5 ms·

The thing is that the enterprises seem to be okay with them being the only user of their open source projects. Don't ask me why they then decide to do open sour

by erikb 8y ago

The thing is that the enterprises seem to be okay with them being the only user of their open source projects. Don't ask me why they then decide to do open source projects in the first place, but that's what I'm seeing.

skybrian 8y ago
I don't know about Hack specifically, but sometimes it's a dependency of some other open source project. There's little point in open sourcing code written in Hack if the underlying tools aren't available for everyone to use.
PunchTornado 8y ago
A lot of other big players used Hack (Etsy, Wikipedia and others). Don't know if they switched back to PHP7 though.
- beberlei 8y ago
  Afaik Etsy and Wikipedia only used HHVM for the performance win and not the Hack language on top. Since Wikipedias tech stack "MediaWIki" is heavily used by PHP companies it can't be using Hack features. Slack came out with a blog post a few month ago, writing that they use the Hack features on top of HHVM. That is the only one besides Facebook that I know of (there are probably more) Edit: Source for Etsy using PHP 7 now https://speakerdeck.com/wcgallego/hitting-the-turbo-button-upgrading-to-php-7-at-etsy-1 https://speakerdeck.com/wcgallego/hitting-the-turbo-button-u...
- gyaru 8y ago
  Hack is going to be deprecated when it comes to MediaWiki, they're recommending PHP7. "MediaWiki 1.31 requires PHP 7.0.0 or later. Although HHVM 3.18.5 or later is supported, it is generally advised to use PHP 7.0.0 or later for long term support. "
adzicg 8y ago
I had a client with a proprietary programming language for data warehouse management, they had a very hard time hiring people who wanted to work on that stack from a career progression perspective. I imagine, at that scale, that opensourcing is a big win because you can have a proprietary stack, but still hire people that already know it, or won't be reluctant to invest a few years of their life into working on it. You also don't have to pay as much for educating new hires as you would for a totally closed proprietary stack, and new people faster become productive. Hiring contractors that work with that stack on a short notice also becomes easier. For a large co, these kinds of benefits might be more than enough to justify cleaning up the code enough to opensource it.
- wrmsr 8y ago
  On the flipside as I've seen from Google if you're already an attractive enough target for potential employees to pay the price of ramp-up the privacy of your stack serves to lock those employees that prove worthwhile into experience that's non-transferrable were they to explore other options. Granted G is special as anyone hiring knows but I don't imagine they're the only ones aware of and playing that game.
maaaats 8y ago
Don't underestimate the value a company puts on pleasing it workers. From what I've seen, it's often them who push for open source (for various reasons).
steinuil 8y ago
Open sourcing their projects is good from a PR standpoint in this climate, and if anything it's a good way to share knowledge that would otherwise be kept within the company walls with those who need it (e.g. implementors of PHP/other VMs). Creating and maintaining a community around an open source project is a lot of work, and it's understandable if Facebook doesn't want to pour many resources into this particular project, even if they keep it open source.
Jach 8y ago
An interesting comment I saw today on twitter[0] points out that open source development is more of a development style than a business model. Still, styles can impact the bottom line. Enterprises can gain some efficiency in process (and hiring, as others point out -- working in NIH land without amazing tooling and products to keep you there sucks if you have an inkling of what's widely done and used outside in the open source worlds) by using the model even if they are the only consumers of the final project. You also open yourself up to including other useful open source software, depending on licenses. [0] https://twitter.com/cra/status/1039891332209274882 https://twitter.com/cra/status/1039891332209274882
rsynnott 8y ago
> Don't ask me why they then decide to do open source projects in the first place, but that's what I'm seeing. Because they sometimes get lucky, and people use it. Apple would probably have been just fine with everyone shrugging their shoulders at clang and continuing to use gcc, but clang adoption by others has been of benefit to them anyway, say. And worst case, there's no major downside to open sourcing language tools.
- erikb 8y ago
  > And worst case, there's no major downside to open sourcing language tools. Worst case is you didn't protect your IP and people get fired because the competition makes the money.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    This is unlikely at large corporations. Projects from bigcorp that get opensourced are the ones that don't contain private information and would be difficult to monetize (or are strategically open-sourced).

by erikb 8y ago

skybrian 8y ago

I don't know about Hack specifically, but sometimes it's a dependency of some other open source project. There's little point in open sourcing code written in Hack if the underlying tools aren't available for everyone to use.

PunchTornado 8y ago

A lot of other big players used Hack (Etsy, Wikipedia and others). Don't know if they switched back to PHP7 though.

beberlei 8y ago
Afaik Etsy and Wikipedia only used HHVM for the performance win and not the Hack language on top. Since Wikipedias tech stack "MediaWIki" is heavily used by PHP companies it can't be using Hack features. Slack came out with a blog post a few month ago, writing that they use the Hack features on top of HHVM. That is the only one besides Facebook that I know of (there are probably more) Edit: Source for Etsy using PHP 7 now https://speakerdeck.com/wcgallego/hitting-the-turbo-button-upgrading-to-php-7-at-etsy-1 https://speakerdeck.com/wcgallego/hitting-the-turbo-button-u...
gyaru 8y ago
Hack is going to be deprecated when it comes to MediaWiki, they're recommending PHP7. "MediaWiki 1.31 requires PHP 7.0.0 or later. Although HHVM 3.18.5 or later is supported, it is generally advised to use PHP 7.0.0 or later for long term support. "

adzicg 8y ago

I had a client with a proprietary programming language for data warehouse management, they had a very hard time hiring people who wanted to work on that stack from a career progression perspective. I imagine, at that scale, that opensourcing is a big win because you can have a proprietary stack, but still hire people that already know it, or won't be reluctant to invest a few years of their life into working on it. You also don't have to pay as much for educating new hires as you would for a totally closed proprietary stack, and new people faster become productive. Hiring contractors that work with that stack on a short notice also becomes easier. For a large co, these kinds of benefits might be more than enough to justify cleaning up the code enough to opensource it.

wrmsr 8y ago
On the flipside as I've seen from Google if you're already an attractive enough target for potential employees to pay the price of ramp-up the privacy of your stack serves to lock those employees that prove worthwhile into experience that's non-transferrable were they to explore other options. Granted G is special as anyone hiring knows but I don't imagine they're the only ones aware of and playing that game.

maaaats 8y ago

Don't underestimate the value a company puts on pleasing it workers. From what I've seen, it's often them who push for open source (for various reasons).

steinuil 8y ago

Open sourcing their projects is good from a PR standpoint in this climate, and if anything it's a good way to share knowledge that would otherwise be kept within the company walls with those who need it (e.g. implementors of PHP/other VMs). Creating and maintaining a community around an open source project is a lot of work, and it's understandable if Facebook doesn't want to pour many resources into this particular project, even if they keep it open source.

Jach 8y ago

An interesting comment I saw today on twitter[0] points out that open source development is more of a development style than a business model. Still, styles can impact the bottom line. Enterprises can gain some efficiency in process (and hiring, as others point out -- working in NIH land without amazing tooling and products to keep you there sucks if you have an inkling of what's widely done and used outside in the open source worlds) by using the model even if they are the only consumers of the final project. You also open yourself up to including other useful open source software, depending on licenses. [0] https://twitter.com/cra/status/1039891332209274882 https://twitter.com/cra/status/1039891332209274882

rsynnott 8y ago

> Don't ask me why they then decide to do open source projects in the first place, but that's what I'm seeing. Because they sometimes get lucky, and people use it. Apple would probably have been just fine with everyone shrugging their shoulders at clang and continuing to use gcc, but clang adoption by others has been of benefit to them anyway, say. And worst case, there's no major downside to open sourcing language tools.

erikb 8y ago
> And worst case, there's no major downside to open sourcing language tools. Worst case is you didn't protect your IP and people get fired because the competition makes the money.
- freeone3000 8y ago
  This is unlikely at large corporations. Projects from bigcorp that get opensourced are the ones that don't contain private information and would be difficult to monetize (or are strategically open-sourced).