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It's a bit strange to open a pull request from "Developer-Ecosystem-Engineering" instead of an individual account. I wonder if every interaction from this accou

It's a bit strange to open a pull request from "Developer-Ecosystem-Engineering" instead of an individual account. I wonder if every interaction from this account has to be approved by a board or something.

mr90210 5y ago
It's a valid point, however shall we at least celebrate a bit the fact that a Big Tech is actually contributing in the project?
- masklinn 5y ago
  TBF I don’t know how much “we want $popular project to take advantage of our platform” is to be celebrated. It’s better than bitching about bad support without doing anything. But at the most fundamental of levels it’s really the company working for their customers, through a third party’s project.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Is a company working for its customers to have a good experience with an open source package something we should discourage instead? I’m perfectly happy to celebrate win-win outcomes.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      > Is a company working for its customers to have a good experience with an open source package something we should discourage instead? You are aware that there are more than two options?
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        Of course. Apple has many options and their choice to contribute to OBS allows me many options as to how to react; I choose applause.
        q3k 5y ago
        I don’t know, this feels to me like applauding a car driver who uses their turn signals correctly. “Hooray, you did the thing you’re supposed to do. Good job you”.
        Someone 5y ago
        Why would Apple be supposed to do this? Without any other argument on the table, taking that statement to its logical conclusion, it would imply Apple is supposed to help make every single project run well on their hardware. Even when restricting that to “open source projects that (cl)aim to run on latest MacOS”, I think that’s not something a vendor is “supposed to do”. So, if Apple only “is supposed to” support some projects, what objective criteria should it use to pick them? I think it’s completely fine if Apple wouldn’t support any open source. I also think it’s completely fine if developers would choose not to write software for their OS because of that.
  - nisegami 5y ago
    I think situations where literally all parties involved are better off than they were before should be celebrated, even if the intentions behind it aren't just philanthropic.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      So you celebrate every time somebody makes a purchase of something they needed and had the means for?
      - nisegami 5y ago
        If those goods were produced by people paid fair wages and using materials sourced sustainably/ethically, sure. So in practice, not very often
- yreg 5y ago
  Is that rare? I would have thought many FAAG employees contribute to open source projects relevant to them as part of their work. After all that seems like the easiest way to influence the projects.
  - jhugo 5y ago
    And contributing changes back to an active project is much less effort than maintaining a fork in perpetuity.
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    Facebook.. Yes... Amazon... Yes Apple... Not so much. Netflix.. A little Google... Yes...
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Amazon...it depends
    - viktorcode 5y ago
      There's a good post on HN about what it cos Apple to make OS X a certified UNIX. Due to the secrecy of the project they had to use non-corporate accounts for committing bug fixes. The amount of changes was pretty big, but nobody excepts the authors can say it came from Apple. Of course they will commit to open source projects if it suits their needs (if they use those projects). But people have different opinion on what Apple's needs are.
      - couchridr 5y ago
        You probably mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29984016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29984016
  - swiftcoder 5y ago
    There's a pretty big distinction between FAANG employees contributing on their own time to things tangentially related too their job, and FAANG employees contributing on behalf of the company (i.e. being paid to do so as an official part of their day job). Judging by the Engineering account being used to submit this patch, this is likely to be an example of the latter.
helsinkiandrew 5y ago
From experience in a big company (not Apple) likely direct manager then senior manager then legal department. The justification and hoop jumping would take much more effort than the coding. Well done to who ever it was.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Contributing to a new open source project requires Senior Vice President approval at Apple.
  - yellow_lead 5y ago
    Jesus
  - dagmx 5y ago
    Not accurate. There's multiple levels of contribution approval depending on the frequency, size and extent of the contributions.
    - saagarjha 5y ago
      I am aware of several projects that Apple has existing relationships with that have streamlined processes, but to my understanding the “ask a SVP” remains the standard policy for getting permission to contribute to an open source project.
      - dagmx 5y ago
        It is not. You only need the SVP permission if you are doing larger contributions and frequently. Smaller contributions or one offs don't go up the chain as far, and can just require manager+legal approval
onion2k 5y ago
Don't Apple have a policy that their developers aren't supposed to contribute to Open Source without explicit permission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22935263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22935263)? I imagine this is the result of that policy - if Apple wants to contribute to something as a business there isn't really anyone who would be able to use their individual account to do it without lots of people questioning why that person can when others can't.
- dogma1138 5y ago
  Most companies have this policy it’s actually quite important to protect both the company and the project, it wouldn’t surprise me if big projects even mandate it on their side too. It usually comes in two flavors - individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment and official contributions when the company itself contributes to a project. This looks to be the latter rather than the former so it would make sense it would come from an Apple account.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    > It usually comes in two flavors - individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment and official contributions when the company itself contributes to a project. My understanding is that Apple's policy is highly unusual in that "individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment" are pretty much not allowed at all.
    - threeseed 5y ago
      > My understanding is that Apple's policy is highly unusual in that "individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment" are pretty much not allowed at all. I am not sure exactly but I suspect this is employee-specific and may be only for those working on sensitive projects. I worked at Apple years ago and it was never in my contract or mentioned to me. And there are plenty of more recent developers e.g. Holden Karau who were contributing to open source projects in their spare time whilst working at Apple.
iSnow 5y ago
Could be related to the decision to remove individual names from the product about boxes back when Jobs came back to better control leaking of internal information and cut down on poaching. I would think that Apple does not want anyone to know who is working on the screen capture APIs as this PR would probably come from one member of that group "When Steve came back, one of his company-wide edicts was that the names of individuals must be removed from about boxes." https://bitsplitting.org/2014/01/24/cant-take-that-away/ https://bitsplitting.org/2014/01/24/cant-take-that-away/
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > when Jobs came back to better control leaking of internal information and cut down on poaching He also went further than that by illegally colluding with competitors to lower wages for employees. [0] [1]. What a great man. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/emails-eric-schmidt-sergey-brin-hiring-apple-2014-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/emails-eric-schmidt-sergey-b... [1] https://9to5google.com/2012/01/27/court-filings-show-steve-jobs-told-google-to-stop-poaching-apple-engineers/ https://9to5google.com/2012/01/27/court-filings-show-steve-j...
DangerousPie 5y ago
Well, given the amount of publicity this PR is getting it probably makes sense to not just let a random software engineer post whatever they feel like.
SloopJon 5y ago
For those of you who have contributed to a Github (or similar) project in your capacity as an employee, do you use a work account separate from your own?
- maccard 5y ago
  yes.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Depends on the company, usually. Currently, I make my contributions with a personal account.
olliej 5y ago
It’s very team dependent - look at llvm and webkit for instance. It could also be that someone would rather not be out in public, which is also understandable.
viraptor 5y ago
HP tried to do something similar when working with openstack. It was done for very bureaucratic reasons / company visibility. (Author was preserved, commit was by something like the-project-name@hp.com) A slightly misguided idea by people who don't normally work with big open source. It was reverted since it messed with project statistics.

mr90210 5y ago

It's a valid point, however shall we at least celebrate a bit the fact that a Big Tech is actually contributing in the project?

masklinn 5y ago
TBF I don’t know how much “we want $popular project to take advantage of our platform” is to be celebrated. It’s better than bitching about bad support without doing anything. But at the most fundamental of levels it’s really the company working for their customers, through a third party’s project.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Is a company working for its customers to have a good experience with an open source package something we should discourage instead? I’m perfectly happy to celebrate win-win outcomes.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    > Is a company working for its customers to have a good experience with an open source package something we should discourage instead? You are aware that there are more than two options?
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Of course. Apple has many options and their choice to contribute to OBS allows me many options as to how to react; I choose applause.
      - q3k 5y ago
        I don’t know, this feels to me like applauding a car driver who uses their turn signals correctly. “Hooray, you did the thing you’re supposed to do. Good job you”.
        Someone 5y ago
        Why would Apple be supposed to do this? Without any other argument on the table, taking that statement to its logical conclusion, it would imply Apple is supposed to help make every single project run well on their hardware. Even when restricting that to “open source projects that (cl)aim to run on latest MacOS”, I think that’s not something a vendor is “supposed to do”. So, if Apple only “is supposed to” support some projects, what objective criteria should it use to pick them? I think it’s completely fine if Apple wouldn’t support any open source. I also think it’s completely fine if developers would choose not to write software for their OS because of that.
- nisegami 5y ago
  I think situations where literally all parties involved are better off than they were before should be celebrated, even if the intentions behind it aren't just philanthropic.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    So you celebrate every time somebody makes a purchase of something they needed and had the means for?
    - nisegami 5y ago
      If those goods were produced by people paid fair wages and using materials sourced sustainably/ethically, sure. So in practice, not very often
yreg 5y ago
Is that rare? I would have thought many FAAG employees contribute to open source projects relevant to them as part of their work. After all that seems like the easiest way to influence the projects.
- jhugo 5y ago
  And contributing changes back to an active project is much less effort than maintaining a fork in perpetuity.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  Facebook.. Yes... Amazon... Yes Apple... Not so much. Netflix.. A little Google... Yes...
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Amazon...it depends
  - viktorcode 5y ago
    There's a good post on HN about what it cos Apple to make OS X a certified UNIX. Due to the secrecy of the project they had to use non-corporate accounts for committing bug fixes. The amount of changes was pretty big, but nobody excepts the authors can say it came from Apple. Of course they will commit to open source projects if it suits their needs (if they use those projects). But people have different opinion on what Apple's needs are.
    - couchridr 5y ago
      You probably mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29984016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29984016
- swiftcoder 5y ago
  There's a pretty big distinction between FAANG employees contributing on their own time to things tangentially related too their job, and FAANG employees contributing on behalf of the company (i.e. being paid to do so as an official part of their day job). Judging by the Engineering account being used to submit this patch, this is likely to be an example of the latter.

helsinkiandrew 5y ago

From experience in a big company (not Apple) likely direct manager then senior manager then legal department. The justification and hoop jumping would take much more effort than the coding. Well done to who ever it was.

saagarjha 5y ago
Contributing to a new open source project requires Senior Vice President approval at Apple.
- yellow_lead 5y ago
  Jesus
- dagmx 5y ago
  Not accurate. There's multiple levels of contribution approval depending on the frequency, size and extent of the contributions.
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    I am aware of several projects that Apple has existing relationships with that have streamlined processes, but to my understanding the “ask a SVP” remains the standard policy for getting permission to contribute to an open source project.
    - dagmx 5y ago
      It is not. You only need the SVP permission if you are doing larger contributions and frequently. Smaller contributions or one offs don't go up the chain as far, and can just require manager+legal approval

onion2k 5y ago

Don't Apple have a policy that their developers aren't supposed to contribute to Open Source without explicit permission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22935263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22935263)? I imagine this is the result of that policy - if Apple wants to contribute to something as a business there isn't really anyone who would be able to use their individual account to do it without lots of people questioning why that person can when others can't.

dogma1138 5y ago
Most companies have this policy it’s actually quite important to protect both the company and the project, it wouldn’t surprise me if big projects even mandate it on their side too. It usually comes in two flavors - individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment and official contributions when the company itself contributes to a project. This looks to be the latter rather than the former so it would make sense it would come from an Apple account.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  > It usually comes in two flavors - individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment and official contributions when the company itself contributes to a project. My understanding is that Apple's policy is highly unusual in that "individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment" are pretty much not allowed at all.
  - threeseed 5y ago
    > My understanding is that Apple's policy is highly unusual in that "individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment" are pretty much not allowed at all. I am not sure exactly but I suspect this is employee-specific and may be only for those working on sensitive projects. I worked at Apple years ago and it was never in my contract or mentioned to me. And there are plenty of more recent developers e.g. Holden Karau who were contributing to open source projects in their spare time whilst working at Apple.

iSnow 5y ago

Could be related to the decision to remove individual names from the product about boxes back when Jobs came back to better control leaking of internal information and cut down on poaching. I would think that Apple does not want anyone to know who is working on the screen capture APIs as this PR would probably come from one member of that group "When Steve came back, one of his company-wide edicts was that the names of individuals must be removed from about boxes." https://bitsplitting.org/2014/01/24/cant-take-that-away/ https://bitsplitting.org/2014/01/24/cant-take-that-away/

908B64B197 5y ago
> when Jobs came back to better control leaking of internal information and cut down on poaching He also went further than that by illegally colluding with competitors to lower wages for employees. [0] [1]. What a great man. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/emails-eric-schmidt-sergey-brin-hiring-apple-2014-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/emails-eric-schmidt-sergey-b... [1] https://9to5google.com/2012/01/27/court-filings-show-steve-jobs-told-google-to-stop-poaching-apple-engineers/ https://9to5google.com/2012/01/27/court-filings-show-steve-j...

DangerousPie 5y ago

Well, given the amount of publicity this PR is getting it probably makes sense to not just let a random software engineer post whatever they feel like.

SloopJon 5y ago

For those of you who have contributed to a Github (or similar) project in your capacity as an employee, do you use a work account separate from your own?

maccard 5y ago
yes.
saagarjha 5y ago
Depends on the company, usually. Currently, I make my contributions with a personal account.

olliej 5y ago

It’s very team dependent - look at llvm and webkit for instance. It could also be that someone would rather not be out in public, which is also understandable.

viraptor 5y ago

HP tried to do something similar when working with openstack. It was done for very bureaucratic reasons / company visibility. (Author was preserved, commit was by something like the-project-name@hp.com) A slightly misguided idea by people who don't normally work with big open source. It was reverted since it messed with project statistics.