Why Facebook Loves Open-Source Firmware

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Why Facebook Loves Open-Source Firmware

With the Open-Source Firmware Conference 2018 videos having been uploaded this week, another one of the interesting videos to watch from this conference was about Facebook's preference for open-source firmware...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Facebook-Loves-OSS-Firmware

[Guest]

The irony is that companies love open source firmware for servers, because they want vetbet security, visibility and control over their firmware. But on consumer produvts, they'll never support it, because DRM and lockdown.

[Danniello]

LOL. Facebook love use open-source inside Facebook, because it is very convenient for them. At the same time they love create and promote closed-source / proprietary systems / walled-garden systems like:
* Facebook
* Messenger (removed support for XMPP)
* WhatsApp
* Instagram
* Facebook Oculus VR

[tildearrow]

I was about to say something, but seems like "Covenant" is a swearword.

Also, U-Root?

[Michael_S]

"Systemboot is their boot-loader Linux distribution that is written in Golang"

Interesting. Facebook has their PHP language offshoot "Hack", their ML offshoot "Reason", and some code written in Haskell ( https://github.com/facebook/haxl ), plus a lot of C++ and even some D code. Then they write this in Golang?

Not objecting, just surprised.

[Alpha64]

"Systemboot is their boot-loader Linux distribution that is written in Golang"

Interesting. Facebook has their PHP language offshoot "Hack", their ML offshoot "Reason", and some code written in Haskell ( https://github.com/facebook/haxl ), plus a lot of C++ and even some D code. Then they write this in Golang?

Not objecting, just surprised.

I am pretty sure U-Root (which this is based on according to https://github.com/systemboot/systemboot) is at least partially written by Google.

https://www.usenix.org/system/files/...er-minnich.pdf is an early paper about it, written by a Googler and a Cisco employee.

[Adarion]

I do see the contradiction. Facebook. But there was also google and intel. All of them create closed / locked down / DRM infested platforms, ecosystems, hardware, software, whatever.
On the other hand it seems that they have people among their employees who might think different or at least contribute to freedom software. So for that part I welcome it. And possible pressure by these companies might lead to more specs / more open specs in the future, different designs, Coreboot in mind from the beginning. (Of course, we might be unlucky and it will only be server boards all the time and little desktops or mobile devices.)

[ElectricPrism]

Every company loves getting things for free that the have full control over.

What they don't always love is giving away their work for free.

This is why it's common to see DRM companies utilize and USE open source and free products.

If they are afraid it will give their competitors an edge on them, they keep it closed.

If they are greedy and would rather attract help from other companies on a collaboration -- they open source it so everyone can equally benefit.

Seems simple enough to me.

Real world present example of this might be Nvidia has proprietary technology. They are currently market leaders and afraid of losing power so they keep the whole things closed.

Long term, everyone else will create software which parallels what they have and their DRM products and proprietary software will likely become obsoleted.

The whole thing is just fear and greed.

[pal666]

Then they write this in Golang?

google wrote it, fb forked

[pal666]

U-Root?

yes, root