Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks • Hacker News Board

Re: Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks

#21

Post by raiyu » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:45 PM UTC

chx wrote: post #19

"F5 is committed to continued innovation and increasing investment in the NGINX open source project to empower NGINX’s widespread user communities." from https://www.f5.com/company/news/press-releases/f5-acquires-n... what do we know of F5 history in open source?

I think the issue is that there isn't much and certainly nginx could be viewed as competitor to F5. And with everything else going on it's not difficult to imagine that this acquisition isn't a positive sign.

Re: Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks

#22

Post by gigatexal » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:47 PM UTC

Wow. Huge exit for them. Didn’t see this coming.

Re: Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks

#23

Post by pbarnes_1 » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:50 PM UTC

gbuk2013 wrote: post #12

X-Istence wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big F5 rig is basically Linux with a CLI/admin interface on top.

(I work for F5.) This is not true - Linux is really just userspace to run our own data-plane code.

Serious question: what does it actually do in non-corp speak, though?

Re: Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks

#24

Post by rsp1984 » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:51 PM UTC

miguelmota wrote: post #13

Acquired for $670 million https://www.f5.com/company/news/press-releases/f5-acquires-n...

Plenty of money for (what I understand) essentially a service company.

Re: Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks

#25

Post by patrickg_zill » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:53 PM UTC

Congratulations to nginx. It could be an acqui-hire or it could be a defensive move by F5.

Re: Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks

#26

Post by bloopernova » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:53 PM UTC

clinta wrote: post #9

I'm nervous about what this means for the future of nginx's built in load balancing. That's been an important and rock-solid part of my infrastructure.

I too am worried about this. Thankfully F5 can't just disappear the open source nginx.

Re: Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks

#27

Post by buryat » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:53 PM UTC

what are some good alternatives to nginx?

Re: Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks

#28

Post by StudentStuff » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

shereadsthenews wrote: post #18

miguelmota wrote: post #13

Acquired for $670 million https://www.f5.com/company/news/press-releases/f5-acquires-n...

Cash, apparently. I like how Wilson Sonsini advised F5 in the purchase while firm heir Peter Sonsini invested in Nginx corp. Good times for old money in the Valley.

I thought F5 was primarily a Seattle based company? I've known more F5 employees growing up in Seattle than Amazon employees at least.

On another note, F5's poorly written code is the reason TLS 1.0 is considered insecure (using a variant of the POODLE attack), among other major security lapses.

Re: Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks

#29

Post by s_kilk » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:55 PM UTC

clinta wrote: post #9

I'm nervous about what this means for the future of nginx's built in load balancing. That's been an important and rock-solid part of my infrastructure.

Throwing out a question to the room: if the worst happens and Nginx gets butchered, would it be so bad to go back to using Apache? I've never used it really, everything I've done has been Nginx, but is there some technical reason why Apache wouldn't be a fine fallback option for an open-source server?

Re: Nginx to Be Acquired by F5 Networks

#30

Post by openloop » Mon, Mar 11, 2019, 8:57 PM UTC

To support open source like this is really nice.