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Isn't this also a criticism of open source software? The final paragraph says if you do it yourself, it's OK, but concerning if Facebook does it. So all the ope

Isn't this also a criticism of open source software? The final paragraph says if you do it yourself, it's OK, but concerning if Facebook does it. So all the open source software mainly built by big tech companies is also predatory pricing? Where do you draw the line?

DoctorOW 5y ago
Open source naturally allows for competition. Look at Chrome, Google employed all these predatory practices to get Chrome to the market share it is today, but a significant amount of that market share is split between Chromium forked competitors.
- native_samples 5y ago
  Which Chromium based competitors have significant market share?
  - DoctorOW 5y ago
    Chromium Edge is more popular than Firefox is. Source: https://caniuse.com/usage-table https://caniuse.com/usage-table
gimmeThaBeet 5y ago
I see what you're saying, but then I also don't share the author's viewpoint. That may have a little to do with it. It is an interesting thought. What if you, as a company, create some open source that eliminates or genuinely competes with other companies? When a large company has the resources to foot the bill on some project, and just give it away as open source because it is not a core product, is that just as bad as any of the article cases? Some FB, Google, Amazon, MS et al. tool could be someone's entire business. Is it fair, open source or not, to release software for free, because you make money elsewhere such that you don't care about monetizing it? Is harming a competitors admissible if you literally never intend to directly profit off the endeavor? Imo, this line of thinking really challenges the point of the article, I don't know where you draw that line. I feel it would be interesting to evaluate a real example, though admittedly I can't think of one on the spot.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  I guess compilers? Especially for languages invented by big tech like Go. What came to mind when I wrote that was Tensorflow which seems like an attempt by Google to create some kind of lock-in there.

DoctorOW 5y ago

Open source naturally allows for competition. Look at Chrome, Google employed all these predatory practices to get Chrome to the market share it is today, but a significant amount of that market share is split between Chromium forked competitors.

native_samples 5y ago
Which Chromium based competitors have significant market share?
- DoctorOW 5y ago
  Chromium Edge is more popular than Firefox is. Source: https://caniuse.com/usage-table https://caniuse.com/usage-table

gimmeThaBeet 5y ago

I see what you're saying, but then I also don't share the author's viewpoint. That may have a little to do with it. It is an interesting thought. What if you, as a company, create some open source that eliminates or genuinely competes with other companies? When a large company has the resources to foot the bill on some project, and just give it away as open source because it is not a core product, is that just as bad as any of the article cases? Some FB, Google, Amazon, MS et al. tool could be someone's entire business. Is it fair, open source or not, to release software for free, because you make money elsewhere such that you don't care about monetizing it? Is harming a competitors admissible if you literally never intend to directly profit off the endeavor? Imo, this line of thinking really challenges the point of the article, I don't know where you draw that line. I feel it would be interesting to evaluate a real example, though admittedly I can't think of one on the spot.

exporectomy 5y ago
I guess compilers? Especially for languages invented by big tech like Go. What came to mind when I wrote that was Tensorflow which seems like an attempt by Google to create some kind of lock-in there.