Just as PSF promoted Google to visionary sponsor, although I understand Jetbrains, but we see yet again our saviour Google on the board of yet another language, even after Rust formed its foundation.
I guess I have no choice to accept this future we've put ourselves in.
Apple gives back to open source projects. Isn't Swift open source as well as LLVM and Webkit?
Makes sense because they made them and a long time user of them.
If you compare the number of companies using a project and how many contribute, you will likely only need one hand to count the later...
But then again, I guess I have no choice to accept this future we've put ourselves in.
At least I can as an individual give back to Kotlin, no wait...
Sure it's all good when companies fund projects they use, but that does not mean they should instantly get a board seat.
It makes sense why Jane Street sponsors OCaml, does not mean they instantly get a board seat. I don't see Jane Street sponsoring RISC-V and getting a board seat do I?
And it doesn't make sense to do so.
I find is suspicious for companies to join or create a foundation and get automatically propped up on the board, especially Google.
It's going to be much harder to remove them if your values are not aligned with theirs or you dare criticise them.
Honestly I just don’t see it here. Google’s marketplace ambitions have not surfaced in these foundations. I would Love a real tangible counter example of Google leveraging their seat on a language committee to control the language in such a way it only furthers Googles interests. Even with the browser I don’t see them outright controlling tc39 or WHATWG/W3C or the CSS working group. Otherwise HTML imports would be a thing right now (and arguably they should be but that’s another debate)
I don’t defend what they’re doing with Chrome the product but they so far have seemed to be pretty sane with standards bodies
The thing about Google or any entity of their size is that they’re huge and lots of different types of people work there, and I’d wave most aren’t malicious
That doesn’t handwave legitimate complaints here and I don’t like Google have arbitrary outsized influence either but I don’t think that’s the case with these commuters/foundations
I don't see what benefit of putting them on the board would give them, same thing with Rust, just because it's used on Android? Was a gold sponsorship not enough?
> Honestly I just don’t see it here.
You're not looking hard enough, they are bearing 'generous' gifts to these foundations, Example: OpenAI was all about openness weren't they?
But a big somebody bared a huge gift and so much for 'Open AI'.
Don't you think Google and others like them are doing the same thing such that they are getting you to use their products through their 'donations'?
> That doesn’t handwave legitimate complaints here and I don’t like Google have arbitrary outsized influence either but I don’t think that’s the case with these commuters/foundations
Again we shall see, but I am seeing this everywhere and I am not happy with the shift from community to corporation led open source projects. A sponsorship should be enough but they want more as always.
That said, I’m unable to think of or find obvious examples of them having a track record of using foundations like this for their own agenda at the expense of the community, language or only to further their own ends. Even with the browser stuff there’s Chrome the product which makes a lot of changes that does hurt the community but then there’s Googles representation on tc39 and in the web standards groups. With that I haven’t found evidence of malpractice or foul play. Please give me some concrete evidence that they have a history of this as I’m not finding it.
Doesn’t mean that as a whole these companies get a pass for Bad behavior, I think a key to a great argument against something is to be able to scope what it does and doesn’t do, so I hate to say they are doing this for malicious reasons only to be wrong (and again I’m not seeing evidence) and undercutting more legitimate arguments. Fundamentally that’s the arching issue we end up with by just making assumptions without evidence at a minimum
You don't need to provide a board seat to any company that tries to throw money at you, just because they use your language.
Just make them a sponsor, and there are examples of this.
and another trend on prog. langs: they're becoming more and more similar feature-wise (eg. pattern matching)
So that justifies giving them a seat at the board of directors and not just a sponsorship?
Apple and Facebook both use Rust but I don't see anything about them being on the board (at least Facebook for now), the least I expect is sponsorship.
Now I would be unhappy to see a company that just pours millions in a project, gets to take decisions but doesn't do anything else to make the project better. But I don't believe that's the case here.
It seems we are all OK with allowing this to happen, but we shall see.
And the special guest is Huawei as well just because they use Rust in some way.
I'd rather have them sponsor Rust without giving them too much control by placing them on the board.
Again, specifically: what control are you worried about? I suspect that you think the foundation has powers it does not have.
Again, I'd rather have them just sponsor Rust, why wasn't a gold or platinum sponsorship like structure considered without placing them on the board of directors.
How about a corporate membership without voting rights?
If it was the primary concern we wouldn't be having this conversation, lots of foundations have this structure.
Right now, it is more likely that Facebook would get on the board before I can even donate.