OPA maintainers and Styra employees hired by Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: OPA maintainers and Styra employees hired by Apple

#51

Post by jen20 » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 11:24 PM UTC

convolvatron wrote: post #11

abtinf wrote: post #5

Based on Apple's acquisition of FoundationDB, this seems like it will have negative consequences for public development of OPA. What are the counterexamples, where Apple acquiring a project results in it being more open with sustained development?

apple reopened foundationdb in 2018

Wrong. Apple opened it FOR THE FIRST TIME. It was closed source software prior to acquisition.

Re: OPA maintainers and Styra employees hired by Apple

#52

Post by jen20 » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 11:27 PM UTC

meghan wrote: post #35

Seems similar to Apple's 2015 acquisition of FoundationDB -- they sunset the commercial offering. But it's unclear if they acquired Styra or just hired the team? I'm maintaining an article about this news (as well as commercial alternatives to OPA) on the Oso blog: https://www.osohq.com/post/opa-maintainers-join-apple-oss-co... Disclaimer is that I work with Oso :-) but hope it will be helpful regardless.

This is a more defensible take than some on here, but still a wild comparison. FDB was closed source software that existing customers kept source access to the entire time it was closed, and then opened under a permissive license soon after. So yes, you couldn’t buy it, but if you had, you kept access to new development.

Re: OPA maintainers and Styra employees hired by Apple

#53

Post by jen20 » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 11:28 PM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #39

Temporary_31337 wrote: post #4

1. Any idea on what should I start next so that I can get acquihired? 2. It looks like Apple didn't get much 'ownership' of OPA in this case, what was the point of purchasing the company as a whole versus simply offering these 3 employees generous sign-on bonuses? 3. Why is it that companies generally tend to pay a lot more per employee in an acquihire scenario?

1. probably something with AI in it. You got maybe 2-3 years before the bubble pops. 2. branding. cultural awareness can take years or more, and I'm sure coporate knows by now that their brands aren't the best thing to slap onto every scenario. Disney is well learned in this kind of conduct. 3. Because the last thing you want in an aquihire is for all the talent your poaching to jump ship. Some employees may have eve…

Is it even clear it is an acquihire rather than the more boring “company hires maintainer of code it uses”?

Re: OPA maintainers and Styra employees hired by Apple

#54

Post by biggestdummy » Tue, Aug 26, 2025, 9:27 PM UTC

jen20 wrote: post #53

johnnyanmac wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. probably something with AI in it. You got maybe 2-3 years before the bubble pops. 2. branding. cultural awareness can take years or more, and I'm sure coporate knows by now that their brands aren't the best thing to slap onto every scenario. Disney is well learned in this kind of conduct. 3. Because the last thing you want in an aquihire is for all the talent your poaching to jump ship. Some employees may have eve…

Is it even clear it is an acquihire rather than the more boring “company hires maintainer of code it uses”?

It looks a bit more complicated, in that the announcement mentions the open sourcing of some proprietary tech. So it looks like there was some IP bought, along with the hires.

But it does look to be a 90% "company hires maintainer of code it uses."