4 ms·

This is sarcasm, right? Twitter is a walled garden.

by streptomycin 15y ago

Jasber 15y ago
I think this is what he was talking about: http://twitter.github.com/ http://twitter.github.com/
- streptomycin 15y ago
  I'm sure that's what he was talking about, if he wasn't being sarcastic. But there's a difference between releasing a bit of code on the periphery of your walled garden and being a "role model".
  - a-priori 15y ago
    I would never ask a for-profit company to open source their core software if it doesn't meet their business model (sell support, etc.). Here's the thing though: I don't care one bit about how they process tweets internally. However, the "bit of code on the periphery" that Twitter has released is far more interesting to me. Bootstrap lets me prototype web UIs much faster, for example, and who knows? Maybe some day I'll end up using their contributions to MySQL, Cassandra or Mahout. So, if only for purely selfish reasons, I say kudos to them.
    - streptomycin 15y ago
      Kudos for the good things they've done, sure. And criticism for the bad things they've done. But "OSS's best role model"? Laughable. That was the post I replied to.
mythz 15y ago
People got to get off their utopia world-view thinking companies should be giving away their core-business' secret sauce - the essence that keeps them in business. There is a clear distinction between core-business-specific platform and the technology their platform is built on which facilitates it (i.e. OSS projects/libraries). Twitter is built on open-source, they enhance & contribute to existing OSS projects & open source key technologies their platform is built on: http://twitter.github.com/ http://twitter.github.com/ / https://dev.twitter.com/opensource/thanks https://dev.twitter.com/opensource/thanks / https://github.com/twitter https://github.com/twitter
- streptomycin 15y ago
  I know. All that is nice, certainly better than many companies. But that doesn't make them role models. I'd like to think we can shoot a little higher in finding role models than companies that utterly lock down their platform but throw us a few scraps for free.
  - mythz 15y ago
    They are perfect Role models since their a successful company who employee great talent who use and contribute back to open source. If something doesn't exist they'll build it and open source key parts of their technology platform and are more than open about what they use and how they're able to scale their incredible load: http://blog.twitter.com http://blog.twitter.com / http://highscalability.com/display/Search?searchQuery=twitter&moduleId=4876569 http://highscalability.com/display/Search?searchQuery=twitte... Giving away your core-business is corporate suicide, they would be a shadow of themselves if 100 clones surfaced overnight offering the exact same service - and by extension be unable to contribute back to OSS as much as they have.
    - streptomycin 15y ago
      Suicide? Gmail seems to survive fine. I'm glad people didn't think like you back when email was invented, or we'd still be stuck on our old 5 MB Hotmail accounts (or worse!). People who designed and built systems with their users in mind... those are much better role models than companies like Twitter who build proprietary walled gardens. And going as far as to say Twitter is "OSS's best role model" is just absurd.
      - mythz 15y ago
        Re: Gmail. I can see now that you're conceptually challenged unable to grasp key differences. Gmail operates very similar to Twitter, Google Open Sources their JavaScript platform which Gmail (and other core properties) are built on (https://developers.google.com/closure/library/ https://developers.google.com/closure/library/) but they're not stupid enough to Give away the entire Gmail source code - which you seem to imply.

This is sarcasm, right? Twitter is a walled garden.

Jasber 15y ago

I think this is what he was talking about: http://twitter.github.com/ http://twitter.github.com/

streptomycin 15y ago
I'm sure that's what he was talking about, if he wasn't being sarcastic. But there's a difference between releasing a bit of code on the periphery of your walled garden and being a "role model".
- a-priori 15y ago
  I would never ask a for-profit company to open source their core software if it doesn't meet their business model (sell support, etc.). Here's the thing though: I don't care one bit about how they process tweets internally. However, the "bit of code on the periphery" that Twitter has released is far more interesting to me. Bootstrap lets me prototype web UIs much faster, for example, and who knows? Maybe some day I'll end up using their contributions to MySQL, Cassandra or Mahout. So, if only for purely selfish reasons, I say kudos to them.
  - streptomycin 15y ago
    Kudos for the good things they've done, sure. And criticism for the bad things they've done. But "OSS's best role model"? Laughable. That was the post I replied to.

mythz 15y ago

People got to get off their utopia world-view thinking companies should be giving away their core-business' secret sauce - the essence that keeps them in business. There is a clear distinction between core-business-specific platform and the technology their platform is built on which facilitates it (i.e. OSS projects/libraries). Twitter is built on open-source, they enhance & contribute to existing OSS projects & open source key technologies their platform is built on: http://twitter.github.com/ http://twitter.github.com/ / https://dev.twitter.com/opensource/thanks https://dev.twitter.com/opensource/thanks / https://github.com/twitter https://github.com/twitter

streptomycin 15y ago
I know. All that is nice, certainly better than many companies. But that doesn't make them role models. I'd like to think we can shoot a little higher in finding role models than companies that utterly lock down their platform but throw us a few scraps for free.
- mythz 15y ago
  They are perfect Role models since their a successful company who employee great talent who use and contribute back to open source. If something doesn't exist they'll build it and open source key parts of their technology platform and are more than open about what they use and how they're able to scale their incredible load: http://blog.twitter.com http://blog.twitter.com / http://highscalability.com/display/Search?searchQuery=twitter&moduleId=4876569 http://highscalability.com/display/Search?searchQuery=twitte... Giving away your core-business is corporate suicide, they would be a shadow of themselves if 100 clones surfaced overnight offering the exact same service - and by extension be unable to contribute back to OSS as much as they have.
  - streptomycin 15y ago
    Suicide? Gmail seems to survive fine. I'm glad people didn't think like you back when email was invented, or we'd still be stuck on our old 5 MB Hotmail accounts (or worse!). People who designed and built systems with their users in mind... those are much better role models than companies like Twitter who build proprietary walled gardens. And going as far as to say Twitter is "OSS's best role model" is just absurd.
    - mythz 15y ago
      Re: Gmail. I can see now that you're conceptually challenged unable to grasp key differences. Gmail operates very similar to Twitter, Google Open Sources their JavaScript platform which Gmail (and other core properties) are built on (https://developers.google.com/closure/library/ https://developers.google.com/closure/library/) but they're not stupid enough to Give away the entire Gmail source code - which you seem to imply.