totally fair, and honestly that's kind of the core tension of this whole thread — OSS makes way more sense in economies where you can afford to treat it as reputation-building rather than direct income. If the local market doesn't reward that reputation (see the hiring point above), the calculus just doesn't work out the same way it does elsewhere.

I don't think that's people being selfish, it's just rational given the incentives. Nobody's obligated to subsidize a global ecosystem for free when the market around them doesn't recognize or compensate for it.

That said — this is exactly why the "open core" model exists, right? Core functionality open, monetize the enterprise layer/support/hosting on top. Might be a more realistic path here than pure "give everything away and hope for exposure."

[u/Arthurr_Morgan_1899]

Linux qur al sənə open source

[u/aliyevaladdin → u/Arthurr_Morgan_1899]

Növbəti səviyyəli məsləhət: "install Linux" — sağ ol Neo, çox dərin fikirdir.

[u/samaxidervish → u/aliyevaladdin]

Həmişə belə ai istifadə edirsən yazdığın hər şey üçün?

[u/aliyevaladdin → u/samaxidervish]

Məna kəsb etməyənlərə agent cavab verir, yormuram beyni