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As the main author of a popular open source project, I can see a growing divide between the OSS ecosystems of large corporations versus that of small independen

As the main author of a popular open source project, I can see a growing divide between the OSS ecosystems of large corporations versus that of small independent developers. Large corporations tend to stay away from independent projects altogether. For example, my project has several thousands of stars on GitHub and gets tens of thousands of downloads. I've interacted with well known startups on many occasions but I've only once interacted with someone from a very large and well known corporation which was using my project and it was quite strange because when I asked if I could mention the company on my customers page, they told me that they have a policy against using their name as an endorsement... Yet when I look at other 'mainstream/corporate' OSS projects, their website is covered with big brand names. I think that the problem is both that big corporations are less likely to use independent projects and also that if they do use them (out of desperate necessity), they don't want to admit it unless they know that other corporations are also using it.

sanxiyn 8y ago
That is super weird indeed. What is the name of this bad corporation?
- jondubois 8y ago
  It wouldn't be fair to single them out specifically because it seems to be common industry practice . Also, I don't think it's fair to call them a "bad corporation" because at least they were open enough to use a project written by an independent third party to begin with; this is already one step in the right direction. Most corporations seem to block certain OSS projects completely. Sometimes it's because of GPL license issues but other times the rationale is not clear at all.
mprev 8y ago
It's possible they have commercial relationships with the vendors that back those other OSS projects. It's common for such vendors to build a discount into contracts in exchange for promotional support. Also, corporations are not homogenous entities. Perhaps other people in the company would have had the authority to say yes. From what I've seen, there's very little incentive for any company to reveal the technologies -- FOSS or otherwise -- that they use, unless it's to attract job candidates or to position the company as a technological leader in preparation for a funding round. In either case, it's gonna be hype technologies that get on the website: Hadoop ten or so years ago, NoSQL five to seven years ago, some kind of distributed log three to five years ago, and so on.
klft 8y ago
> Large corporations tend to stay away from independent projects altogether. Two possible reasons: - Risk assessment: In 2 - 5 years, will there still be further development, bug fixes, especially of security bugs. Taking over responsibility for all those abandoned projects is not an option. - Cultural differences: Large corporations understand requirements of other large corporations better. Like long-term maintenance commitments.
- Juliate 8y ago
  Count legal compliance too. Legal departments in large consultancy companies have been working on "open source policies" internally (mostly on the "using open source software" angle, less on the "contributing" angle). And those policies are specific/hard/complex enough to discourage public endorsement. For instance, use of GPL-based software is strictly forbidden (for good reasons, when you take the perspective of the company); unless a specific review by legal allows it, in which case, you've already been through several layers of management with a convincing case for each of them.
DoctorOetker 8y ago
Could you condition your "customer support" on permission to list them as a user? "if you contact me for help or support, you permit me to list you as a user" ? Or instead of listing them as customers list them as "companies that requested user support"

sanxiyn 8y ago

That is super weird indeed. What is the name of this bad corporation?

jondubois 8y ago
It wouldn't be fair to single them out specifically because it seems to be common industry practice . Also, I don't think it's fair to call them a "bad corporation" because at least they were open enough to use a project written by an independent third party to begin with; this is already one step in the right direction. Most corporations seem to block certain OSS projects completely. Sometimes it's because of GPL license issues but other times the rationale is not clear at all.

mprev 8y ago

It's possible they have commercial relationships with the vendors that back those other OSS projects. It's common for such vendors to build a discount into contracts in exchange for promotional support. Also, corporations are not homogenous entities. Perhaps other people in the company would have had the authority to say yes. From what I've seen, there's very little incentive for any company to reveal the technologies -- FOSS or otherwise -- that they use, unless it's to attract job candidates or to position the company as a technological leader in preparation for a funding round. In either case, it's gonna be hype technologies that get on the website: Hadoop ten or so years ago, NoSQL five to seven years ago, some kind of distributed log three to five years ago, and so on.

klft 8y ago

> Large corporations tend to stay away from independent projects altogether. Two possible reasons: - Risk assessment: In 2 - 5 years, will there still be further development, bug fixes, especially of security bugs. Taking over responsibility for all those abandoned projects is not an option. - Cultural differences: Large corporations understand requirements of other large corporations better. Like long-term maintenance commitments.

Juliate 8y ago
Count legal compliance too. Legal departments in large consultancy companies have been working on "open source policies" internally (mostly on the "using open source software" angle, less on the "contributing" angle). And those policies are specific/hard/complex enough to discourage public endorsement. For instance, use of GPL-based software is strictly forbidden (for good reasons, when you take the perspective of the company); unless a specific review by legal allows it, in which case, you've already been through several layers of management with a convincing case for each of them.

DoctorOetker 8y ago

Could you condition your "customer support" on permission to list them as a user? "if you contact me for help or support, you permit me to list you as a user" ? Or instead of listing them as customers list them as "companies that requested user support"