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A criticism of the "grow at all costs" mindset: they aren't even executing on that efficiently. Per their GitHub account, they have 162 open source libraries. T

A criticism of the "grow at all costs" mindset: they aren't even executing on that efficiently. Per their GitHub account, they have 162 open source libraries. That's 162 open source solutions they could have found elsewhere and moved on to more pressing business needs.

saagarjha 7y ago
Perhaps the thing didn’t exist and they had to create it? Perhaps the open source thing didn’t fit their needs?
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  Perhaps not perfect substitutions, but business acumen is seeing a solution that's 90% of what you're looking for is more than adequate. It seems unlikely the organization identified 162 truly novel problems. It appears some needless reinventing of the wheel may have occurred. It's a common problem that certainly isn't exclusive to Uber. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Licensing can also be an issue sometimes.
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      Tell me about it. Oracle wants a pound of flesh for a few licenses, and Windows, VMware, and others can be onerous (though I'll concede Windows is getting better)
wpietri 7y ago
Yeah, I have to wonder how much of that is Promotion-Driven Development. A few contributions to an existing package is way less impressive than writing a whole new thing from scratch. In case others are curious, here's the list: https://github.com/uber https://github.com/uber I'm sure some of those were necessary. But I have a hard time believing all of them were.
- hildaman 7y ago
  I once saw some article about them writing their own rich chat client for their internal tooling because their existing solution wouldn't "uber scale" - whatever that meant.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    That reminds me of the delightful "MongoDB is web scale" spoof video from years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs Clearly Uber scale is one level up!
bdcravens 7y ago
How many of those libraries are even used by Uber? While I think open source is intrinsically valuable, it feels like a lot of work out there is innovation theater by those with extra VC cash.
- texasbigdata 7y ago
  So they shouldn't have open sourced?
  - wpietri 7y ago
    I think the point is that they shouldn't have written the code in the first place. Although if it is innovation theater, then yeah, maybe they shouldn't release it, either. A real open-source project is a long-term commitment to a community, not a PR checklist item.
- sjtindell 7y ago
  There’s very little downside. Spend some money from wealthy people and institutions, get some engineers paid, get some code written. The only losers are the investors who, per their job description, take the risk. Perhaps simplified but I like companies spending money on this stuff.
  - bdcravens 7y ago
    Risk is part of investment of course, but isn't the assumption the money will be spent in ways that focuses on return? (I know the answer being a developer, but taking the broader perspective)

saagarjha 7y ago

Perhaps the thing didn’t exist and they had to create it? Perhaps the open source thing didn’t fit their needs?

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
Perhaps not perfect substitutions, but business acumen is seeing a solution that's 90% of what you're looking for is more than adequate. It seems unlikely the organization identified 162 truly novel problems. It appears some needless reinventing of the wheel may have occurred. It's a common problem that certainly isn't exclusive to Uber. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Licensing can also be an issue sometimes.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Tell me about it. Oracle wants a pound of flesh for a few licenses, and Windows, VMware, and others can be onerous (though I'll concede Windows is getting better)

wpietri 7y ago

Yeah, I have to wonder how much of that is Promotion-Driven Development. A few contributions to an existing package is way less impressive than writing a whole new thing from scratch. In case others are curious, here's the list: https://github.com/uber https://github.com/uber I'm sure some of those were necessary. But I have a hard time believing all of them were.

hildaman 7y ago
I once saw some article about them writing their own rich chat client for their internal tooling because their existing solution wouldn't "uber scale" - whatever that meant.
- wpietri 7y ago
  That reminds me of the delightful "MongoDB is web scale" spoof video from years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs Clearly Uber scale is one level up!

bdcravens 7y ago

How many of those libraries are even used by Uber? While I think open source is intrinsically valuable, it feels like a lot of work out there is innovation theater by those with extra VC cash.

texasbigdata 7y ago
So they shouldn't have open sourced?
- wpietri 7y ago
  I think the point is that they shouldn't have written the code in the first place. Although if it is innovation theater, then yeah, maybe they shouldn't release it, either. A real open-source project is a long-term commitment to a community, not a PR checklist item.
sjtindell 7y ago
There’s very little downside. Spend some money from wealthy people and institutions, get some engineers paid, get some code written. The only losers are the investors who, per their job description, take the risk. Perhaps simplified but I like companies spending money on this stuff.
- bdcravens 7y ago
  Risk is part of investment of course, but isn't the assumption the money will be spent in ways that focuses on return? (I know the answer being a developer, but taking the broader perspective)