4 ms·

I'm curious, what is it that drives every tech company to eventually publish a UI framework? I get the value of having an internal UI framework which allows any

I'm curious, what is it that drives every tech company to eventually publish a UI framework? I get the value of having an internal UI framework which allows anyone in an organisation to quickly throw something together which is at least vaguely in line with branding and UI patterns, but what value do they get from then making that available to the general public. Surely it just puts a burden on the maintainers because they can no longer just send a quick email or Slack message to the relevant channel saying "we're going to break backwards compatibility for widget X, make sure you update".

ctvo 4y ago
> I'm curious, what is it that drives every tech company to eventually publish a UI framework? I get the value of having an internal UI framework which allows anyone in an organisation to quickly throw something together which is at least vaguely in line with branding and UI patterns, but what value do they get from then making that available to the general public. It makes their front-end engineers and designers happy and acts as a recruiting tool: Look at what we're building for internal use and our culture of open source contributions. > Surely it just puts a burden on the maintainers because they can no longer just send a quick email or Slack message to the relevant channel saying "we're going to break backwards compatibility for widget X, make sure you update". It sometimes does, if they bother to support public issues vs. it being available but mostly only supporting internal use cases.
- jbverschoor 4y ago
  Some people might call it "busywork"
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
nijave 4y ago
One place I worked did that because it made development/packaging easier. You didn't need to maintain a private repo with auth for something that eventually gets published publicly anyway
indymike 4y ago
> I'm curious, what is it that drives every tech company to eventually publish a UI framework? 1. Low risk. Not likely to create competitors or give away the secret sauce. 2. Allows partners to build lookalikes/similar look and feel apps. 3. Enables vendors/partners to contribute in a meaningful way that helps both parties.

ctvo 4y ago

> I'm curious, what is it that drives every tech company to eventually publish a UI framework? I get the value of having an internal UI framework which allows anyone in an organisation to quickly throw something together which is at least vaguely in line with branding and UI patterns, but what value do they get from then making that available to the general public. It makes their front-end engineers and designers happy and acts as a recruiting tool: Look at what we're building for internal use and our culture of open source contributions. > Surely it just puts a burden on the maintainers because they can no longer just send a quick email or Slack message to the relevant channel saying "we're going to break backwards compatibility for widget X, make sure you update". It sometimes does, if they bother to support public issues vs. it being available but mostly only supporting internal use cases.

jbverschoor 4y ago
Some people might call it "busywork"
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

nijave 4y ago

One place I worked did that because it made development/packaging easier. You didn't need to maintain a private repo with auth for something that eventually gets published publicly anyway

indymike 4y ago

> I'm curious, what is it that drives every tech company to eventually publish a UI framework? 1. Low risk. Not likely to create competitors or give away the secret sauce. 2. Allows partners to build lookalikes/similar look and feel apps. 3. Enables vendors/partners to contribute in a meaningful way that helps both parties.