It is very tempting to enter in a partnership with big companies. You get a ton of benefits. Even more tempting to not refuse their offers. Even harder if you are on your own.
However i believe a company’s size, bribe power and engineering reputation should not gobble you up. I always took the OpenSource-and-hard way. This way you have a stable base to trade and options to choose.
Well if money, recognition or opportunities is your thing np but it takes some diligence not to pass it off as some great good, amazing endeavors.
So community-side Google, Microsoft and stuffs. It is hard to pass by, but sometimes it’s good to remind these folks not to promote their company marketing under the community banner. Is it a dev fest or a fest to connect devs to my company?
Company sponsorship is different from the event being entirely under the aegis of one company. Community events do accept corporate sponsors to drive the community further but these companies specially Doogle shamelessly uses the community to drive the company forward.
Microzoft does it in the open. So you know you are being tricked and go for it anyway. But Doogle tries hard to pass it off as an all dev event.
Don’t be someone who trades the community for personal benefits.