5 ms·

>I think one should attribute a good amount of credit of this to Yann LeCun (head of meta's research). From early stage he have been vocal about keeping things

by brap 2y ago

>I think one should attribute a good amount of credit of this to Yann LeCun (head of meta's research). From early stage he have been vocal about keeping things open-source, and voiced that to Mark before even joining. (and credit to Mark for keeping that). That's all very nice and good, but Meta keeps things open (for now) because it's perfectly aligned with their business goals. It couldn't have happened any other way.

blueboo 2y ago
Also is perfectly aligned with Yann’s goals as an (academic) researcher whose career is built on academic community kudos far more than, say, building a successful business
- ethbr1 2y ago
  I'd definitely rather build a product on an assumption that a company/individual will continue to act in its own best interest than on its largess.
kaliqt 2y ago
That's a good thing.
sqren 2y ago
You make it sound like it's a bad thing that it aligns with their business goals. I'd turn this around: if it didn't align with their business goals I would be worried that they would course correct very soon.
- pydry 2y ago
  No, just that they shouldn't be showered with praise for doing what is in their best interests - commoditizing their complement. For the same reason Microsoft doesn't deserve credit for going all in on linux/open source when they did. They were doing it to stave off irrelevance that came from being out-competed by open source. They were not doing it because they had a sudden "come to jesus" moment about how great open source was. In both cases, it was a business decision being marketed as an ideological decision.
  - theultdev 2y ago
    I believe in praise for any company that finds a way to profit and do the right thing. If they don't profit, then they don't have resources to do those things in addition to not being able to provide a livelihood for their workers.
  - JadeNB 2y ago
    The suggestion was to credit LeCun, not Meta. (Perhaps you were responding to the secondary suggestion also to credit Zuckerberg?)
  - yayr 2y ago
    I am sure that they would have found a way to also align a closed approach with their business goals if they wanted to. However, they chose not to. And I assume the the history of e.g. android, pytorch and other open source technologies had a lot to do with it.
  - nozzlegear 2y ago
    I really don’t understand this weird, almost zealous resistance to admitting that a company can do a good thing once in a while. You’d think Meta had kidnapped people’s families and held them at gunpoint or something.
    - CactusOnFire 2y ago
      No, just agitated a genocide campaign against minorities in Myanmar: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb... Morality aside, I do like the open source work coming out of Meta. It's possible for a company to be "bad guys" in one area, and "good guys" in another.
      - theultdev 2y ago
        That article is extremely biased. Basically it's accusing Meta of should have knowing that their algorithm and their user generated stickers was spreading this content. Yes in an ideal world they should catch any campaign of this sort, but global moderation is difficult and they offer no proof that Meta knew about this. It's disingenuous to say that Meta agitated this event. Those specific users of Meta agitated it and Meta did not catch it.
michaelt 2y ago
> Meta keeps things open (for now) because it's perfectly aligned with their business goals. How? I would have said a flood of LLM-generated spam is a pretty big threat to Facebook's business. Facebook don't seem to have any shortage of low/medium quality content; it's not like they need open-weights LLMs to increase the supply of listicles and quizzes, which are already plentiful. There isn't much of a metaverse angle either. And they risk regulatory scrutiny, because everyone else is lobotomising their models. And if they wanted a flood of genai content - wouldn't they also want to release an image generation model, to ensure instagram gets the same 'benefits' ? Sure there are some benefits to the open weights LLM approach that make them better at LLMs - I'm sure it makes it easier for them to hire people with LLM experience for example - but that's only helpful to the extent that Facebook needs LLMs. And maybe they'll manage to divert some of that talent to ad targeting or moderation - but that hardly seems 'perfectly aligned', more of a possible indirect benefit.
- lmeyerov 2y ago
  In a recent interview, Mark Zuckerberg said they're spending $10B-$100B on training and inferencing over the next X years. They see open source as a way to get the community to cut that cost. In his view, even just 10% cheaper inferencing pays for a lot.
jayd16 2y ago
Does open source just not count if you have an alternative business model? Even big open source projects hold on to enterprise features for funding. What company would meet your criteria of proper open source contributer?

by brap 2y ago

blueboo 2y ago

Also is perfectly aligned with Yann’s goals as an (academic) researcher whose career is built on academic community kudos far more than, say, building a successful business

ethbr1 2y ago
I'd definitely rather build a product on an assumption that a company/individual will continue to act in its own best interest than on its largess.

kaliqt 2y ago

That's a good thing.

sqren 2y ago

You make it sound like it's a bad thing that it aligns with their business goals. I'd turn this around: if it didn't align with their business goals I would be worried that they would course correct very soon.

pydry 2y ago
No, just that they shouldn't be showered with praise for doing what is in their best interests - commoditizing their complement. For the same reason Microsoft doesn't deserve credit for going all in on linux/open source when they did. They were doing it to stave off irrelevance that came from being out-competed by open source. They were not doing it because they had a sudden "come to jesus" moment about how great open source was. In both cases, it was a business decision being marketed as an ideological decision.
- theultdev 2y ago
  I believe in praise for any company that finds a way to profit and do the right thing. If they don't profit, then they don't have resources to do those things in addition to not being able to provide a livelihood for their workers.
- JadeNB 2y ago
  The suggestion was to credit LeCun, not Meta. (Perhaps you were responding to the secondary suggestion also to credit Zuckerberg?)
- yayr 2y ago
  I am sure that they would have found a way to also align a closed approach with their business goals if they wanted to. However, they chose not to. And I assume the the history of e.g. android, pytorch and other open source technologies had a lot to do with it.
- nozzlegear 2y ago
  I really don’t understand this weird, almost zealous resistance to admitting that a company can do a good thing once in a while. You’d think Meta had kidnapped people’s families and held them at gunpoint or something.
  - CactusOnFire 2y ago
    No, just agitated a genocide campaign against minorities in Myanmar: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb... Morality aside, I do like the open source work coming out of Meta. It's possible for a company to be "bad guys" in one area, and "good guys" in another.
    - theultdev 2y ago
      That article is extremely biased. Basically it's accusing Meta of should have knowing that their algorithm and their user generated stickers was spreading this content. Yes in an ideal world they should catch any campaign of this sort, but global moderation is difficult and they offer no proof that Meta knew about this. It's disingenuous to say that Meta agitated this event. Those specific users of Meta agitated it and Meta did not catch it.

michaelt 2y ago

> Meta keeps things open (for now) because it's perfectly aligned with their business goals. How? I would have said a flood of LLM-generated spam is a pretty big threat to Facebook's business. Facebook don't seem to have any shortage of low/medium quality content; it's not like they need open-weights LLMs to increase the supply of listicles and quizzes, which are already plentiful. There isn't much of a metaverse angle either. And they risk regulatory scrutiny, because everyone else is lobotomising their models. And if they wanted a flood of genai content - wouldn't they also want to release an image generation model, to ensure instagram gets the same 'benefits' ? Sure there are some benefits to the open weights LLM approach that make them better at LLMs - I'm sure it makes it easier for them to hire people with LLM experience for example - but that's only helpful to the extent that Facebook needs LLMs. And maybe they'll manage to divert some of that talent to ad targeting or moderation - but that hardly seems 'perfectly aligned', more of a possible indirect benefit.

lmeyerov 2y ago
In a recent interview, Mark Zuckerberg said they're spending $10B-$100B on training and inferencing over the next X years. They see open source as a way to get the community to cut that cost. In his view, even just 10% cheaper inferencing pays for a lot.

jayd16 2y ago

Does open source just not count if you have an alternative business model? Even big open source projects hold on to enterprise features for funding. What company would meet your criteria of proper open source contributer?