Many organizations adopt open source software because they see it as a cheaper alternative to proprietary development. Maintaining it, however, still requires engineering effort, according to Google’s case study, “How much does it cost to maintain a copy of an open source software package (at Google)?” Study suggests that most updates to its internal copies of open source packages should take four engineering hours or less.
What makes some open source updates so difficult?
About this summary. This is a short, independently written summary of an article first published by Help Net Security. Cyber Security News did not report or verify the underlying story. Read the original: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2026/10/12/google-open-source-maintenance-costs-report/

Source attribution: headline and facts are from Help Net Security (helpnetsecurity.com). Summary method: excerpt of the source description. See our source attribution policy.






