Brace yourselves: Facebook plans MORE PHP jiggery pokery

Zuck's world is predominantly mobile, so he's looking there

Search for credibility

In raw terms, it’s the new politics of technology and people.

Open sourcing code earns credibility — makes Facebook seem like an attractive place to work among the kind forward-thinking code slingers Facebook wants to hire.

Also, it liberates Facebook from coming up with all the answers to gnarly problems that others have solved or are better placed to solve, helping cut the cost and speed overhead of laboring away while also bringing in external expertise.

“People build packages in the community and we bring those back rather than doing some other ‘not invented here’ projects,” Pearce said.

Open source has “opened our mind” according to Pearce “Which at the speed we are trying to work at is a good efficiency win.”

However, there’s also politics: getting more people using your code re-enforces your position in the industry at a grass-roots level among coders.

Users of HHVM today include Box, Etsy and Wikipedia. Facebook’s React Native Javascript framework is used by Adobe, Dropbox, Pinterest and Yahoo!.

Will Facebook stop releasing code? Obviously, it could, but the definition of success in the world of open source bring their own, unique rewards – and pressures. ®