Interesting take on the NIH term. I thought this was more an ego thing for the big tech companies. They love to reinvent existing things to look like geniuses
Almost all of them. It becomes cheaper to buy someone else's product than to continue development. Because the NIH product has its costs spread over all the buyers.
Your second point is very good; I get the feeling that NIH is simply a buzzword at the moment. Especially since a cursory glance Infer's source code will show that it was, in fact, invented somewhere else and purchased by Facebook.
The biotechnologists I know tell me "patent law is totally screwed up for biomed, but I guess because it works for traditional tech it's near impossible to remove". They're flabbergasted when I tell them tech says the inverse. Everywhere seems to have this idea that this other niche absolutely requires it.
> Some NIH will give your best staff something to really get their teeth into. A chance to create. A chance to contribute something original. An incentive to remain at your company.
Although it's not saying fun, pleasing, or interesting, it could be argued that this is what is meant, just with a more positive spin.
What's notably missing is whether the original, meaty creation provides value beyond retention (which a sibling comment points out does, indeed, have value).
Possible value to the staff is improved (or at least kept honed) skills, and possible value can go to the community for anything open-sourced. Of course, the latter can result in a proliferation of options that result in a "paralysis of choice" for which the article has an entire section.
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