How Big Tech uses GitHub
PayPal recently released Kraken, an open source Node.js framework, on GitHub, which got me thinking about the various ways different large technology companies (particularly those which we don’t really associate with OSS) use GitHub and engage in Open Source.
Twenty minutes and a quick Python script later, I produced the following table, a snapshot of how popular these companies are on the only network that matters to developers. You can find the script online if you’d like to see how its done (fair warning: the code is gross.)
| Company | Repositories | Forks | Stars | Language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 85 | 1336 | 12250 | C | |
| adobe | 32 | 3862 | 19231 | C++ |
| 103 | 6057 | 43780 | C++ | |
| paypal | 114 | 1046 | 1868 | None |
| aws | 18 | 1693 | 6221 | Java |
| yahoo | 143 | 1129 | 4805 | JavaScript |
| 52 | 1501 | 7932 | Java | |
| 102 | 15311 | 64907 | C++ | |
| dropbox | 19 | 178 | 1329 | PHP |
| mozilla | 687 | 11500 | 44232 | C++ |
| hubspot | 63 | 1155 | 16819 | Ruby |
A few notes:
- Mozilla leads the pack in terms of number of repositories, which makes sense given that everything they do is on GitHub (even their home page!)
- Facebook, however, leads the pack in terms of engagement: more users fork and star their repositories than any other company. Efforts like Huxley and Phabricator are incredibly popular.
It should be noted that this is a pretty naive look at the overall picture: for instance, Google’s Dart repositories are held in a completely different organization. Still, it gives a birds-eye view of the devotion each company has for OSS (or, more cynically: the devotion each company has for attracting new developers.)