Major players join hands on open source

The combined force of cloud computing and mobile devices is changing our world, putting nearly infinite amounts of machine intelligence into billions of hands and millions of businesses.

Now this force is also changing the way the entire infrastructure is built, including the devices themselves.

Representatives of Facebook last week announced the formation of a group, the TODO Project, intended to streamline the way open-source software projects, a big part of cloud and mobile computing, are executed. This may include such things as best practices for updating open-source software, ways of securing legal compliance, or tools and habits for making software that is freely available to anyone.

Open source is a popular approach to software, in which anyone can contribute to and use the code. Formal approval of changes comes from agreed-upon authorities who speak for the group. It is considered a good way to build software with fewer bugs, and such software makes up much of the world’s mobile and computer server operating systems, as well as many other applications.

“There is a problem here we all feel is not getting better anytime soon,” said Jay Parikh, global head of engineering at Facebook. “We feel there is a speed at which things have to move.”

At first blush, the effort might seem like the further corporate control of one of the most important technologies of this era. That may be so, but it is more importantly a sign of just how critical that technology has become, and how its growing importance needs to be managed in ways that are more expedient, clear and consistent than was possible in the movement’s early days.

Members of TODO, which stands for “talk openly, develop openly,” include Google and Walmart’s online operations, along with GitHub, the primary repository for working on open-source projects, and Khan Academy, a nonprofit online educational organisation. Other members are Twitter, Box, Dropbox, Stripe and Square.

Since the group was announced, over 30 other companies have added themselves to the TODO list, according to a company spokesman.

There is a reason for setting up a group like this. A significant part of the software that powers things like Facebook, Google search and the Android mobile operating system is based on open source. As more companies and independent developers get involved in these communal projects, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep straight which versions people are working on.

As the software inside the overall system of mobile phones, tablets, applications and remote computing infrastructure becomes even more complex, there are also worries that people working on different versions will cause breakdowns.

While the goal may be to move quickly, the organisation also showed a certain initial wariness, perhaps as befits a group with members who might also wish to crush one another in the marketplace.

 Parikh was hesitant to talk about what types of code the group would work on, or what the criteria might be for other companies to join, besides having dedicated open-source teams on staff. “We’re going to get together, get things into a plan,” he said. “This is going to be a journey.”