[Author here] Even from a short-term business perspective, it actually might make sense to fix things and contribute upstream. When you face a problem with something you built using FOSS, essentially you have three choices:
- Work around it, most likely creating technical debt inside your organization in the process
- Invest the time to fix it yourself
- Pay someone else to fix it for you (e.g. the original authors via a support contract)
None of these options is for free, and which one is the most cost-effective depends largely on the complexity of the issue at hand, the skillset and availability of the people involved and the criticality of the impacted system.
- Work around it, most likely creating technical debt inside your organization in the process
- Invest the time to fix it yourself
- Pay someone else to fix it for you (e.g. the original authors via a support contract)
None of these options is for free, and which one is the most cost-effective depends largely on the complexity of the issue at hand, the skillset and availability of the people involved and the criticality of the impacted system.