Google Plans to Reveal Some of its Code

Andy Beal writes "According to Australia's The Age, Google plans to reveal some of the code it uses to great success. It says ' "The time has come for Google to "give something back", Wayne Rosing, the company's vice-president of engineering, told students while on a recruiting drive in Melbourne last week. "There have been a lot of conversations in the company in the past two months about (how) . . . it's time for us to give something back. So our technical director, Craig Silverstein, has started a project to look at all the Google code and start figuring out what parts of it we want to give back," Rosing said.'"

Comments

and Sun is "opening" Java...

[garcia]

We have heard so much talk recently about the "open sourcing" of this piece of software and that piece of software that I just don't know if we should believe any of it anymore.

While Google is probably telling more of a truth than Sun is how do we really know until we see the code?

If a team is now just determining which code should be released we may not see anything useful come of this for months or even more. How about we hold off on these stories until we see something more than just a press release.

Re:and Sun is "opening" Java...

[Psiren]

While Google is probably telling more of a truth than Sun is how do we really know until we see the code?

You don't. But rather than just bitching about it, how about you just exercise some patience and wait a little while? Counting them out before they even get started is a little unfair, don't you think?

give back?

[OmniVector]

Google's done so much for the quality of web searching that I think they've already given us far more back than I could ever ask for. The only thing I could ask of them is to keep up the good work, and try and keep pagerank useful by stopping exploiters who falsely boost ranks. Other than that, some good old free thinking and continual innovation for the web, which is what they do all the time, is little to ask for. I just hope the momentum doesn't die.

Re:give back?

[Otter]

To put it a different way (and this isn't directed specifically at you, just a general observation consistent with what you said) -- the people who do most of the screaming about "Free! Free! You owe it to The Community after everything We've done for you!" have no interest in or use for source code themselves. They just want something for free. See any Apple article for examples.

Everything from Google already is free (beer). If they decide to open some code, I'm sure it will be fascinating reading for CS people interested in searching or scalability, but the noisy "community" couldn't care less.

Just don't help the optomizers

[weave]

I'm sure google isn't stupid, but I'd hate for them to reveal anything that the search engine "optomizers" will leverage to further spam the search results.

why do they have to give something back?

[chrisopherpace]

I love Google, and think this is an excellent idea, but geeks owe Google, not vice-versa. Geeks (and normal users as well) depend on Google. While it could be said that Google does the same, and makes its money from geeks and users, they do not, IMHO owe us anything.

Re:why do they have to give something back?

[jokerghost]

They don't "have to" give anything back, but the idea is that they are acting altruistically. They feel that the public has supported their company (via usage, interest in the IPO, jobs, income, etc), that they recipricolly owe something substantial to the consumer.

Read a little Ayn Rand (like Atlas Shrugged) for the concept... Essentially, corporations (whether private or not) derive their status as a legal "person" from implicit trust the public has placed in them. As such, corporations have an obligation to provide service back to the community and to act in a moral fashon... I for one am glad to see that this company is acting in this accord, instead of all of the depravity we have seen as of late.

-jokerghost

extending its API?

[eztiger]

Could this be an extension of the google API set ?

http://www.google.com/apis/

Co-inciding with a launch of gmail, this could lead to a slew of advanced 3rd party gmail apps like 'pop goes the gmail'

They Already Give Back

[N8F8]

Seriuosly folks, they probaly make me 30% more effective because I can find the information I need more quickly than anyplace else.

Re:Excellent!

[LiquidCoooled]

The actual source surely isnt actually *that* important. It might have been way back in the beginning, but not so much anymore.

I'm quite convinced that the code itself is relatively simple, each node handling its own small piece of the puzzle.

It would take years before anyone actually making use of the code could build up the infrastructure and reputation that google has got, in the meantim,e we could make some seriously funky projects out of it.

I would love to be able to incroporate google search algorythms and procedures into (for instance) an SQL query, and allow searching of the myriad of OFFLINE data we have here.

"select (feeling_lucky) from customerrecords ..."

At the very worst, the code becomes an academic curiosity, at the best, googles algorythm becomes as well adapted as Huffman coding or the bubblesort.

Re:Nothing "magic" about it...

[interiot]

Eh? Where's the source code to PageRank? Was source code released to reflect the multiple recent changes to it?

I'm guessing the answers are "no" and "no". SEOs (search engine exploiters) would only damage google if google gave out their source code for pagerank. And each change to pagerank has been accompanied with much speculation in the SEO community about what the change was, with lots of graphs and experiments and gnashing of teeth. So no, I'm pretty sure we never have and never will see the source for PageRank.

Re:"Back"?

[phurley]

Well it is common knowledge that they run their system off of (lots and lots of) Linux servers. So maybe that is what they mean by "give back"

Re:Excellent!

[ses4j]

Although Google obviously won't be releasing it's search algorithms it might well release the code for things like the Google FileSystem (PDF) which may benefit a lot of people.

I totally disagree. I think the GoogleFS is a much more valuable commodity than the search algos. I mean, frankly, I doubt think the search algos are that brilliant, past the initial lightbulb of PageRank... just refinements and optimizations. The tough part is harnessing the -insane- computing power necessary to serve the world's searching needs, and doing it cheaply.

Despite that, I do hope you're right, and maybe you are... since the distributed FS/OS they've developed is, like I said, so much more valuable. What good would search algorithm descriptions do anyone except aid their competition? I can't stick Google's algorithms into anything I have... but a nifto OS that can combine a few computers and let me run stuff across them trivially? -THAT'S PRETTY COOL-

Re:Is there anything Google can't do?

[SilentChris]

"Is there anything Google can't do? Seriously, how cool is that?"

Just about as cool as when Apple, Sony, and even Microsoft (with restrictions) released some of their code. It's nothing new -- companies do it all the time for good PR and to help jumpstart initiatives. Question is, what code are they going to release, how much and when?

No need

[Captain_Chaos]

Google doesn't have to give anything back, at least not to me. It's enough for me that they are by far the best search engine; lightning fast, accurate, comprehensive, free and with no obtrusive advertising...

It's a lot like slashcode

[Ieshan]

It's a lot like slashcode, really. Lots of great websites run slash, but none of them have the popularity or following that the original has.

Plus, Slashdot gets to "brand" websites with it's look, feel, and system. No matter how much you skin slashcode, it still feels like slashdot in the end, even if it wasn't intentional.

Read the slashdot FAQ, and you see exactly the same kind of response you would expect. Good luck making your own with just the source!