4 ms·

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.

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.