5 ms·

corporate backer/owner on oss project is a bit different from a language as far as scope of users. and to wit minus java (arisen from its oak roots at a time wh

corporate backer/owner on oss project is a bit different from a language as far as scope of users. and to wit minus java (arisen from its oak roots at a time where c/c++ were the primary alternatives), and golang, most languages don't have a corporate oss backer imo [1], at least not one in pole position over the language vs other contributors. [1] perhaps Erlang, but that seems dated as a ref to its origin versus contributions and expanded field of endeavor.

schmichael 4y ago
> most languages don't have a corporate oss backer imo Oh that's an interesting observation! Made me peek at the TIOBE index top 10: 1. Python - has a Foundation and is as "pure" OSS as I think something can be. 2. C - slow moving standards body 3. Java - there's a few players here but a fairly small number of corporations have outsized impact (Oracle being the most) 4. C++ - slow moving standards body 5. C# - Microsoft 6. Visual Basic - Microsoft 7. JavaScript - standards body but mostly controlled by a small number of megacorps and Mozilla 8. ASM - I guess corp owned? Hard to reason about this one. 9. PHP - Foundation (I think? I've been out of that world for decades and Zend defacto controlled it when I was in it that world) 10. SQL - slow moving standard with tons of vendor specific variation So by rough count I think we have about 30% of the top 10 controlled by either 1 or a very small number of corporate backers. 30% controlled by standards bodies, 30% by Foundations, and ...what you count ASM as. So I think it's fair to say governance by corporate backers is as popular a route for languages to take as any. (To be clear I don't mean "slow" to be a pejorative when it comes to standards bodies. If it isn't clear from my OP, I'm a big fan of slow moving languages!)

5 ms·

corporate backer/owner on oss project is a bit different from a language as far as scope of users. and to wit minus java (arisen from its oak roots at a time wh

by kapilvt 4y ago

schmichael 4y ago
> most languages don't have a corporate oss backer imo Oh that's an interesting observation! Made me peek at the TIOBE index top 10: 1. Python - has a Foundation and is as "pure" OSS as I think something can be. 2. C - slow moving standards body 3. Java - there's a few players here but a fairly small number of corporations have outsized impact (Oracle being the most) 4. C++ - slow moving standards body 5. C# - Microsoft 6. Visual Basic - Microsoft 7. JavaScript - standards body but mostly controlled by a small number of megacorps and Mozilla 8. ASM - I guess corp owned? Hard to reason about this one. 9. PHP - Foundation (I think? I've been out of that world for decades and Zend defacto controlled it when I was in it that world) 10. SQL - slow moving standard with tons of vendor specific variation So by rough count I think we have about 30% of the top 10 controlled by either 1 or a very small number of corporate backers. 30% controlled by standards bodies, 30% by Foundations, and ...what you count ASM as. So I think it's fair to say governance by corporate backers is as popular a route for languages to take as any. (To be clear I don't mean "slow" to be a pejorative when it comes to standards bodies. If it isn't clear from my OP, I'm a big fan of slow moving languages!)