Facebook Gives Open Source a Boost Via 'TODO' Project

Facebook has partnered with some of tech's biggest names to develop and share open source software with the world.

Announced during this week's Scale 2014 conference in San Francisco, theTODO initiative(Opens in a new window)(talk openly, develop openly) aims to overcome challenges involved with consuming and running open source programs.

The group is focused on collaborating "to make open source easier for everyone," Facebook's James Pearce wrote ina blog post(Opens in a new window).

“我们想要运行更好、更有效的开源的programs in our own companies; we want to make it easier for people to consume the technologies we open source; and we want to help create a roadmap for companies that want to create their open source programs but aren't sure how to proceed," Pearce said.

Details remain scant, though more information is expected in the coming weeks. Those interested in the group can follow TODO onGitHub(Opens in a new window),Twitter(Opens in a new window), and, of course,Facebook(Opens in a new window).

The social network will work alongside Box, Dropbox, GitHub, Google, Khan Academy, Stripe, Square, Twitter, and Walmart Labs to contribute to and use these programs. More companies are invited to join the forum "and help us turn this into something amazing," Pearce said.

Facebook already runsa number of open source projects(Opens in a new window), including the JavaScript library React, distributed SQL query engine Presto, the Pop animation engine for iOS and OS X, and interaction design tool Origami, among others.

It also helpedorganize the Core Infrastructure Initiative, aimed at funding critical open source projects in an effort to prevent another Heartbleed attack. In partnership with Microsoft and Google, the companies invest in projects to make sure they get off the ground and are as secure as possible.