# Philosophical Question: To contribute or not to contribute

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/philosophical-question-to-contribute-or-not-to-contribute/29324>\
**Category:** Ansible Developer\
**Created:** [December 25, 2018, 4:35pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/philosophical-question-to-contribute-or-not-to-contribute/29324 "2018-12-25T16:35:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Randall\_Becker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/94ad74/32.png) [@Randall\_Becker](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Randall_Becker)\
**Post date:** [December 25, 2018, 4:35pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/philosophical-question-to-contribute-or-not-to-contribute/29324/1 "2018-12-25T16:35:52Z")

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Hi All,

To contribute or not to contribute? I have to (no choice) integrate an SCM front-end product into Ansible that performs some very platform-specific installation and activation tasks that do not have general applicability across platforms. My general sense is to develop this following recommended conventions, but not initially contributing it. I expect, perhaps a grand total of 50 playbooks (at customers) might be developed to use this in the next 3 years or so. Still, the customers I have who want to do this are important and I must service them. I am contemplating a plugin for the common functions (maybe 250-ish) and individual modules for each main operation. There are about 10-ish of those at present with significantly different parameters in each, other than a common set of about 5 or 6. Is it logical to manage all of this as drops-in for my customers for now and consider contributing to Ansible at some time in the future of the the target community exceeds my estimates?

Thanks,  
Randall

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**Author:** ![maxamillion](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/maxamillion/32/98_2.png) [@maxamillion](https://forum.ansible.com/u/maxamillion)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2019, 3:07pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/philosophical-question-to-contribute-or-not-to-contribute/29324/2 "2019-01-03T15:07:23Z")

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> Hi All,
> 
> To contribute or not to contribute? I have to (no choice) integrate an SCM front-end product into Ansible that performs some very platform-specific installation and activation tasks that do not have general applicability across platforms. My general sense is to develop this following recommended conventions, but not initially contributing it. I expect, perhaps a grand total of 50 playbooks (at customers) might be developed to use this in the next 3 years or so. Still, the customers I have who want to do this are important and I must service them. I am contemplating a plugin for the common functions (maybe 250-ish) and individual modules for each main operation. There are about 10-ish of those at present with significantly different parameters in each, other than a common set of about 5 or 6. Is it logical to manage all of this as drops-in for my customers for now and consider contributing to Ansible at some time in the future of the the target community exceeds my estimates?

Based on the information provided, I think this is a great candidate  
for creating a Role (or many Roles) since roles can carry their own  
modules, module\_utils, plugins, etc and hosting it (them?) on  
Galaxy[0] for the community to easily discover, make use of, and  
(hopefully) contribute back to.

-AdamM

[0] - [https://galaxy.ansible.com/](https://galaxy.ansible.com/)