Topic: How do the biggest businesses contribute to open source software (Bitcoin)? (Read 294 times)

From a 10 second google search:

https://bitpay.github.io/
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/06/09/ibm-donates-code-improvements-to-open-source-hyperledger/
https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/04/07/square-cryptos-new-grant-funds-popular-bitcoin-blockchain-explorer/
https://twitter.com/Ryan_Singer/status/1618989456069099520
https://www.coinbase.com/blog/introducing-coinbase-open-source-fund


Not to mention as others and myself have said a lot of times it's 100% unmentioned donations. For some reason you seem to think large companies should be telling people what they do with their money. I'm sure with a cup of coffee and some time there are 1000s more that are out there but not discussed.

Case in point; BitPay, years ago they were using a library (they did not write it, just a common open source app) that was hacked with the potential to steal users crypto:
https://cyware.com/news/a-bug-in-the-copay-and-bitpay-apps-enables-a-hacker-to-steal-bitcoins-cdf92aba
Do you think businesses want to deal with that kind of thing.
It was a big deal because it WAS BitPay who released it, if if was the DaveF app, it would have been a footnote about it. But because it was a major company who released it, a shit-storm occurred.

-Dave

Examples, please or it didn't happen.

While it may be challenging to find direct evidence of their contributions on public repositories like GitHub, many companies do contribute to open source in various ways. For instance, some companies sponsor open-source projects or provide resources such as infrastructure or funding to support open-source development. Others may contribute to open source in a less visible way, by providing feedback, testing, or even adopting open-source technologies in their products and services.

While the extent of their contributions may vary, it's safe to say that many of these big businesses recognize the value of open-source and actively participate in its development and maintenance.

Recently Foundation, the maker of the Passport Hardware Wallet was hiring a manufacturing production manager (it piqued my interest because that's my bailiwick, but I didn't apply) and one of their policies they mentioned in their recruitment ad is allowing their employees to contribute to unrelated open-source projects for a up to 8 hours per week.  I thought that was pretty darn cool of them, never having heard of an employer being so generous with voluntary time.

Obviously a company that focuses on providing open-source products and software like Foundation has a lot to gain by supporting the ecosystem.  Once I got over my shock of a company donating 20% of it's talent, I started thinking that this is actually something that every company that's involved in bitcoin should be doing.  Not only from the perspective that it could benefit the organization directly, but by supporting the ecosystem and attracting more bitcoin users, it could very likely benefit the company indirectly.

I couldn't find "their involvment in open source development" through research (e.g. searching public repositories). I could fing big brands commits in Linux repository as an exception.

I don't think it will be easy to find information on how and what these big companies contribute to open source development, but I recall reading somewhere that Binance supports the development of Apache, while Coinbase supports projects other than Bitcoin Core. While this information may be available through research, it's worth noting that these companies tend not to promote their involvement in open source development extensively.

We may never know. If someone at Google told a programmer to go do X and it then gets released by the programmer as open source unless they attribute it back to their boss telling them to do it we may just know it as the DaveF tool.

Most of the time there will be some recognition, other times it's just put out there.

Years ago (20+) was, an open source video codec that was written by someone working for a DVR manufacturer.

HE open sourced it, with their permission, but without noting that it was done while working for them at at their request. Because, at that time it did not do what they wanted with what they had to work with.

A few years later when they started using it on some hardware, people were screaming that they stole this guys work. Who worked for them and was paid to develop it for them..... But there were a few weeks when shit was blowing up about it.....

Had that not happened, that codec would have just sat there as open source never knowing that megacorp paid to develop it.

-Dave

Can we say the core-js developer situation is an outlier then? Or does individual developer who don't belong to any organization usually receive less funding even though their projects are popular? Anyway, his situation is probably not the same with Bitcoin development so that's that.

I've never heard of any Google project that focuses on Bitcoin. From what I can remember their interaction with Bitcoin is just around accepting crypto payment for their services (IIRC with Coinbase), a cloud hosting platform to host Ethereum nodes (and probably others, I'm not sure about this), and (scam) ads on their search engine. CMIIW.

Even if there are no open source services, they save money, and this money is what makes more people continue. I don't know how many developers work in these companies and develop open source solutions, but if I want a job in Coinbase or binance, the fastest way is to develop something open source of good quality.

So the development they provide is indirect and has a good effect in the long term.

BitMax wrote good article about this question, see https://blog.bitmex.com/who-funds-bitcoin-development/. But take note it was last updated almost 3 years ago.


If those changes aren't made public, then such company doesn't make any contribution to open source software/community.

How about Google (or similiar) that benefits from providing some Bitcoin infrastructure/data and not releasing any bug-fixes, plug-ins, tools etc.? They must have made effort in order to integrate Bitcoin with many other components. Have they shared anything (a simple script or a code example at least)?

Actually there is a lot of people that don't like them and bring up how they are forcing side chains (LN and Liquid) and slowing development and so on.
BUT, they are a business that exists to make things happen in BTC so them giving and having people complain are just what it is.

What I am talking about is say IBM donates to a project they they find interesting. They know about it because it's using IBM a supercomputer hardware and obviously they want it to succeed.
And it does work out and it does succeed. BUT, since it was developed on IBM hardware (before IBM got involved in giving money) it will run better on IBM hardware then any other supercomputer because that is what it was developed on. Do you think people are going to not care, or do you think they are going to scream that IBM is trying to take over BTC or some such nonsense. So they either help out under the table so people don't know. Or they just skip the headache and don't help.

Once again, just my opinion.

-Dave

Generally, companies tend to donate to projects similar to the industry they are in. Hence why Red Hat mostly donates to FOSS software for example.

Some larger projects that are used by pretty much everything and can stand on their own have a list of sponsors - you can find these all around Github but I can't pull any concrete examples off the top of my head.

Just yesterday I read some blog posts from a javascript developer that claims he lacks funding to continuously develop the library he maintains alone, even though many businesses are using it as their backbone. To continue doing that, he needs to get sponsorship from some company, work another job, or get donations from Patreon etc. So far, the most notable response comes from individual donations. So, this practice is definitely not new.

From what I've read so far, open-source organizations contribute more to open-source development. Individual donations from other developers or enthusiasts are also more common compared to business backing unless they are the ones who create it or they want to make it exclusive for their needs. Other than lack of profits/exposure, or the lack of means to do so (small business, etc) I don't see other reasons why they don't do it, which is probably why more projects are doing their DAO thing right now. CMIIW.

Yeah but he's talking about Bitcoin businessies. Hardly any crypto business is contributing back by helping Bitcoin development (except for Blockstream, and possibly Coinbase?)


Most of the corps on this list have done almost nothing for crypto projects, preferring to line their own pockets instead.

Many large businesses, including those you've mentioned, do contribute to open source software development in various ways, but it's not always as visible as individual commits to public repositories. Here are some ways in which these companies might contribute:

Internal contributions: They might use and extend open source software for internal purposes, but these changes are not always made public.

Bug fixes and enhancements: They might provide bug fixes and enhancements to open source software they use and make these changes available to the community. These changes might be submitted as pull requests, or they might be shared through other means such as mailing lists or forums.

Sponsorship: These companies might sponsor the development and maintenance of open source software by providing funding or other resources to the development community.

Hiring open source contributors: They might hire individuals who are active contributors to open source projects, which can help drive development of the projects they use.

Open sourcing their own software: They might choose to open source some of their own software to benefit the wider development community and encourage collaboration.

It's worth noting that the extent to which companies participate in open source can vary. Some companies might be more active in terms of contributing code and resources, while others might focus more on using open source software as part of their overall technology stack.

Blockstream gives to Bitcoin and there isn't much fuss about it.

There are big businesses contributions to Linux kernel. Why Bitcoin ecosystem is not supported at a similar level?

It would be nice to think that they would be supporting open-source projects under-wraps, I think that these companies are more likely to take the publicity stunt than care about favoritism though. In my opinion, it would be more likely that they aren't really supporting much open-source development/projects and are instead funding their own technology/agendas...especially in the current state of the market and after recent events that they were likely exposed to.

I don't think there is a lot that you are going to find.
Not because they are not doing it, they might be they might not be.
BUT it can give the impression of favoritism.

i.e. Coinbase is funding / supporting people working on 'X', and then it turns out 'X' happens to help Coinbase in some way.
Can you imagine the screaming that would go on that they are forcing their hands into OSS or making BTC / crpyto into their vision.

When all that happened was that they funded some people who happened to be working on something that may have helped them in some way.

So you give / support anonymously and avoid the headache.

-Dave

Some of the best libraries and open source frameworks were created by the big techs.

For example, Facebook created the open source React, which is used in many web pages out there.
.
Google created open source flutter, who h is used to create mobile apps for Android.

They sponsor the development and it is open to anyone contribute.

About bitcoin, I don't know any bibf companies sponsoring the development.

What do the biggest businesses like Binance, Coinbase, Galaxy, Tether, Paxos, Libra by Facebook/Meta, JP Morgan, IBM contribute to open source software development? I could barely find any traces in commits to source code of tools available in public repositories (GitHub) and their own websites. I suppose they use and extend many of the tools. Do they release patches to public, review and create pull requests etc.? Do they sponsor development or maintenance in other ways? I am looking for notable examples.