I wonder if Facebook's opensourcing of BPF [1] 4 months ago had negative affects on F5's competitive advantaages.

BPF allows to run user code in kernel modules, so things like packet rewriting and traffic shaping are possible. [2]

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18337429

[2]https://facebookmicrosites.github.io/bpf/docs/bpf-docs#tools...