[deepnotderp]

The rewrite in TensorFlow is somewhat worrying though, since TensorFlow is open source, meaning that there's no real benefit to google if it's written in TensorFlow (except for recruitment purposes).

It's worrying since it suggests that google might be planning to make it, or at least parts of it proprietary in the future....

For the record, I don't think that google will, but I'm still worried about the possibility....

[digitalzombie]

Doubt it.

They made angular and they didn't some how proprietary it.

The more worrisome stuff is when they close shop on services or completely change a framework.

TensorFlow isn't a service so we don't need to worry. And I doubt they would change TensorFlow so much like angular 1 to 2 to 3 kinda deal. If it does happen Keras library abstract it iirc.

I think their goals is to get people to use their cloud services imo. They do the same with their nexus without the SD card to push people to the cloud.

Also I think it's almost like the idea of controlling a framework instead of being on the whim of some other company. I'm looking at Oracle and Java here.

Facebook have their NN. Google have their owns. So they don't have politics to deal with.

[maxander]

Recruitment is an important purpose, though. Having a steady supply of pre-Tensorflow-trained engineers available is presumably why they opened up Tensorflow to begin with. They're not going to benefit more than that anytime soon by closing it off again.

[estsauver]

I think their play has been building specialized hardware that executes TensorFlow better than anyone else. "You could use a GPU to do this, but check out our custom ASIC that does it 400x faster for 1/5th the cost..."

[deepnotderp]

NO ONE does it 400X faster...

And the hardware advantage is easily negated. For example, our startup is building something like this.

[kornish]

The 400x was clearly hyperbolic – and sure. But you probably don't have one-click integration with an existing battle-tested IaaS platform.

Vertical integration is powerful, and by open-sourcing Tensorflow Google is achieving useful synergies in sales and recruiting. At their vast scale, even small ROIs (as a percentage) can be massive.

[deepnotderp]

No, but our customers, ie AWS will...

[adw]

> It's worrying since it suggests that google might be planning to make it, or at least parts of it proprietary in the future....

That would be the Google-only Tensorflow acceleration hardware they have.