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In terms of companies that rip off open source and do not give back meta is certainly one of the more active "give back" companies. React/Native, docusaurus, bu

In terms of companies that rip off open source and do not give back meta is certainly one of the more active "give back" companies. React/Native, docusaurus, buck, pytorch, rocksdb...

synergy20 3y ago
yes some big companies did open source projects and Meta is a good role model, for many those OSS projects, they work for the companies themselves first then the community, though they are indeed still 1 million times better than closed and proprietary code. I'm mainly referring to long standing fundamental projects that made the rest projects possible, not those projects that are created and managed by the big companies themselves.
- ushakov 3y ago
  Why is Meta obligated to give anything back to these projects? It was their authors choice first and foremost to publish them as OSS
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    Traditionally speaking, it's because they're the most qualified to do it. Every FAANG company takes from Open Source in order to succeed, so contributing back to a FOSS codebase is the ultimate act of corporate goodwill. You are burning real-life money and engineering hours to fix a problem for everyone and ensure that it stays protected under the same Open license that let your company succeed. There is no legal obligation per-se. Open Source is a charity, but you can understand a lot about a company's motives if you compare their FOSS usage to their FOSS contributions.
    - jorvi 3y ago
      I think this misses the point. FAANGs don’t improve OSS code out of goodwill, they do it because it benefits them. Upstreaming those improvements has very little marginal cost, and it bolsters an environment where other companies do the same. Rising tide and all that.
      - sroussey 3y ago
        That is the whole point of GPL — to incentivize contributors for the common good. Goodwill might work for individual contributors, but it’s not enough of an incentive for organizations.
        NegativeK 3y ago
        > it’s not enough of an incentive for organizations. It _should_ be. There's nothing stopping organizations from doing good things except expectation.
        sroussey 3y ago
        I disagree. It would be nice, sure. I would say that anything based in government funding _should_. There are real costs and that has real consequences. Expectation is way down on the list.
    - ianai 3y ago
      It’s not a charity if it becomes or serves as part of a standard. Sort of how semis and the various suppliers/buyers of that industry wind up agreeing on standards despite being competitors in some cases. Definitely things like the Linux kernel make sense to give back to - you’re ensuring the kernel lines up with your own corporate investments in a sense. A company unilaterally needing to fork and maintain their own Linux compatible kernel would need to sink a lot of time and money to come up with something as developed as the modern kernel. And it would become more expensive, unwieldy, and akin to technical debt over time. It’s clearly not perfect calculus since so many defect from OSS, but there’s also clearly some business sense there.
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        > It’s not a charity if it becomes or serves as part of a standard. Then it just transitions to a charity that everyone relies on. It's been embarrassingly difficult for people to admit this vis-a-vis Linux and the like, but it's obvious in a situation like programming languages. We rely on the enduring charity of it's authors, license-holders and distributors to write and distribute software. "Giving back" is not an inherently cynical process. Meta has no obligation to publish these patches in the first place, much less work as a part of the community to solve a common issue. But they do, and it's just kinda part of their culture at this point. Yes, they do still gain from it; but so do their direct competitors. It's difficult to characterize as a purely business-motivated decision, because there are much greedier avenues to pursue if that's their MO.
  - mlyle 3y ago
    Good etiquette (social obligations & kindness) and license requirements (legal obligations) are different.
curt15 3y ago
btrfs
- Geezus_42 3y ago
  How long have they been working on a stable RAID 5/6 implementation?
  - 5e92cb50239222b 3y ago
    Why would they? Nobody except a few home users needs RAID 5/6. There's only a small handful of talented filesystem developers (never mind the filesystem, it's equally applicable to all of them), and there's always something to do which will benefit all of us. Especially for something so feature-packed and complicated.
pgwhalen 3y ago
"Giving back" might be an understatement for Meta's open source contributions. They are the bedrock of so much OSS in the last decade, it's everyone _else_ that is "giving back."

In terms of companies that rip off open source and do not give back meta is certainly one of the more active "give back" companies. React/Native, docusaurus, buck, pytorch, rocksdb...

synergy20 3y ago

yes some big companies did open source projects and Meta is a good role model, for many those OSS projects, they work for the companies themselves first then the community, though they are indeed still 1 million times better than closed and proprietary code. I'm mainly referring to long standing fundamental projects that made the rest projects possible, not those projects that are created and managed by the big companies themselves.

ushakov 3y ago
Why is Meta obligated to give anything back to these projects? It was their authors choice first and foremost to publish them as OSS
- smoldesu 3y ago
  Traditionally speaking, it's because they're the most qualified to do it. Every FAANG company takes from Open Source in order to succeed, so contributing back to a FOSS codebase is the ultimate act of corporate goodwill. You are burning real-life money and engineering hours to fix a problem for everyone and ensure that it stays protected under the same Open license that let your company succeed. There is no legal obligation per-se. Open Source is a charity, but you can understand a lot about a company's motives if you compare their FOSS usage to their FOSS contributions.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    I think this misses the point. FAANGs don’t improve OSS code out of goodwill, they do it because it benefits them. Upstreaming those improvements has very little marginal cost, and it bolsters an environment where other companies do the same. Rising tide and all that.
    - sroussey 3y ago
      That is the whole point of GPL — to incentivize contributors for the common good. Goodwill might work for individual contributors, but it’s not enough of an incentive for organizations.
      - NegativeK 3y ago
        > it’s not enough of an incentive for organizations. It _should_ be. There's nothing stopping organizations from doing good things except expectation.
        sroussey 3y ago
        I disagree. It would be nice, sure. I would say that anything based in government funding _should_. There are real costs and that has real consequences. Expectation is way down on the list.
  - ianai 3y ago
    It’s not a charity if it becomes or serves as part of a standard. Sort of how semis and the various suppliers/buyers of that industry wind up agreeing on standards despite being competitors in some cases. Definitely things like the Linux kernel make sense to give back to - you’re ensuring the kernel lines up with your own corporate investments in a sense. A company unilaterally needing to fork and maintain their own Linux compatible kernel would need to sink a lot of time and money to come up with something as developed as the modern kernel. And it would become more expensive, unwieldy, and akin to technical debt over time. It’s clearly not perfect calculus since so many defect from OSS, but there’s also clearly some business sense there.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      > It’s not a charity if it becomes or serves as part of a standard. Then it just transitions to a charity that everyone relies on. It's been embarrassingly difficult for people to admit this vis-a-vis Linux and the like, but it's obvious in a situation like programming languages. We rely on the enduring charity of it's authors, license-holders and distributors to write and distribute software. "Giving back" is not an inherently cynical process. Meta has no obligation to publish these patches in the first place, much less work as a part of the community to solve a common issue. But they do, and it's just kinda part of their culture at this point. Yes, they do still gain from it; but so do their direct competitors. It's difficult to characterize as a purely business-motivated decision, because there are much greedier avenues to pursue if that's their MO.
- mlyle 3y ago
  Good etiquette (social obligations & kindness) and license requirements (legal obligations) are different.

curt15 3y ago

btrfs

Geezus_42 3y ago
How long have they been working on a stable RAID 5/6 implementation?
- 5e92cb50239222b 3y ago
  Why would they? Nobody except a few home users needs RAID 5/6. There's only a small handful of talented filesystem developers (never mind the filesystem, it's equally applicable to all of them), and there's always something to do which will benefit all of us. Especially for something so feature-packed and complicated.

pgwhalen 3y ago

"Giving back" might be an understatement for Meta's open source contributions. They are the bedrock of so much OSS in the last decade, it's everyone _else_ that is "giving back."