[genocidicbunny]

I'm in a similar position. There are several Google and FB open source projects that not only some of my co workers have advocated for, but that I would myself actually like to make some use of.

On the one hand, I think consuming their truly open source projects is a little bit of sticking it to the man -- you're getting for free something they spent money and time on.

But on the other hand, mindshare is a thing, and by using their products, even if truly open source, I am helping increase it.

For my own purposes, I have not used the Google or FB heritage of a given open source project to be an automatic disqualifier, but it is definitely a negative. If there are technically-comparable alternatives, I tend to lean towards those.

[taffronaut]

Another route is to lobby those projects to adopt an open governance model. This effectively puts the management of the project at arm's length from the corporate parent. It's a trade-off for them to get more engagement vs rescinding control. There are a number of hosting organisations that take this kind of thing on: Linux Foundation, Linaro, Eclipse.