depoll

While it is a risk, it can be a calculated one. Most household goods require the "platform" of a supermarket or other merchant to actually reach customers. Is this so different? As a consumer, there are lots of benefits to being able to find and discover goods in one place, and as a seller, access to those potential customers can make or break your business, but might not be something you can actually establish effectively on your own without those distribution channels. The same is true of infrastructure - one always has to weigh the risks involved against the costs of trying to do things yourself.

I was an early Parse engineer (4th engineer to join the company) and now am the SDK engineering lead for Firebase.

The experience of working on Firebase at Google is vastly different from Parse at Facebook, and it shows in Google’s continued commitment to building and expanding Firebase, integrating it with its Cloud Platform products, and otherwise pouring huge amounts of effort into making Firebase great for developers. Open sourcing our SDKs gives us even more ways to engage with the developer community and allows us to be more transparent with the progress we’re making.

This announcement is just a first step down the path toward more transparency with our SDKs, but we hope to foster community and build trust in the tools we’re developing, and welcome your contributions!