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empathy

useful empathy

  • open source software is the best by nature
  • but corporations often steal it
  • examples:

ruinous empathy

  • there is a russian story mentioned in the book radical candor
  • i'm trying to find it online...
  • a man loved his dog but its tail had to be removed
  • his love increased the suffering
  • he did not want to hurt the dog
  • his solution was to chop off a little bit of the tail each day

good empathy in software

  • open source software is empathy driven
  • for example linus created the kernen and git
  • kernel because he did not want to pay for unix but he shared it with the world which is healthy empathy he could have been selfish which is destructive anti empathy
  • git he created for his team because subversion was causing suffering
  • git is effective beause he did not make it to take advage of people and profit from it which he could easily have done it created an entire industry
  • he focused on data structure which makes the code easy

ruinious empathy in software

Here are 20 examples of open-source projects that were acquired, sponsored, or otherwise significantly influenced by corporations:

1. GitHub

  • Original: Independent open-source hosting platform.
  • Acquirer: Microsoft (2018).

2. MySQL

  • Original: Created by MySQL AB as an open-source relational database.
  • Acquirer: Sun Microsystems (2008), later acquired by Oracle (2010).

3. Red Hat Linux

  • Original: Open-source enterprise software company.
  • Acquirer: IBM (2019).

4. Kubernetes

  • Original: Created by Google as an open-source container orchestration system.
  • Corporation's Role: Remains under Google's influence but is governed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

5. Elasticsearch

  • Original: Open-source search and analytics engine by Elastic NV.
  • Corporation's Role: Elastic NV transitioned to a proprietary license (SSPL) in 2021 to prevent competition from cloud providers like AWS.

6. MongoDB

  • Original: Open-source NoSQL database by MongoDB Inc.
  • Corporation's Role: Changed licensing to SSPL, largely due to pressure from cloud providers.

7. Ansible

  • Original: Open-source IT automation tool by Ansible Inc.
  • Acquirer: Red Hat (2015), now under IBM's umbrella.

8. Puppet

  • Original: Open-source configuration management tool.
  • Acquirer: Perforce (2022).

9. Docker

  • Original: Open-source container platform.
  • Corporation's Role: Docker Inc. commercialized it heavily and later sold its enterprise business to Mirantis (2019).

10. NGINX

  • Original: Open-source web server developed by Igor Sysoev.
  • Acquirer: F5 Networks (2019).

11. OpenStack

  • Original: Open-source cloud computing project by Rackspace and NASA.
  • Corporation's Role: Now governed by the Open Infrastructure Foundation with significant contributions from corporations like Red Hat, IBM, and others.

12. CentOS

  • Original: Community-driven fork of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
  • Corporation's Role: Red Hat took control of CentOS in 2014, later shifting focus to CentOS Stream in 2020.

13. TensorFlow

  • Original: Open-source machine learning framework by Google.
  • Corporation's Role: Google maintains significant influence over its development.

14. Spark

  • Original: Open-source data processing framework by UC Berkeley’s AMPLab.
  • Corporation's Role: Commercialized and led by Databricks.

15. Jenkins

  • Original: Forked from Hudson CI, which was created by Sun Microsystems.
  • Corporation's Role: Originally influenced by Sun/Oracle before transitioning to community governance.

16. Grafana

  • Original: Open-source observability platform.
  • Corporation's Role: Grafana Labs commercialized the product but maintains its open-source roots.

17. Prometheus

  • Original: Open-source monitoring system developed at SoundCloud.
  • Corporation's Role: Now governed by the CNCF, with heavy corporate involvement.

18. Angular

  • Original: Open-source web framework by Google.
  • Corporation's Role: Developed and maintained by Google.

19. Eclipse IDE

  • Original: Developed by IBM as an open-source project.
  • Corporation's Role: Now managed by the Eclipse Foundation but initially an IBM project.

20. Hadoop

  • Original: Open-source distributed computing platform, based on Google’s MapReduce.
  • Corporation's Role: Commercialized by companies like Cloudera and Hortonworks (later merged).

Themes in Corporate Involvement

  1. Acquisitions: Companies like Oracle, IBM, and Microsoft have acquired significant open-source projects to integrate them into their ecosystems.
  2. Licensing Changes: Projects like MongoDB and Elasticsearch have adopted restrictive licenses to counteract competition from cloud providers.
  3. Corporate-Led Governance: Many projects, such as Kubernetes and TensorFlow, are still open-source but heavily influenced by corporate sponsors.