Walmart takes its DevOps platform and piles it high on GitHub

It's an interesting comparison that Amazon make revenue (if not profit!) out of their coding efforts ...

Not just a grocer...

Wal*Mart is more than a grocer. In the US its a universal store, a bit like the Carrefour chain on the continent, with outlets that are anything from a convenience store to most of a shopping mall. It was established in the bricks 'n mortar world well before online upstarts like Amazon showed what really could be done with on-line supplies and services.

As the article noted this is obviously a way to try to undermine a competitor since its recently dawned on people that the Amazon network infrastructure is much more valuable than the selling stuff part of the business. I'll still put my money on Amazon for the time being -- I don't think its vendor lock-in that users are concerned about, its a mix of reliability and affordability.

So, Amazon is already gobbling up enough market share that Wal*Mart sees as theirs and fights back by open sourcing software. You couldn't make up stuff like that.

Anyway, if useful software is made availiable, it's a good thing.