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Buck2: Our open source build system

(engineering.fb.com)
392 points mfiguiere | 3 comments | 06 Apr 23 16:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.501s | source
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lopkeny12ko ◴[06 Apr 23 22:02 UTC] No.35475149[source]▶
I'm missing some historical context here. This article goes out of its way to compare and contrast with Bazel. Even the usage conventions, build syntax (Starlark), and RBE API are the same as in Bazel.

Did FB fork Bazel in the early days but retain basically everything about it except the name? Why didn't they just...adopt Bazel, and contribute to it like any other open source project?

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1. 0xcafefood ◴[06 Apr 23 22:08 UTC] No.35475208[source]▶
One thing you might be missing is that this is Buck2.

Buck (https://github.com/facebook/buck) has been open sourced for nearly 10 years now.

The lore I've heard is that former Googlers went to Facebook, built Buck based on Blaze, and Facebook open sourced that before Google open sourced Blaze (as Bazel).

The first pull to the Buck github repo was on May 8, 2013 (https://github.com/facebook/buck/pulls?q=is%3Apr+sort%3Acrea...). The first to Bazel was Sep 30, 2014 (https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/pulls?q=is%3Apr+sort%3Ac...).

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2. dheera ◴[06 Apr 23 22:28 UTC] No.35475388[source]▶
Smells like what FB did with Caffe vs. Caffe2, the two of which have nothing to do with each other.
3. bradfitz ◴[07 Apr 23 00:24 UTC] No.35476458[source]▶
I was visiting the Google Munich office on the day Google open sourced Blaze/Bazel. The Facebook Buck team sent a congratulations cake: https://photos.app.goo.gl/6KwE6qeD3i72kSo38

Amusingly, the cake was in German but most of the Bazel team didn't really speak German. But it was yummy.