4 ms·

Having seen a tiny little slice of the requirements of open-sourcing code at a (different) Big Software company, I really hope people give MS and other companie

by fenomas 10y ago

Having seen a tiny little slice of the requirements of open-sourcing code at a (different) Big Software company, I really hope people give MS and other companies their deserved props for stuff like this. As a 3rd party it's very easy to think "oh they should just release the source for X and if they don't it's because they don't want to", but if X is big and it didn't start out public, it usually takes a pretty herculean effort to get it released, often meaning someone burnt a lot of capital (of whatever sort) to make it happen.

SwellJoe 10y ago
I believe it will pay dividends for Microsoft that they're being more encouraging of this kind of thing. There's a few reasons so many of the best developers work at Google (for example), and one of them is that Google opens a lot of stuff, and actively encourages open development. I, personally, wouldn't work anywhere where I couldn't contribute to Open Source communities at least part of my work day. Microsoft knows how important developers are for a platform company, both inside and outside of the company (as evidenced by very good salaries, real offices, etc.). I just think it took them a few years to notice that one of the things good developers value is community. Now that they've figured it out, they've begun making changes. If you'd asked me 10-20 years ago, "Hey, would you ever consider working for Microsoft", I would have laughed. Today, I'd probably still say no, but I wouldn't laugh, and I'd probably even think about it for a minute or two.
- r2dnb 10y ago
  >I, personally, wouldn't work anywhere where I couldn't contribute to Open Source communities at least part of my work day. With respect I don't think that the gist of your post is solid, you seem to forget that Microsoft has no problem whatsoever to attract good developers. They could even afford to turn down someone as talented as the creator of Mono. What developers - like other employees - look at is the corporate package, and - sometimes - the company's mission. This is why Oracle still has employees.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    "This is why Oracle still has employees." That's not a very high bar, is it? "Has employees"...well, so does Walmart. Does Oracle have the kind of engineering talent and passion that will see them through future decades as a market leader? I believe we've seen a shift that won't revert. And, I believe Oracle has only a long slow decline ahead of them. Microsoft, on the other hand, may have averted that fate. This is not to say that Open Source is magic (companies still have to ring the cash register), or that engineers are in charge of the ship now (though that, too, has been happening). I just think we live in a different world from the one where Microsoft and Oracle rose to dominant positions. Would you want to work at Oracle? More importantly, would you prefer to work at Oracle over, say, Google or Github? Oracle has always been, and remains, anti-OSS. They sue over Java APIs, they close Solaris development after Sun had opened it, they piss off MySQL developers so much that they leave the company and fork MariaDB, they piss of Hudson developers leading to Jenkins fork, OpenOffice forked into Libre Office, etc. The best developers hate working with Oracle. The same was once true of Microsoft; at least it applied to many Microsoft products. I think that means something. It's not a simple equation, but if I were betting on companies that will stand the test of time, I'd bet on the ones that have deep company loyalty (both inside and outside) and have passionate people who want to be involved in what the company is doing.
    - PeCaN 10y ago
      Eh. Oracle has a huge amount of engineering talent in certain areas (i.e. the database and SPARC). It would be pretty fun to work on the database I imagine. I would personally never be able to bring myself to work there, but maybe working on a decent team + good money could still attract talent.
- fenomas 10y ago
  > I wouldn't work anywhere where I couldn't contribute to Open Source communities Okay, but note that that's not at all what my comment was about. Contributing new code to an open project isn't a hard problem, in any company I'm familiar with, but taking a large closed project that your company wholly owns, and getting it released as MIT is a different matter. Even if the project was begun under the assumption it would be opened someday (as I imagine may have been the case here), momentum is against it and it tends not to happen unless someone is passionate about making sure it does.
  - praneshp 10y ago
    This is so true. When I worked at Yahoo, there were a couple of people dedicated to helping people open source projects, and would help us make the right choices (eg, don't open source for the sake of it, etc).
wodenokoto 10y ago
Can you talk a bit more about why it is expensive? Relicensing oss is difficult because you might need consent from all contributors, but I imagine that is easy for in-house code.
- Aeolos 10y ago
  You have to convince n-layers of management, who often don't even know what open-source software is and think that "if we give it away for free then our competitors can also use it." You have to pass legal review, which can take months, possibly rewrite parts of the code that cannot be opened. Fundamentally, big corps are inertia accumulators. Noone wants to change the status quo, and as a low-rank engineer you have to fight every step of your way.
int_19h 10y ago
The props in this case also go to the management, all the way to the top. As someone doing F/OSS at Microsoft, it has become immensely easier to do in the past couple of years - and this is largely due to a concerted push from the top to make it a part of the company culture, and get all players (from devs to lawyers) to understand that it's a good thing to be embraced, not something to be avoided. When I joined back in 2009, I certainly didn't expect to end up shipping newly written code under GPL, of all things. And yet, here we are.

by fenomas 10y ago

SwellJoe 10y ago

I believe it will pay dividends for Microsoft that they're being more encouraging of this kind of thing. There's a few reasons so many of the best developers work at Google (for example), and one of them is that Google opens a lot of stuff, and actively encourages open development. I, personally, wouldn't work anywhere where I couldn't contribute to Open Source communities at least part of my work day. Microsoft knows how important developers are for a platform company, both inside and outside of the company (as evidenced by very good salaries, real offices, etc.). I just think it took them a few years to notice that one of the things good developers value is community. Now that they've figured it out, they've begun making changes. If you'd asked me 10-20 years ago, "Hey, would you ever consider working for Microsoft", I would have laughed. Today, I'd probably still say no, but I wouldn't laugh, and I'd probably even think about it for a minute or two.

r2dnb 10y ago
>I, personally, wouldn't work anywhere where I couldn't contribute to Open Source communities at least part of my work day. With respect I don't think that the gist of your post is solid, you seem to forget that Microsoft has no problem whatsoever to attract good developers. They could even afford to turn down someone as talented as the creator of Mono. What developers - like other employees - look at is the corporate package, and - sometimes - the company's mission. This is why Oracle still has employees.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  "This is why Oracle still has employees." That's not a very high bar, is it? "Has employees"...well, so does Walmart. Does Oracle have the kind of engineering talent and passion that will see them through future decades as a market leader? I believe we've seen a shift that won't revert. And, I believe Oracle has only a long slow decline ahead of them. Microsoft, on the other hand, may have averted that fate. This is not to say that Open Source is magic (companies still have to ring the cash register), or that engineers are in charge of the ship now (though that, too, has been happening). I just think we live in a different world from the one where Microsoft and Oracle rose to dominant positions. Would you want to work at Oracle? More importantly, would you prefer to work at Oracle over, say, Google or Github? Oracle has always been, and remains, anti-OSS. They sue over Java APIs, they close Solaris development after Sun had opened it, they piss off MySQL developers so much that they leave the company and fork MariaDB, they piss of Hudson developers leading to Jenkins fork, OpenOffice forked into Libre Office, etc. The best developers hate working with Oracle. The same was once true of Microsoft; at least it applied to many Microsoft products. I think that means something. It's not a simple equation, but if I were betting on companies that will stand the test of time, I'd bet on the ones that have deep company loyalty (both inside and outside) and have passionate people who want to be involved in what the company is doing.
  - PeCaN 10y ago
    Eh. Oracle has a huge amount of engineering talent in certain areas (i.e. the database and SPARC). It would be pretty fun to work on the database I imagine. I would personally never be able to bring myself to work there, but maybe working on a decent team + good money could still attract talent.
fenomas 10y ago
> I wouldn't work anywhere where I couldn't contribute to Open Source communities Okay, but note that that's not at all what my comment was about. Contributing new code to an open project isn't a hard problem, in any company I'm familiar with, but taking a large closed project that your company wholly owns, and getting it released as MIT is a different matter. Even if the project was begun under the assumption it would be opened someday (as I imagine may have been the case here), momentum is against it and it tends not to happen unless someone is passionate about making sure it does.
- praneshp 10y ago
  This is so true. When I worked at Yahoo, there were a couple of people dedicated to helping people open source projects, and would help us make the right choices (eg, don't open source for the sake of it, etc).

wodenokoto 10y ago

Can you talk a bit more about why it is expensive? Relicensing oss is difficult because you might need consent from all contributors, but I imagine that is easy for in-house code.

Aeolos 10y ago
You have to convince n-layers of management, who often don't even know what open-source software is and think that "if we give it away for free then our competitors can also use it." You have to pass legal review, which can take months, possibly rewrite parts of the code that cannot be opened. Fundamentally, big corps are inertia accumulators. Noone wants to change the status quo, and as a low-rank engineer you have to fight every step of your way.

int_19h 10y ago

The props in this case also go to the management, all the way to the top. As someone doing F/OSS at Microsoft, it has become immensely easier to do in the past couple of years - and this is largely due to a concerted push from the top to make it a part of the company culture, and get all players (from devs to lawyers) to understand that it's a good thing to be embraced, not something to be avoided. When I joined back in 2009, I certainly didn't expect to end up shipping newly written code under GPL, of all things. And yet, here we are.