HACKER Q&A
📣 ern

Are FAANG layoffs having an effect on high-profile open source projects?


Are there any projects that are being cut back?

Also is it a bad thing if it is happening? Will it slow progress or is it giving the rest on the industry an opportunity to catch its collective breath if the hype train slows down?

  👤 shaunsingh0207 Accepted Answer ✓
Quite a few of the FAANG layoffs are from employee retention programs, and a few of these projects were high-profile and open source. The one I'm most interested in is google's fuchsia project, I hope it doesn't lose traction and get killed off.

Firefox's servo research project team was laid off in 2020, and the servo project was branched completely into its own thing. The servo project is still up and kicking with plans for 2023 though.

The layoffs will certainly have an impact, but hopefully nothing substantial

👤 is_true
Semi related: is there a list of these projects anywhere?

I just learned about Servo and Fuchsia, and they look interesting.

Edit: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/projects https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/archive

👤 dstala
Layoffs are a byproduct over hyped hiring in past few years. So, it looks to me is like more of a normalisation.
👤 trasz3
FAANG-controlled “open source” projects aren’t really Open Source - they release the code licensed under Open Source license, but without most of its fundamental advantages.