Comment by abtinf
4 days ago
Based on Apple's acquisition of FoundationDB, this seems like it will have negative consequences for public development of OPA.
What are the counterexamples, where Apple acquiring a project results in it being more open with sustained development?
Apple literally purchased FoundationDB as a closed source tool and open sourced it with open source development continuing to this day.
From this announcement, they are going to open source the enterprise version of this tool, which was also previously closed source.
Was FoundationDB a CNCF project at the time of acquisition, or in some similar incubator/umbrella? Besides, seems FoundationDB was open sourced after Apple acquired it, wouldn't mean FoundationDB get more open after the acquisition? Although development stalled no matter what so maybe doesn't matter.
FoundationDB development has not stalled; v8 is still on the way. If anything, it's mostly just been stable for a while now, and it has now been developed as open source longer than it existed as closed source.
Right, FoundationDB wasn't even open source when Apple acquired them. The FoundationDB story is a prime example of why it is important to use open source technologies for foundational infrastructure.
It was independent (I think it predates the CNCF actually), but was acquired by Apple in 2015 and disappeared until it was open sourced in 2018.
>Based on Apple's acquisition of FoundationDB,
FoundationDB wasn't even Open Source when Apple acquired them.
CUPS?
apple reopened foundationdb in 2018
Wrong. Apple opened it FOR THE FIRST TIME. It was closed source software prior to acquisition.
Excuse me? FDB was a closed source product, and Apple open sourced it under a permissive license and have since spent tens of millions of dollars on maintainers salaries and open sourced all kinds of adjacent software.
How did this idiotic, uninformed meme come about exactly?
Yup, reads like the typical announcement from the Apache Foundation era, where projects just go to wither.
This leaves me quite bummed out. After Oso[0] went from a superb open source policy evaluation solution to one that's completely closed, OPA is what I'm typically reaching for now, but now it'll likely be on life support.
[0]: https://www.osohq.com/