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Instagram is a great story for Django, it's the best argument to bring against doubters of Django's scalability. But I wonder how much Instagram contributes to

Instagram is a great story for Django, it's the best argument to bring against doubters of Django's scalability. But I wonder how much Instagram contributes to Django itself. I follow Django's development relatively closely, and I'm not aware of any major work contributed by Instagram engineers. They aren't listed on Django's fundraising page, neither. https://www.djangoproject.com/fundraising/ https://www.djangoproject.com/fundraising/

kirkdouglas 10y ago
As far as I know, Disqus (https://disqus.com/ https://disqus.com/) and Eventbrite (https://www.eventbrite.com/ https://www.eventbrite.com/) are also major users of Django.
- piquadrat 10y ago
  Some of the most prolific Django developers work at Eventbrite. I can't say how much, if any, of their contributions to the Django ecosystem are on Eventbrite's dime, though.
  - andreagrandi 10y ago
    Well... Andrew Godwin ( https://twitter.com/andrewgodwin https://twitter.com/andrewgodwin ) works at Eventbrite. I think he doesn't need any introduction :) For lazy people: he wrote South, Django migrations and he's currently working on Channels.
fefifofu 10y ago
The fundraising page is depressing. They're only asking for US$200,000 and they only have 19% at half way through the year. In other news... Instagram hits half a billion monthly active users... but not on Django's fundraising page. I'm not knowledgeable about open-source issues, pros/cons, etc., but man... only 19% of $200K. Doesn't seem right given Python is one of the major languages and I believe Django is the most popular web framework in Python.
- J0-onas 10y ago
  You'd think that companies who profit from open source projects would support them financially. Considering how big django is there should be many other companies who profit from the projekt. 200k/year should be collected in no time...
  - wrigby 10y ago
    I've found that the engineers who build products on open source software very rarely have the authority to donate company money, and the businesspeople that do have the authority rarely understand the benefits of it. I think a guide on how to get your company involved in donating to OSS projects would be beneficial. Has anyone come across any good advice, or have any experience in influencing your employer to donate?
    - ChristianBundy 10y ago
      No, but I'd love to contribute to something like this.
    - cageface 10y ago
      I tried to organize some OSS donations at the last big company I worked for. Everybody approved of the idea in theory but the red tape involved in making it happened killed it. I think the problem in many cases is that the finance and legal people at companies big enough to make a sizable donation are so busy that stuff like this never makes it to the front of their priority queue.
    - kqr 10y ago
      I think an easier strategy might be to work into your contract that if you happen to fix FOSS software on company time (to fix things your client notices), your patches go back upstream. This, at least, is the implicit policy at the company I work for. It's used in the pitch ("we use and contribute to open source software, which we believe leads to a better internet" and so on) to the clients who appreciate such things. That said, there might be too much legal tape to get that into a contract.
    - 10y ago
munro 10y ago
From the perspective of scraping their website, it was React & GraphQL that I was interfacing with. So what does Instagram use Django for? Perhaps that's why their contributions to the project are low.
- piquadrat 10y ago
  From Instagram's medium post > Instagram currently features the world’s largest deployment of the Django web framework I think it is fair to assume that they use Django pretty heavily from that.
  - munro 10y ago
    No need to assume when there's evidence to the contrary. Do as they say, not as they do. :)

kirkdouglas 10y ago

As far as I know, Disqus (https://disqus.com/ https://disqus.com/) and Eventbrite (https://www.eventbrite.com/ https://www.eventbrite.com/) are also major users of Django.

piquadrat 10y ago
Some of the most prolific Django developers work at Eventbrite. I can't say how much, if any, of their contributions to the Django ecosystem are on Eventbrite's dime, though.
- andreagrandi 10y ago
  Well... Andrew Godwin ( https://twitter.com/andrewgodwin https://twitter.com/andrewgodwin ) works at Eventbrite. I think he doesn't need any introduction :) For lazy people: he wrote South, Django migrations and he's currently working on Channels.

fefifofu 10y ago

The fundraising page is depressing. They're only asking for US$200,000 and they only have 19% at half way through the year. In other news... Instagram hits half a billion monthly active users... but not on Django's fundraising page. I'm not knowledgeable about open-source issues, pros/cons, etc., but man... only 19% of $200K. Doesn't seem right given Python is one of the major languages and I believe Django is the most popular web framework in Python.

J0-onas 10y ago
You'd think that companies who profit from open source projects would support them financially. Considering how big django is there should be many other companies who profit from the projekt. 200k/year should be collected in no time...
- wrigby 10y ago
  I've found that the engineers who build products on open source software very rarely have the authority to donate company money, and the businesspeople that do have the authority rarely understand the benefits of it. I think a guide on how to get your company involved in donating to OSS projects would be beneficial. Has anyone come across any good advice, or have any experience in influencing your employer to donate?
  - ChristianBundy 10y ago
    No, but I'd love to contribute to something like this.
  - cageface 10y ago
    I tried to organize some OSS donations at the last big company I worked for. Everybody approved of the idea in theory but the red tape involved in making it happened killed it. I think the problem in many cases is that the finance and legal people at companies big enough to make a sizable donation are so busy that stuff like this never makes it to the front of their priority queue.
  - kqr 10y ago
    I think an easier strategy might be to work into your contract that if you happen to fix FOSS software on company time (to fix things your client notices), your patches go back upstream. This, at least, is the implicit policy at the company I work for. It's used in the pitch ("we use and contribute to open source software, which we believe leads to a better internet" and so on) to the clients who appreciate such things. That said, there might be too much legal tape to get that into a contract.
  - 10y ago

munro 10y ago

From the perspective of scraping their website, it was React & GraphQL that I was interfacing with. So what does Instagram use Django for? Perhaps that's why their contributions to the project are low.

piquadrat 10y ago
From Instagram's medium post > Instagram currently features the world’s largest deployment of the Django web framework I think it is fair to assume that they use Django pretty heavily from that.
- munro 10y ago
  No need to assume when there's evidence to the contrary. Do as they say, not as they do. :)