ReadWriteWeb

Google is open sourcing a collection of Javascript tools today that will enable developers to build faster, more powerful and more efficient web applications using some of the same code that runs Gmail, Google Maps and Docs.

Why is Google doing this? Because the more powerful web applications become, the more important Google's search, browser and nascent OS become. More relevant to developers than some grand anti-Microsoft conspiracy, though, is that some serious UI sweetness may be forthcoming.

Facebook has long been a big contributor to the open source movement, and releases a number of their in-house projects under open source licenses. They even provide a a mirror for popular open source endeavors, such as Mozilla and Apache. This week Facebook announced the release their first open source JavaScript library.