4 ms·

Seems like a ridiculously low amount of money from the world's largest company. Doesn't Linux power their entire business?

rootlocus 8y ago
They also contributed a lot of work to the linux kernel like initial support for containers with cgroups in 2006-2007.
- antirez 8y ago
  I've a rule: don't consider "give back" to the community things that are strictly aligned to what you need. Google contributes a lot to the Linux kernel by other means as well, but the work to the containers was strategic for them. To really provide something back is to give $$$ or work to just make a project better regardless of your end goals. Otherwise it's great that you are doing it as OSS, but I would not consider it a "give back" from what you got.
  - Karunamon 8y ago
    Meh. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still doing the right thing. If everyone benefits from their additions, it's immaterial to me what the intent of those additions were.
    - SquareWheel 8y ago
      And even then is it "the wrong reasons"? Surely most third party contributions to the Linux core are from people that need a feature or support for a specific use case.
  - pkulak 8y ago
    Isn't that the entire point of open source? I need a project, but it lacks the one feature I need. So I build the feature, contribute it back, and everyone wins. Is Google supposed to work on Amazon's needs and vice versa for them to be considered good patrons?
  - rootlocus 8y ago
    Do you have examples of companies that "work to just make a project better regardless of [their] end goals"? I sincerely can't think of any and don't see a problem with it either. I skipped the part about giving $$$ because they already did that.
  - antirez 8y ago
    You are right downvoting me, I did not specify my reasoning. Basically contributing features you need in a very large project that you did not initiate yourself, leads to "featurism", more code to handle in the future, certain specific needs you accept mostly since they were contributed and saying no sometimes is hard. Instead work not interested to solve specific use cases tend to be consolidation work, or big general features work at least, where the goal is to fix something or do the right thing in some area, considering the whole public of such system, not your local needs. So the two approaches lead to different software philosophies and outcomes.
sincerely 8y ago
It's pretty small but they do also contribute to the community in other ways through programs like GSOC. I think they could and should definitely do more though.
mikece 8y ago
They aren't compelled to give anything -- though they might embarrassed that they attained Platinum level after Microsoft did.
cmjqol 8y ago
> Doesn't Linux power their entire business? Doesn't they power you and your entire business and the web ? Search , Gmail , G Suite , Docs , Chrome , G Analytics , Firebase , Angular etc... For almost nothing per month ? Money isn't everything , it's nice that they give more money but when you see their contributions level in Github ... They are literaly one of the biggest open source contributors on earth so I don't even see why they bother with that.

rootlocus 8y ago

They also contributed a lot of work to the linux kernel like initial support for containers with cgroups in 2006-2007.

antirez 8y ago
I've a rule: don't consider "give back" to the community things that are strictly aligned to what you need. Google contributes a lot to the Linux kernel by other means as well, but the work to the containers was strategic for them. To really provide something back is to give $$$ or work to just make a project better regardless of your end goals. Otherwise it's great that you are doing it as OSS, but I would not consider it a "give back" from what you got.
- Karunamon 8y ago
  Meh. Doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still doing the right thing. If everyone benefits from their additions, it's immaterial to me what the intent of those additions were.
  - SquareWheel 8y ago
    And even then is it "the wrong reasons"? Surely most third party contributions to the Linux core are from people that need a feature or support for a specific use case.
- pkulak 8y ago
  Isn't that the entire point of open source? I need a project, but it lacks the one feature I need. So I build the feature, contribute it back, and everyone wins. Is Google supposed to work on Amazon's needs and vice versa for them to be considered good patrons?
- rootlocus 8y ago
  Do you have examples of companies that "work to just make a project better regardless of [their] end goals"? I sincerely can't think of any and don't see a problem with it either. I skipped the part about giving $$$ because they already did that.
- antirez 8y ago
  You are right downvoting me, I did not specify my reasoning. Basically contributing features you need in a very large project that you did not initiate yourself, leads to "featurism", more code to handle in the future, certain specific needs you accept mostly since they were contributed and saying no sometimes is hard. Instead work not interested to solve specific use cases tend to be consolidation work, or big general features work at least, where the goal is to fix something or do the right thing in some area, considering the whole public of such system, not your local needs. So the two approaches lead to different software philosophies and outcomes.

sincerely 8y ago

It's pretty small but they do also contribute to the community in other ways through programs like GSOC. I think they could and should definitely do more though.

mikece 8y ago

They aren't compelled to give anything -- though they might embarrassed that they attained Platinum level after Microsoft did.

cmjqol 8y ago

> Doesn't Linux power their entire business? Doesn't they power you and your entire business and the web ? Search , Gmail , G Suite , Docs , Chrome , G Analytics , Firebase , Angular etc... For almost nothing per month ? Money isn't everything , it's nice that they give more money but when you see their contributions level in Github ... They are literaly one of the biggest open source contributors on earth so I don't even see why they bother with that.