Google blew it with open source layoffs
By Matt Asay
Contributor, InfoWorld |
Google has made impressive inroads against cloud leader AWS by aggressively open sourcing projects such as TensorFlow and Kubernetes. It’s true AWS makes more money than Google (or anyone else) by operationalizing this open source code, but Google’s open source strategy continues to deliver impressive dividends.
That’s why it’s so baffling that the company has laid off some of its best and brightest in open source. People like its longtime open source chief Chris DiBona. Or Jeremy Allison, Cat Allman, and Dave Lester, as Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols reports. As an interested onlooker who wants Google Cloud to be successful, I think this is an incredibly naive move. I don’t understand it. At all.
I’m not talking about the open source “celebrities” who travel from one open source conference to another, giving speeches based on past accomplishments while offering little in the way of current relevance. The open source world has plenty of that kind of person, and although I wouldn’t wish unemployment on them, or anyone, you could see how a company might decide that laying them off would save some money without disrupting any meaningful work.
