supernomad

So you aren't wrong that google is built on the shoulders of giants, but I will point out that every single company today running their SaaS offering on top of linux/BSD is doing the exact same thing.

The only reason Linux is as mainstream as it is today, is exactly because of this freedom to leverage the code. You even point out that the cause for Golang's success is for precisely the same reason. Overall opensource isn't about making money, it has never been about making money. Its been about making an impact, and bettering the world around us all by giving a piece of technology to be freely used by everyone. There are a variety of opensource licenses that can/will protect your code from any/all closed source uses, for example AGPL explicitly states if your application so much as interacts with the code over a TCP connection or furthermore a single UDP packet it must be opensource as well. However you will rarely see libraries/applications using this license. Why you might ask? The answer is simple, it reduces the impact that code can have.

Really at the end of the day, it comes down to a choice of the developer(s), do you want to make money? i.e. go the Microsoft/Apple route? or do you want to make an impact? i.e. go the Linux/BSD route?

Let me ask one final question, which of the above operating systems do you think are more widely used, or have changed the world in a more dramatic manner?

I think its very interesting to think about this article in the context on the open source projects that relied upon by the vast majority of major applications and companies. Specifically OpenSSL comes to mind here. That library has been used/leveraged in so many ways to build empires. Yet it's currently struggling to find dedicated engineers that will work on its core logic. It's an unfortunate situation and while yes there is LibreSSL and BoringSSL its non-trivial to move to their implementations (I have tried, its wrought with peril). OpenSSL isn't on its own either, there are many open source libraries/applications that are struggling to find "owners". None of which can be "easily" replaced by any means.

I think the comments about "heroic" culture being fostered by the lack of ownership is spot on, but it isn't a bad thing unless those heroic actors aren't actively trying to get attention put on said pieces of legendary software. Imo its better to have heroic actors than nothing, and especially in the context of an opensource application/library that is used worldwide, I hope we can find more to generate more interest in working on them.

So regarding your point 2 I have, at the very least anecdotally, seen this happen in practice. I work in a tech startup and as such we have a lot of highly talented engineers sitting in the top spots throughout the engineering org. We have recently had the case where some of these top engineers have shifted focus and we as a company watched as the engineers beneath them rose to the occasion.

This is definitely a phenomenon that can happen, but it has a dark side that I feel is rarely accounted for. While you want to have senior talent and empower your engineers to grow, you also need to have junior/mid level engineers to support them. All to often the reason you have 20% of the employees making 80% of the effort is because they have no supporting infrastructure to help them with their jobs, or they are powerless to leverage the other employees for help without interacting with, sometimes multiple, management levels.

When we started to expand the engineering org it became readily apparent what we needed wasn't more senior talent, but more, for lack of a better word, grunts to help with the mundane tasks that the senior engineers shouldn't be working on. This same thing happens in most other organizations outside of software development as well. Essentially one way to ensure that you don't have your engineers burn out, is to ensure they have a team they can fall back on completely outside of management. I personally appreciate getting recognition from my manager and the higher ups at the company I work at. However I appreciate the team I can rely on far more. I think generally HR/Managers should get out of the way more often, and instead of directly acting make it easier for teams to help/support each other.

It is interesting to me that we aren't seeing a larger uptick in utilities funding this kind of investment. The article does mention that in one of the pilots, it was indeed funded by the local utilities. My interest lies in why that isn't more wide spread. I can only imagine the massive amounts of revenue, if not also kick backs from various government subsidies, that a given utility would receive if EV buses see wide spread use.

That is not to say that there would not need to be investment in the utilities infrastructure, but it would pay out in spades over time. OTOH I can also see an argument to be made that the utilities may not want to see this happen everywhere, especially in highly populated areas and areas that see power supply issues in general.