Google – a new unexpected pattern of Open Source: why the giants are fighting for open source

Open source is the source of much of the progress that we are now enjoying. and, in a sense, a bastion of early internet culture that many feel is being lost.

Android, Linux, or the Firefox browser are great examples that have a huge list of software that can be freely redistributed and improved. What is perhaps not so well known is that for quite some time the big tech companies themselves, the ones that do most of the business with proprietary software, have been its main proponents.

And there is good and bad in this.

Recently in this throne of benefactors open source.

Google increased its commitment to open source software and overtook Microsoft in terms of active contributions, according to new Aiven analysis using OSCI data.

Microsoft was the company that committed the most resources until this year. Although, yes, there is a certain trick to the rating, because it cuts off subsidiaries. For example, GitHub from Microsoft or Red Hat from IBM. Counting them together, Microsoft would still be first.

Open source as far as I want

It may be hard to believe that Microsoft, which had a lot of open source litigation especially in the 90s, led this classification for so long. However, with the advent of Satya Nadella, his views have changed, and strongly.

Google, for its part, has always supported and continues to support open source. Again, for better or for worse. He turned Android into a standard, but he was also criticized for shutting down APIs like Chromium to suit his interests.

According to the Open Source Contributor Index (OCSI), Google had 5,421 active contributors in August compared to 5,268 for Microsoft.

Red Hat, Intel and IBM systematically followed Google and Microsoft. by the number of taxpayers this year, as well as over the past five years.

At that time, Amazon is one notch behind with 1963 publications. However, Amazon is showing higher monthly growth than some of the other companies on the list.

There are also language differences. Looking at the types of projects they work on, Ivan’s team found that while Google and Amazon mostly work in C++, Java, and Python, Microsoft prefers its own languages: Powershell and C#.

The data is obtained by counting commits on Github. Generally, commits Monthly open source projects from Google, Microsoft and Amazon grew 300% in six years, from 2,654 contributors in May 2016 to 10,549 contributors in May 2022.

The role of big technologies in open source

Heikki Nousiainen, director of field technology and co-founder of Aiven, said in a report that the big tech trio is putting more resources and time into open source development, which is what the community needs to ensure support for important projects.

Their contributions also help promote “clean, transparent and secure code,” says Nusiainen, “which will help ensure that security vulnerabilities like Log4Shell, the javascript vulnerability that has caused havoc in IT departments around the world, don’t occur again in the world.” In the past year. .

This is especially true, since large companies usually hide behind security concerns in order to privatize certain elements of the code.

“The fact that Google has overtaken Microsoft is especially surprising,” says Nousiainen. “A contributory factor was Microsoft’s declining yearly commitment to open source projects. However, Microsoft’s commitment to developer freedom and innovation is ongoing as the company is a major player in open source and even bought GitHub in 2018,” he commented.

But, why so interesting?. “Open source is a no man’s land,” says the founder of Aiven. “People have always interacted with each other, but now it’s more about people expecting companies to interact and connect more. The ecosystem is now much more powerful and easier to build.”

However, as we have already mentioned, not everything is always so idyllic. March 2021 Google has restricted access to many Chrome APIs in the open source Chromium web browser on which Chrome and many other browsers are based.

Google justified its decision by saying that “Third-party Chromium-based browsers integrate features based on the Google cloud that are only for Google Chrome users.”

In other words, “this meant that a small subset of users could access their Google account and store their personal Chrome sync data, such as bookmarks, not only in Google Chrome, but also in some third-party Chromium-based browsers.” .

Google’s actions have resulted in many developers and maintainers of other Chromium versions having their work disrupted.

It should be noted that almost 90% of the browsers used by all Internet users are based on Chromium. So Google may not be using its edge, like Microsoft did in the 90s, to sell its products, but it has made it clear that it still has an advantage in some decisions that can make all the difference.