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We probably don't expect these companies to open source their primary competitive advantages. We expect them to open source things once good_will_value > expect

We probably don't expect these companies to open source their primary competitive advantages. We expect them to open source things once good_will_value > expected_sales_volume for a given title/piece of software. The thing is right now Microsoft is getting into the habit of open sourcing things that hit that criteria, and EA is just flatly evaluating that to False every the time. Even when they aren't actively selling a title they own the rights to. The expected value of a title you don't sell is $0 [0], so in effect they're valuing goodwill negatively! When it's framed that way, it's actually pretty dumb for EA not to be making that calculation. If they do and open source more low sales titles, EA will make more money from better goodwill, and consumers will get more value from older games [0] This isn't strictly true, because they retain the rights to sell the title in the future, and that option is worth something. But barring very strange circumstances, we expect that if an old title isn't worth the effort to sell today, it likely won't be in the future either. The option is not worth a ton vs. the goodwill of open sourcing it.

enitihas 6y ago
>We expect them to open source things once good_will_value > expected_sales_volume for a given title/piece of software. The thing is right now Microsoft is getting into the habit of open sourcing things that hit that criteria, Which of their former good selling products has microsoft open sourced? Which of the microsoft open source projects were formerly for sale. I am very sure it would be very very few, and only in those areas where open source competitors are already strong. EA does tons of stuff open source. Have a look at their GitHub. I am not even sure microsoft has made a similar amount of their internal libraries a available.
- alexeldeib 6y ago
  From GitHub: Electronic Arts: 27 repos Azure: 1.8k repos n.b., I work in Azure, make your own conclusions.
  - pnako 6y ago
    It's mostly templates, SDKs, etc. MS is open-sourcing the pieces of cheese that lead to their proprietary cloud-shaped trap. I don't think they've open-sourced anything related to Azure itself (i.e. if I wanted to run my own Azure-like cloud). I'm not saying it's a bad or even unethical strategy. I'm just saying that MS is not, remotely, an open-source company.
    - colinmcdonald22 6y ago
      https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric
    - nine_k 6y ago
      How about VSCode and .Net Core?
      - mcny 6y ago
        I work with asp.net web api and angular (typescript) but I think the point stands. > Which of their former good selling products has microsoft open sourced? Neither Visual Studio Code nor .NET core fits this criteria. Visual Studio IDE is not free and open source and neither is the older version of .NET framework. Launch a .NET core application inside visual studio code. Even that comes with a warning saying you can only use the debugger within certain limited situations.
    - ToFab123 6y ago
      Service Fabric is open source. SF is basically what powers Azure and tons of other MS cloud based software like sql azure https://github.com/Azure/service-fabric https://github.com/Azure/service-fabric
    - Conan_Kudo 6y ago
      I would actually go so far as to say it is an unethical strategy. It's just a popular one. And a very successful one.
  - dependenttypes 6y ago
harha 6y ago
One aspect EA might be considering are potential losses in other product lines, say if fans were to expand old games with new campaigns that are better than what EA is offering today. For Microsoft this seems to have worked out fine - they’ve helped create an eco system around VS Code and now they are integrating it in all sorts of ways with their paid services.
- sitkack 6y ago
  I don't think people understand how large of a funnel VS Code is. Half the keystrokes I type in a day end up in a Microsoft product, as I dev on a mac and deploy to Linux. Crazy times.
- rangibaby 6y ago
  > One aspect EA might be considering are potential losses in other product lines, say if fans were to expand old games with new campaigns that are better than what EA is offering today. Valve especially has made a ton of money buying and selling fanmade expansions to their games, way more than they would have by not allowing mods
  - harha 6y ago
    Good point, it really depends on how companies decide to look at this topic and what they decide to optimize. The „old“ Microsoft probably wouldn’t have created a platform for Mac devs deploying on Linux as another comment in this thread described.

enitihas 6y ago

>We expect them to open source things once good_will_value > expected_sales_volume for a given title/piece of software. The thing is right now Microsoft is getting into the habit of open sourcing things that hit that criteria, Which of their former good selling products has microsoft open sourced? Which of the microsoft open source projects were formerly for sale. I am very sure it would be very very few, and only in those areas where open source competitors are already strong. EA does tons of stuff open source. Have a look at their GitHub. I am not even sure microsoft has made a similar amount of their internal libraries a available.

alexeldeib 6y ago
From GitHub: Electronic Arts: 27 repos Azure: 1.8k repos n.b., I work in Azure, make your own conclusions.
- pnako 6y ago
  It's mostly templates, SDKs, etc. MS is open-sourcing the pieces of cheese that lead to their proprietary cloud-shaped trap. I don't think they've open-sourced anything related to Azure itself (i.e. if I wanted to run my own Azure-like cloud). I'm not saying it's a bad or even unethical strategy. I'm just saying that MS is not, remotely, an open-source company.
  - colinmcdonald22 6y ago
    https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric https://github.com/Microsoft/service-fabric
  - nine_k 6y ago
    How about VSCode and .Net Core?
    - mcny 6y ago
      I work with asp.net web api and angular (typescript) but I think the point stands. > Which of their former good selling products has microsoft open sourced? Neither Visual Studio Code nor .NET core fits this criteria. Visual Studio IDE is not free and open source and neither is the older version of .NET framework. Launch a .NET core application inside visual studio code. Even that comes with a warning saying you can only use the debugger within certain limited situations.
  - ToFab123 6y ago
    Service Fabric is open source. SF is basically what powers Azure and tons of other MS cloud based software like sql azure https://github.com/Azure/service-fabric https://github.com/Azure/service-fabric
  - Conan_Kudo 6y ago
    I would actually go so far as to say it is an unethical strategy. It's just a popular one. And a very successful one.
- dependenttypes 6y ago

harha 6y ago

One aspect EA might be considering are potential losses in other product lines, say if fans were to expand old games with new campaigns that are better than what EA is offering today. For Microsoft this seems to have worked out fine - they’ve helped create an eco system around VS Code and now they are integrating it in all sorts of ways with their paid services.

sitkack 6y ago
I don't think people understand how large of a funnel VS Code is. Half the keystrokes I type in a day end up in a Microsoft product, as I dev on a mac and deploy to Linux. Crazy times.
rangibaby 6y ago
> One aspect EA might be considering are potential losses in other product lines, say if fans were to expand old games with new campaigns that are better than what EA is offering today. Valve especially has made a ton of money buying and selling fanmade expansions to their games, way more than they would have by not allowing mods
- harha 6y ago
  Good point, it really depends on how companies decide to look at this topic and what they decide to optimize. The „old“ Microsoft probably wouldn’t have created a platform for Mac devs deploying on Linux as another comment in this thread described.