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I already was thinking for a while what the business model of open source was exactly. Why does Google spend money on Chrome also? After Zuckerberg’s comments i
by huijzer 2y ago
I already was thinking for a while what the business model of open source was exactly. Why does Google spend money on Chrome also? After Zuckerberg’s comments it hit me:
Open source is useful for a business if it can either increase revenue or decrease costs.
Examples:
Increase revenue: Chrome and Visual Studio code. For example, the more people code, the more likely it is that they pay MSFT. So VS code aims to make programming as attractive as possible. Similar for Chrome.
Decrease costs: Linux and Llama. As Zuckerburg said himself IIRC, they don’t want one party snowball into an LLM monopoly so they rather help to get the open source ball rolling.
- barbazoo 2y ago> For example, the more people code, the more likely it is that they pay MSFT. So VS code aims to make programming as attractive as possible How does that increase revenue in a remotely measurable way? Chrome, for sure, high market share, default search engine, more money, at least that's how I imagine it.
- jyap 2y agoOne example is that Microsoft owns GitHub.
- rafaelmn 2y agoI think Balmers "developers, developers, developers" meme has been around longer than some people here are alive - it served them well in the Windows era and it serves them well in the cloud space.
- disgruntledphd2 2y agoAnd if you want to think about comparators to Facebook, Microsoft is the right company to look at.
- Spooky23 2y agoExactly. Microsoft wants lots of cash for Copilot, meanwhile, we had Code Llama running with 150 developers before the Microsoft idiots could schedule a meeting.
- nimish 2y agoMaybe Zuck just wants to see cool shit. It's not like he needs the money