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points by pjmlp 3 days ago | 0 comments

Applies to all big tech contributing to FOSS, they don't do it out of charity.

I don't think that's true. Many big companies contribute to FOSS in ways that aren't just to attempt to lock people in. Often it's because they use the software and don't want to maintain patches forever - everyone wins if things actually get fixed. Or even because they just want to be known as a good place to work.

[–] __s 3 days ago

That describes how hands off MS was with Postgres committers ime a few years ago. Useful to house them to for helpful office hours too. We'll see how that holds up post HorizonDB

[–] simonjgreen 3 days ago

So… not out of charity then?

[–] pixlmint 3 days ago

You're mixing motivation and end goal. Just because their motivations aren't purely charitable doesn't mean the end goal must be nefarious.

[–] lukan 3 days ago

No, mostly not, but that does not mean they engage with locking customers in.

[–] IshKebab 3 days ago

Not purely, but "charity" and "only doing it to lock people in" are not the only options.

[–] wtetzner 3 days ago

Of course not? I don't think anyone claimed it was out of charity.

[–] pjmlp 3 days ago

Name one big tech company in the same monetary level, that doesn't contribute to FOSS without second intentions.

[–] wtetzner 3 days ago

They definitely have other intentions, but it's often the same as people contributing in their free time: they use the software, want to make it better for their purposes, but don't want to be the ones to maintain it.

[–] galaxyLogic 3 days ago

Don't we all have "second intentions"?

Altruism happens usually among members of a tightly knit group, like family members or soldiers of a given unit. Teachers sacrificinng their life to save children. FOSS-developers, are they really producing software out of altruism? Maybe some of them are but it is hard for us to know whether that is so or not.

[–] ongy 2 days ago

I don't think any (longer term) FOSS developer develops software out of altruism.

They mostly start the software because they themselves want to have it.

When they start working mostly for other people's needs, I think it's a mix of altruism, pride and probably enjoying the work.

[–] awesome_dude 3 days ago

If a FAANG releases Kafka, REACT, Kubernetes, or any number of projects that they found helpful, and released into open source - there will always be a claim that they do it with some second intention, such as "be seen to be a positive contributor to the community"

But the truth is - so do I - as a humble contributor to a document, test, bug fix, or feature add to a FOSS project - where's the beef?

[–] pjmlp 3 days ago

If only, those FAANGs with hyperscaler and AI business always have a way to plunge those improvements into customer acquisitions for their cloud products, not available on the other vendors.

[–] salynchnew 3 days ago

Definitely not true. Historically, it's been one of the ways they attract (and scout) top talent.

[–] WJW 3 days ago

So they do it to attract talent then, and not out of charity?

[–] pjmlp 3 days ago

Free talent, and definitely true.

[–] endofreach 3 days ago

No. Microsoft and facebook are the try-hardest by far.

[–] 1287h 3 days ago

Yes, Microsoft fired the Faster CPython team and Facebook/Instagram tries to buy its way into Python core in order to get their buggy free threading in.

Totally altruistic!

[–] pjmlp 3 days ago

NVIDIA, AWS, Google, Intel, AMD,...