
Wes McKinney (Pandas lead) calls out large techcos for OSS mooching - tomrod
https://twitter.com/wesmckinn/status/1020327908160794624
======
codesections
The original tweet doesn't use the word "mooching"—and I think that's a good
thing. The tweet says:

> It's frustrating that the major cloud platforms ($MSFT, $AMZN, $GOOG) are
> now all supporting Avro, ORC, Parquet for data storage, but haven't lifted a
> finger to help build or maintain OSS libraries for use in Python to read and
> write them

I agree—that does sound frustrating. When we build FOSS software, we naturally
hope that it will resonate with many users, and that at least some of our
users will contribute to that software and make it better. When that doesn't
happen, it's deeply frustrating.

What it isn't is _mooching_. Free software is, well, free software. It's not
"free on the condition that you contribute" or "free unless you have a $1+
trillion market cap. It's free software, which means anyone and everyone can
use it without any obligation to pay, either with money or with time.

(I realize that the original tweet doesn't contradict this, but think this
point is important enough to be worth emphasizing, especially when words like
"mooching" enter the conversation.)

~~~
tomrod
Apologies. I'm OP, and made the choice to use "mooching" to describe the
actives Wes is decrying. I'm not sure I can edit it, but am open to
suggestions that will fit in the HN title character limit.

------
ignoramceisblis
Really, what do you expect?

What do you expect when so much of the popular message is for people to get
involved in programming, and to do so while giving away the fruits of their
labor--to join open source projects and the like?

I see many young people being recruited into the software engineering
industry, as it's a cool new thing, and the current salaries at many
corporations are still attractive to many people. Of course, much of the
message to get involved in the industry is to--spoiler alert--increase the
pool of talent and reduce the cost of software development (salaries). But
even beyond that, bodies are essentially being indoctrinated into a system
where working for free is heavily promoted. They may be paid in good vibes and
perhaps some attention, but that's a small price for many entities to pay.

It should be obvious: if you create something and release it into the wild,
for all to see--the good actors and the bad actors--, what you create can be
used in any way, by any one. You've given it to them, and for free; they owe
you nothing. At the very least, people should understand some of the basic
legal mechanisms that can offer them some protection (e.g. copyright) and
ensure their creative expressions are used in some accordance with their
wishes (at least, by those who follow the law).

Do good work. Get a fair price for it.

------
scottlegrand2
I wouldn't call it mooching at all. I persuaded Amazon to open source an
entire deep learning framework (DSSTNE). it would have been super nice if
someone had built a python interface to it. I'm not complaining but when I'm
told the tech companies aren't open sourcing interesting technology I tune
out.

PS we're building that python interface now ourselves...

~~~
wink
I don't think anyone questioned that companies are publishing stuff as open
source.

The point is they're "advertising" compatibility to draw customers but putting
the weight on the projects' shoulders to deliver glue code/bindings/whatever.

------
kregasaurusrex
Referencing the companies in the original tweet, each one has a landing page
(internal or on Github) for how they contribute to OSS. Making open standards
which are cross-compatible between programs doesn't happen overnight, where
often community-driven users are a force under which further awareness and
adoption are spread.

[0] [https://opensource.microsoft.com/](https://opensource.microsoft.com/)

[1] [https://aws.github.io/](https://aws.github.io/) and
[https://aws.amazon.com/mp/oss/](https://aws.amazon.com/mp/oss/)

[2] [https://opensource.google.com/](https://opensource.google.com/)

------
WalterGR
Step 1: Convince people that using non-Free-as-in-Freedom and non-OSS software
is immoral.

Step 2: Criticize people and organizations that follow the license but
otherwise ‘incorrectly’ use Free-as-in-Freedom and OSS software.

