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Wasn’t the tweet recommendation system “open sourced” as well? Does this guy know the difference between open source and “open source”?

mavhc 3y ago
AGPL https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm
- chownie 3y ago
  If I recall correctly this repo is missing data so it's functionally impossible to verify or replicate the behaviour they're using on live.
  - viraptor 3y ago
    Not only that, it's not been updated in 8 months. It's extremely unlikely that Twitter hasn't updated anything about the home feed since then. They effectively dumped part of the code on GitHub for some headlines, but never intended to keep developing it in the open.
    - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
      > but never intended to keep developing it in the open Did Elon Musk promise this?
      - viraptor 3y ago
        Not explicitly. But since they gave it an AGPL licence, you can request the updated source from them, so the intention was definitely there. (Then again, as owners they can relicense any time they want, so it's not really binding for them) They also invited to contribute to that repo... but none of the serious PRs got ever merged as far as I can tell. Basically, they were never serious about doing this.
coldtea 3y ago
Yes, and it's here: https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm If e.g. Amazon open sources some part of its software infrastructure should they also open source the data it uses or their configuration files?
aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> Wasn’t the tweet recommendation system “open sourced” as well? Does this guy know the difference between open source and “open source”? What do you mean? There exists only one binding definition of open source > https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd and either some product does satisfy it, or it doesn't. As far as I am aware > https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm does satisfy the open source definition, so your sarcasm looks demagogical to me, but I am very willing to learn something new.
- torlok 3y ago
  I think people expected him to "open" the algorithm so that you could tell how the recommendations are determined, and instead what people got was an Underpants Gnomes' Plan with a neural network step in the middle and no weights.
- tomalbrc 3y ago
  So it is not open source, thank you for the info.
- aaron695 3y ago
  [dead]
- stolsvik 3y ago
  While I agree there is a common understanding of what open source is, there most definitely does not exist any "binding definition"! It is not trademarked, copyrighted (and it never could have been, two common words that it is), or in any country's legally protected terms, or anything else. It is really grating to see such nonsense repeated way to often.
- 7moritz7 3y ago
  > There exists only one binding definition of open source >> https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd Insert Obama awarding himself meme. Who said that this is the "only binding definition"?

mavhc 3y ago

AGPL https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm

chownie 3y ago
If I recall correctly this repo is missing data so it's functionally impossible to verify or replicate the behaviour they're using on live.
- viraptor 3y ago
  Not only that, it's not been updated in 8 months. It's extremely unlikely that Twitter hasn't updated anything about the home feed since then. They effectively dumped part of the code on GitHub for some headlines, but never intended to keep developing it in the open.
  - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
    > but never intended to keep developing it in the open Did Elon Musk promise this?
    - viraptor 3y ago
      Not explicitly. But since they gave it an AGPL licence, you can request the updated source from them, so the intention was definitely there. (Then again, as owners they can relicense any time they want, so it's not really binding for them) They also invited to contribute to that repo... but none of the serious PRs got ever merged as far as I can tell. Basically, they were never serious about doing this.

coldtea 3y ago

Yes, and it's here: https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm If e.g. Amazon open sources some part of its software infrastructure should they also open source the data it uses or their configuration files?

aleph_minus_one 3y ago

> Wasn’t the tweet recommendation system “open sourced” as well? Does this guy know the difference between open source and “open source”? What do you mean? There exists only one binding definition of open source > https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd and either some product does satisfy it, or it doesn't. As far as I am aware > https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm https://github.com/twitter/the-algorithm does satisfy the open source definition, so your sarcasm looks demagogical to me, but I am very willing to learn something new.

torlok 3y ago
I think people expected him to "open" the algorithm so that you could tell how the recommendations are determined, and instead what people got was an Underpants Gnomes' Plan with a neural network step in the middle and no weights.
tomalbrc 3y ago
So it is not open source, thank you for the info.
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
stolsvik 3y ago
While I agree there is a common understanding of what open source is, there most definitely does not exist any "binding definition"! It is not trademarked, copyrighted (and it never could have been, two common words that it is), or in any country's legally protected terms, or anything else. It is really grating to see such nonsense repeated way to often.
7moritz7 3y ago
> There exists only one binding definition of open source >> https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd Insert Obama awarding himself meme. Who said that this is the "only binding definition"?