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What benefit to facebook is there from open sourcing technology they have developed?

bwy 8y ago
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-huge-profit-oriented-software-companies-contribute-to-open-source-software-when-it-is-akin-to-doing-charity-work-which-runs-against-their-commercial-instinct https://www.quora.com/Why-do-huge-profit-oriented-software-c...
barbecue_sauce 8y ago
Institutional dependency?
martincmartin 8y ago
Facebook's competitive advantage doesn't come from having the best reliable streaming data store at scale, or from its software in general. Even if MySpace, Friendster or Google + got their hands on the whole software stack & started running it, people would stick with Facebook. So there's no cost to open sourcing. The benefit comes from being known as technically innovative in general, and for recruiting, being known as having interesting, meaty, challenging projects to work on. The impetus usually comes from team members who want to do the work. It could be to become known for having worked on the project, or a sense of giving back to the community, or a hope that you'll get bug fixes & features from outside contributors. In my (very limited) experience, managers "passively encourage" it -- they generally don't push the team to do it, but when the team asks, they encourage it.
- adtac 8y ago
  >So there's no cost to open sourcing Not true, there's a legal cost associated with making sure something is really ready for public eyes.
- thrusong 8y ago
  If that's true, why haven't they open sourced Haystack? Clearly they're holding onto it due to competitive advantage.
  - martincmartin 8y ago
    I don't know, but my guess is nobody associated with it wants to put their other work on hold to make it happen. From my limited experience, nobody pushes you, and nobody blocks you. So it depends a lot on the motivations of the engineers on the project.
lacker 8y ago
Look at React - if it had never been open sourced, Facebook might still be using it, but it wouldn't be the same thing it is today. For one, basically all of the current excellent React team probably wouldn't be working at Facebook. And it would be far, far harder for Facebook to recruit engineers for product teams who were proficient in React. Since it is open source and very popular, the odds of a browser introducing a change that unfixably hurts React's performance is now very low. Et cetera. The cost of maintaining an open source project is real, but when it is a world-class piece of infrastructure, open sourcing it helps keep it world-class.
ksec 8y ago
Branding / Marekting / and more importantly, attract talent to work for them.

bwy 8y ago

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-huge-profit-oriented-software-companies-contribute-to-open-source-software-when-it-is-akin-to-doing-charity-work-which-runs-against-their-commercial-instinct https://www.quora.com/Why-do-huge-profit-oriented-software-c...

barbecue_sauce 8y ago

Institutional dependency?

martincmartin 8y ago

Facebook's competitive advantage doesn't come from having the best reliable streaming data store at scale, or from its software in general. Even if MySpace, Friendster or Google + got their hands on the whole software stack & started running it, people would stick with Facebook. So there's no cost to open sourcing. The benefit comes from being known as technically innovative in general, and for recruiting, being known as having interesting, meaty, challenging projects to work on. The impetus usually comes from team members who want to do the work. It could be to become known for having worked on the project, or a sense of giving back to the community, or a hope that you'll get bug fixes & features from outside contributors. In my (very limited) experience, managers "passively encourage" it -- they generally don't push the team to do it, but when the team asks, they encourage it.

adtac 8y ago
>So there's no cost to open sourcing Not true, there's a legal cost associated with making sure something is really ready for public eyes.
thrusong 8y ago
If that's true, why haven't they open sourced Haystack? Clearly they're holding onto it due to competitive advantage.
- martincmartin 8y ago
  I don't know, but my guess is nobody associated with it wants to put their other work on hold to make it happen. From my limited experience, nobody pushes you, and nobody blocks you. So it depends a lot on the motivations of the engineers on the project.

lacker 8y ago

Look at React - if it had never been open sourced, Facebook might still be using it, but it wouldn't be the same thing it is today. For one, basically all of the current excellent React team probably wouldn't be working at Facebook. And it would be far, far harder for Facebook to recruit engineers for product teams who were proficient in React. Since it is open source and very popular, the odds of a browser introducing a change that unfixably hurts React's performance is now very low. Et cetera. The cost of maintaining an open source project is real, but when it is a world-class piece of infrastructure, open sourcing it helps keep it world-class.

ksec 8y ago

Branding / Marekting / and more importantly, attract talent to work for them.