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Directionally good, though I'm sure there's a decision tree that's mostly driven by how it benefits AWS. Something like "is committing this back going to save

by tyingq 4y ago

Directionally good, though I'm sure there's a decision tree that's mostly driven by how it benefits AWS. Something like "is committing this back going to save us time maintaining it separately without giving away IP we care about?".

ghaff 4y ago
It's probably not so much IP that they care about as IP that gives them some competitive advantage by keeping it secret. You can probably overstate the degree to which Amazon didn't contribute to and interact with open source communities 5+ years ago (and probably also overstate the degree to which there's been a complete sea change) but, as you say I think it's fair to say there's been a directional shift with more substantive activity in addition to what I'd mostly describe as talking the talk previously. The industry as a whole has also developed into this incredibly complicated coopetition landscape especially around containers in the past decade.
nazgulsenpai 4y ago
I would say that's true for any company that contributes to open source projects.
- tyingq 4y ago
  Yes, though there's some things that are somewhat unique where Amazon is competing with open source products. For example, they have to offer MKS, but would rather you use Kinesis, EventBridge, etc. So perhaps less incentive to make Kafka better for everyone.
jrochkind1 4y ago
I feel like that kind of self-interest is the origin of open source, and always what has powered it when it's working. The original apache httpd, for instance, was written by people working at different organizations collaborating together to build the web server that they needed. It wasn't something people did as just a hobby, although the individual contributors may also have had some altruistic and certainly cooperative motivations. It definitely wasn't something people did motivated by trying to make money off of selling apache httpd in some way. Open source always requires self-interest to fuel it. The original model was people collaborating across organizations because it provided something useful to their organization -- exactly this. When this stops happening, because organizations cut budgets to the bone; because they gatekeep anything that might benefit competitors as well as themselves; because they can free-load off existing open source instead -- what other source of self-interest is there? One is people trying to profit off of the open source itself, with "open core" models, or models where the license can appear open but tries to ensure that the creators maintain a monopoly on any profitable aspects. Or, we can just get lack of investment in open source everyone is trying to free-load off of, withering open source with burnt out maintainers. Companies committing to open source because it saves them the time of maintaining it separately is the best case, and describes the environment of the "golden age" of open source.
- pydry 4y ago
  I met an open source maintainer once working on a very popular tool everybody uses who was practically impoverished. From talking to him it became apparent that he was routinely being taken advantage of across all spheres of his life. It made me wonder how much valuable open source is powered, quietly, by people who are just used to being exploited.
  - pabs3 4y ago
    Probably almost all of it, except large projects with lots of paid devs, like Linux or RedHat.
- taftster 4y ago
  This is insightful. > Open source always requires self-interest to fuel it. That self-interest doesn't necessarily have to be profit motivated either. As one of the replies to your comment suggest, probably the majority of open source is maintained as a hobby by an invested/interested user. Open source does not have to have a profit motive to make sense. But likewise, a profit motive is also congruent with open source. It greases a lot of axles, to put it nicely. There's definitely some disparity in open source contributors in terms of money being made, almost like the income gap between wealth and poverty in general. I wish we could do better at fixing that and helping the "little guy" that is contributing their soul into a project. Still though, open source is driven by "selfish" means, in whatever form that takes.
pkkm 4y ago
Sure, but why does that matter? A lot of good software got developed by itch-scratching.

by tyingq 4y ago

ghaff 4y ago

It's probably not so much IP that they care about as IP that gives them some competitive advantage by keeping it secret. You can probably overstate the degree to which Amazon didn't contribute to and interact with open source communities 5+ years ago (and probably also overstate the degree to which there's been a complete sea change) but, as you say I think it's fair to say there's been a directional shift with more substantive activity in addition to what I'd mostly describe as talking the talk previously. The industry as a whole has also developed into this incredibly complicated coopetition landscape especially around containers in the past decade.

nazgulsenpai 4y ago

I would say that's true for any company that contributes to open source projects.

tyingq 4y ago
Yes, though there's some things that are somewhat unique where Amazon is competing with open source products. For example, they have to offer MKS, but would rather you use Kinesis, EventBridge, etc. So perhaps less incentive to make Kafka better for everyone.

jrochkind1 4y ago

I feel like that kind of self-interest is the origin of open source, and always what has powered it when it's working. The original apache httpd, for instance, was written by people working at different organizations collaborating together to build the web server that they needed. It wasn't something people did as just a hobby, although the individual contributors may also have had some altruistic and certainly cooperative motivations. It definitely wasn't something people did motivated by trying to make money off of selling apache httpd in some way. Open source always requires self-interest to fuel it. The original model was people collaborating across organizations because it provided something useful to their organization -- exactly this. When this stops happening, because organizations cut budgets to the bone; because they gatekeep anything that might benefit competitors as well as themselves; because they can free-load off existing open source instead -- what other source of self-interest is there? One is people trying to profit off of the open source itself, with "open core" models, or models where the license can appear open but tries to ensure that the creators maintain a monopoly on any profitable aspects. Or, we can just get lack of investment in open source everyone is trying to free-load off of, withering open source with burnt out maintainers. Companies committing to open source because it saves them the time of maintaining it separately is the best case, and describes the environment of the "golden age" of open source.

pydry 4y ago
I met an open source maintainer once working on a very popular tool everybody uses who was practically impoverished. From talking to him it became apparent that he was routinely being taken advantage of across all spheres of his life. It made me wonder how much valuable open source is powered, quietly, by people who are just used to being exploited.
- pabs3 4y ago
  Probably almost all of it, except large projects with lots of paid devs, like Linux or RedHat.
taftster 4y ago
This is insightful. > Open source always requires self-interest to fuel it. That self-interest doesn't necessarily have to be profit motivated either. As one of the replies to your comment suggest, probably the majority of open source is maintained as a hobby by an invested/interested user. Open source does not have to have a profit motive to make sense. But likewise, a profit motive is also congruent with open source. It greases a lot of axles, to put it nicely. There's definitely some disparity in open source contributors in terms of money being made, almost like the income gap between wealth and poverty in general. I wish we could do better at fixing that and helping the "little guy" that is contributing their soul into a project. Still though, open source is driven by "selfish" means, in whatever form that takes.

pkkm 4y ago

Sure, but why does that matter? A lot of good software got developed by itch-scratching.