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Google Launches Google Code

ibjhb writes "Google is at it again and has launched Google Code. It appears to be "Google's place for Open Source software". " Can't say that I'm surprised that our old friend (and former Slashdot Author) Chris DiBona is working on this one. They have links to several open source projects, as well as to Google API information.

64 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. uh oh by peculiarmethod · · Score: 4, Funny

    Freshmeat just got a 'best if used by' date.

    --
    ** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
    1. Re:uh oh by gl4ss · · Score: 4, Interesting

      not exactly freshmeat..

      **What is code.google.com?
      Code.google.com is our site for external developers interested in Google-related development. It's where we'll publish free source code and lists of our API services.**

      besides than that.. *Why are you releasing code through Sourceforge?
      Well, because they were nice enough to oblige, and because developers here like Sourceforge. Future homes for new projects might include Tigris.org or language specific sites like the Vaults of Parnassus and CPAN. *

      yeah. ALL THE PROJECTS ARE ON SOURCEFORGE!

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    2. Re:uh oh by Curtman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      yeah. ALL THE PROJECTS ARE ON SOURCEFORGE!

      Good point. Because Sourceforge, Freshmeat, and Slashdot are all OSTG pages. This is nice to see Google taking an interest in OSTG, not competing with it.

    3. Re:uh oh by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 4, Funny

      What happens when they open Googledot.org ;)

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
    4. Re:uh oh by Ohreally_factor · · Score: 4, Funny

      We won't have as many duped posts? Articles and links will be checked before they're posted? Grievous spelling errors will be corrected in the editing process? There will actually be an editing process?

      On the other hand, there will still be a Cowboy Neal Option in the polls.

      --
      It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
    5. Re:uh oh by Thud457 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Goddamn, I nailed that one

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    6. Re:uh oh by zebs · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe a decent search too...

    7. Re:uh oh by Ed+Avis · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes - at first I thought this was going to be a search engine for source code, grepping through tons of free software. That would be a rather useful thing to have (how do I use this library? I'll just grep for an example). There is koders.com but its search engine isn't that gret - when looking through source code you need to be able to include punctuation characters and search by them.

      All you really need to do is spider freshmeat.net, download the tarball of the latest release of each app, and do a massive grep whenever anyone submits a query. OK, not quite that simple. But almost - the total source code size is tiny compared to, say, a Web search engine, so you don't have to be that clever with indexing. You could do a keyword search as the first stage and then grep.

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    8. Re:uh oh by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Maybe Google can buy out OSTG and we can have a slashdot.google.com or geeknews.google.com. :)

      --
      Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
  2. Nice by M.C.+Hampster · · Score: 5, Informative

    It looks like rather than try to reinvent the wheel, they are utilizing SourceForge for hosting their code. It's nice to see that they aren't suffering from "Not Invented Here" syndrome.

    --
    Forget the whales - save the babies.
    1. Re:Nice by The+Bungi · · Score: 2, Funny
      Interesting everything is released under the BSD license instead of the GPL.

      I guess they can expect a nastygram from Stallman any day now.

  3. code.google.com FAQ by e03179 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Google Code FAQ: http://code.google.com/faq.html/

    Code.google.com is our site for external developers interested in Google-related development. It's where we'll publish free source code and lists of our API services. A lot of people worked together to both prepare source code for release and prepare code.google.com for launch and ongoing maintenance. We really care about free and open source software (F/OSS) at Google, and this site is one aspect of that affection.

    Read the rest of the FAQ: http://code.google.com/faq.html/

    --
    -516
    1. Re:code.google.com FAQ by Infinityis · · Score: 3, Informative
    2. Re:code.google.com FAQ by filmmaker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The cultural significance of Google's position on F/OSS software is their ace in the hole against Yahoo and MSN. That's not to say the technology needs a hidden ace, but only that the geek appeal toward Google will remain strong if they continue to "don't be evil," the highest manifestation of that being their willingness to share code.

  4. Sourceforge by aftk2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    When I first read the article blurb, I thought it meant Google was announcing some sort of source code repository, like SourceForge. Instead, it's a listing of their various open source projects.

    That's cool, certainly, but nothing terribly exciting. Isn't this stuff that's already been floating around on the Google website? Or is this a quick-and-dirty attempt to match developer.yahoo.com, which still looks to be more capable.

    --
    concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
    1. Re:Sourceforge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
      coredumper: Gives you the ability to dump cores from programs when it was previously not possible.

      That's pretty much the opposite of the problem I usually have.

  5. Re:Bad title by otisaardvark · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Hmmm... I was hoping it would be Google helping you search through Sourceforge and other open repositories in a more directed way... improved code search tools would be great, but this isn't bad!

  6. Google by Enjoi · · Score: 3, Funny

    What next?

    Google Personals?
    Google Quotes Database?
    Google Car Insurance?

    1. Re:Google by RangerRick98 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Google Car Insurance?

      Google can help you search billions of pages on the Internet, but it won't save you any money on car insurance.

      Geico.

      --
      "You're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older."
    2. Re:Google by doc_holliday814 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'd like to see Google IM.

  7. Google and 20% time by nathan+s · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the FAQ:

    You may have heard about 20% time, in which Google engineers are encouraged to work on a personal project one day out of the week. Open Source interests a lot of Google developers, so we thought taking advantage of this program was a good way to prepare code for release and maintenance.

    People at Google keep saying that they get ~20% time to work on personal projects. I'm curious about a couple of things here.

    • Does this 20% time come out of the normal 40hr/week thing (and for that matter, do these engineers work 40/week or are they doing 100/week and get 20% time out of that)?
    • Does Google or the developer own intellectual property developed out of that 20% time?
    1. Re:Google and 20% time by Dracolytch · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm not sure about the first question, but the answer to the second question is easy: Google.

      They're paying you to develop ideas, they may be your ideas, but you're using company time and resources to create them (ie: you're being paid to generate the ideas AND they're financing the initial development effort), so the ideas are their property.

      I'm sure someone can come up with some philosophical way around this, but if it ever went to court, the case would prolly be over pretty quick.

      ~D

      --
      This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
    2. Re:Google and 20% time by digidave · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Does this 20% time come out of the normal 40hr/week thing (and for that matter, do these engineers work 40/week or are they doing 100/week and get 20% time out of that)?"

      It's one day a week, so that's 20% of working days, not hours.

      --
      The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
    3. Re:Google and 20% time by arkanes · · Score: 4, Informative

      As I understand it, it's one day a week and Google owns the IP. It's basically like free play in kindergarden.

    4. Re:Google and 20% time by swillden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In that case, though, who would ever want to work on personal projects there? I know I certainly wouldn't.

      I think you're missing the point of these personal projects. The point is to allow employees some freedom in what they do for the company, not to pay them to work on their hobbies. Google's goal is to allow the employees freedom to explore interesting ideas in the hope that some of those ideas may ultimately turn into things that will make money for Google. All of the work in question is on Google time, and belongs to Google, the only difference is that one day per week the employees get to pick what they want to work on rather than just doing what they're told.

      This is a scaled-back version of the approach taken by the best pure R&D labs: Hire very smart people and then don't give them any specific assignments beyond "Do something new and interesting."

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    5. Re:Google and 20% time by richardtallent · · Score: 2, Interesting

      While generally I would agree, the situation here is that the "mega-corporation" is letting you use 20% of *their* paid-for time to be a part of the R&D that interests you.

      "Personal stuff" for me also includes photography, music, politics, blogging, etc. While those interests would likely influence I would spend my "20%" if I worked for Google, the "personal stuff" itself remains mine.

      If you are paid as a software developer, it's not healthy career-wise to have all of your "personal stuff" also be programming as well. If you feel the need to draw lines in the sand between work tasks and personal R&D in the same field, you should consider self-employment--you'll be happier if your loyalties are not split between the job that pays you and the one you wish would do so.

      Or, go work for Google, where you can be paid to work on the cool stuff, leaving more time for family and non-programming "personal stuff" that you won't have to feel like you are hoarding from your employer.

    6. Re:Google and 20% time by Hyperspac · · Score: 3, Funny

      This is a scaled-back version of the approach taken by the best pure R&D labs: Hire very smart people and then don't give them any specific assignments beyond "Do something new and interesting."

      Given the large number of major thing discovered by pure accident . Maybe you would be better off hiring a bunch of incompetent idiots and carefully watching what happens when you tell them do something difficult.

  8. coredumper by Thrakkerzog · · Score: 5, Funny

    coredumper: Gives you the ability to dump cores from programs when it was previously not possible.

    Gee, I've always been pretty good at that!

  9. Slashdot author is helping run it? by Jailbrekr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, I guess we'll be seeing alot of duplicate projects posted there.

    --
    Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
  10. Oh man, that's good... by SmokeHalo · · Score: 3, Funny

    I hadn't seen a Google story in a couple of days, I was starting to suffer withdrawal.

    --
    I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
  11. Re:Well done, Chris! by ghoti · · Score: 3, Funny

    I didn't know he was CowboyNeal!

    --
    EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
  12. koders.com ? by ballermann · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When I read the headline I thought Wow Google copies koders.com . But no - it's just a "look people use our great API"-advertisement page.

    --

    Need a Wiki? Check out DokuWiki

  13. Good to see by Sv-Manowar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Good to see apple moving more towards open source software, but has anyone worked out what happened to GoogleX (http://labs.google.com/googlex/)

    it now 404's, yet was working yesterday as a 'prototype' of what a google for mac and on other systems could look like. Obviously the labs are having a fun week.

    1. Re:Good to see by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Informative

      Slash mentioned it earlier on today here

      here is a working mirror.

      And theres also a zip available for your local running pleasure here

      Plenty of people supplied mirrors and online copies inside the comments of the article.

      --
      liqbase :: faster than paper
  14. Commercialization to come? by manmanic · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This (along with the Yahoo API and Microsoft's promise to do the same) is good news for developers who are taking search APIs seriously.

    But who will be the first to throw open the floodgates and actuallly provide unlimited API querying at a price? Businesses (such as (plagiarism detection), (rank tracking) and (advanced alerting) are starting to be built out of this stuff, so there's obviously a genuine economy out there for the taking.

  15. Re:Up next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    Close... Up next on Slashdot!
    • Apple!
    • Google!
    • Google!
    • Apple!
    • Google! (dupe)
    • Anime!
    • iPod/Google integration!
    • Googling anime! (dupe)
    • Microsoft announces minor security hole, Slashdot predicts end of the Internets!
  16. Interesting observation. by topside420 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Nice to see the three open source projects linked on the right are all projects that list chrisd as a developer.

    What a coincidence!

    1. Re:Interesting observation. by chrisd · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's because I want to see how things go in all the projects. Believe me when I tell you that it's not the Chris DiBona show. No one would watch... Chris DiBona

      --
      Co-Editor, Open Sources
      Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
  17. Re:In other News! by thirteenVA · · Score: 4, Funny

    In other news, slashdot announces new moderation level. '-1 Only funny the first time you hear it'

  18. Google Too by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Using the Google API is the best way to encourage its growth. The more apps that use it, the more those apps become "Google" - and the more Google will grow itself by growing its web services.

    However, hosting all those Google API apps solely on Google is a bad move. Too many eggs in one basket. Better to host them on both Google AND Freshmeat/SourceForge. In fact, one great Google API app would be an automirror. Hosting at one is automirrored at the other. Which has immediate benefits in load balancing and uptime (no single point of failure). And longterm benefits of keeping the code free of capricious corporate decisions down the road

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  19. Re:In other News! by Liselle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I remember complaining for months that /. didn't even have an icon for Google. Now I wish they'd make google.slashdot.org and get this stuff off the front page. Maybe take the place of Apache, which has had a grand total of one article in all of 2005.

    --
    Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
  20. Good Show! by polyp2000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It is great that Google are visibly supporting the development of open source software - to whatever degree.

    The ubiquity of google and the respect they have gained over the years make them somewhat of a model company. While im sure there may be a couple of people who might dispute their company motto to "not be evil" I think most people would agree that google seems to be doing things the right way.

    Google is well thought of by anyone who uses the web, not just geeks, but the PHB's and Grandma's alike. This brings me to the next point...

    Google have got Microsoft worried - frustrated that they couldnt "own" google they paid google the greatest compliment- they redesigned their search engine that is functionally more than just similar to google - and to a certain extent the low graphic - no-frills feel!

    It is interesting to see Google innovating and re-thinking many of the ways we use the web. Now that google are being visibly more active in open source - It couldnt be better press for F/OSS at this time - and damn that's really going to p*ss Microsoft off - I'd like to see them match this idea. In addition to this its certainly going to help to legitimise F/OSS to those PHB's who have been toying with the idea but afraid to test the water.

    Its going to be extremely interesting to see what google has deep in the bowels of its R&D department waiting to come into fruition. Lets hope that they can keep their face clean in the process!

    --
    Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
    1. Re:Good Show! by SpiffyMarc · · Score: 2, Informative

      damn that's really going to p*ss Microsoft off - I'd like to see them match this idea.

      Microsoft has several open source projects on SourceForge, and in the past has hosted sites like GotDotNet that allowed users to share libraries with one another. Microsoft developers would also post libraries they had written and allow other developers to see and use the code.

  21. Re:the editor Chris? by stupidfoo · · Score: 2, Informative

    No, that was Michael Sims who seems to be just a total douche bag wherever he goes (read the link for more info on his immature tirade at censorware.org).

  22. My favorite is perftools by GoogleGuy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You can see code that Google is opening up here. My favorite is the perftools code because it helps with things like heap profiling. Very handy stuff, and it's hosted with Sourceforge. I'm pretty sure these four projects were just added in the last day or so.

  23. Re:Bad title by Dolda2000 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Are you referring to adding "site:sourceforge.net" to your search terms, like this?

  24. Opportunity by Red_Icculus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Since this is for dev related to Google, this could be a great opportunity to attract lots of talent to their company. This has the opportunity to be a great thing for all parties involved.

  25. I well code for a free t-shirt by grusapa · · Score: 4, Funny

    "We're going to feature a new one every week or so and we'll send a fabulous, always fashionable, t-shirt to the maintainers as a small way of saying thank you!" anyone seen the pic. where a dud is holdig a poster that say "I well do html for food"

  26. Re:Bad title by otisaardvark · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No. I was referring to tools specially adapted to searching through code itself.

  27. UI by Morgahastu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is that anything related to Open Source has to have a terrible interface? This is only google page I do not like and it looks like it skipped the UI team.

  28. Updates Blog by epohs · · Score: 3, Interesting
    http://google-code-updates.blogspot.com/

    The code.google.com update blog, and an easy way to subscribe to the RSS feed with Firefox

  29. Pity, I had hoped for a specialized search by HiThere · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What I've been hoping for is a specialization of Google that would search for open source code and commentary/documentation on same.

    So many projects have names that tend to return a lot of unrelated links when doing a search, it would be nice is there were a categorized search similar to that which they've created for Linux (NICE! Helps significantly. I've given it a browser link on my toolbar.).

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  30. Uh oh indeed! by Seoulstriker · · Score: 4, Funny
    Registrant:
    Google Inc. (DOM-258879)
    2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain View CA 94043 US

    Domain Name: googledot.org

    Registrar Name: Alldomains.com
    Registrar Whois: whois.alldomains.com
    Registrar Homepage: http://www.alldomains.com/

    Administrative Contact:
    DNS Admin (NIC-1340142) Google Inc.
    2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain View CA 94043 US
    dns-admin@googledot.org +1.6503300100 Fax- +1.6506181499
    Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
    DNS Admin (NIC-1340144) Google Inc.
    2400 E. Bayshore Pkwy Mountain View CA 94043 US
    dns-admin@googledot.org +1.6503300100 Fax- +1.6506181499

    Created on..............: 2005-Mar-15.
    Expires on..............: 2019-Sep-14.
    Record last updated on..: 2005-Mar-17 10:42:46.

    Domain servers in listed order:

    NS3.GOOGLEDOT.ORG 216.239.36.10
    NS4.GOOGLEDOT.ORG 216.239.38.10
    NS1.GOOGLEDOT.ORG 216.239.32.10
    NS2.GOOGLEDOT.ORG 216.239.34.10


    Uh oh...
    --
    I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
  31. Not invented here by Qwavel · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Several people have commented that it is nice to see Google using an existing code site (sf) rather than create their own.

    I'm also glad to see that they are using an existing and respected license (BSD 2.0) rather than invent their own. The other big companies (eg. Sun, MS) always have to create their own pseudo-FLOSS licenses when they release code, with their own little catches and gotchas.

  32. Re:Bad title by The+boojum · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't forget that there's already Google Linux and Google BSD. Not quite what you're asking for, but a little closer.

    And Google Labs has Google Personalized Search where you can flag open source as a topic of interest.

  33. Re:Starting Out by same_old_story · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I am beginning my self, and I can tell you what I am doing: dont worry too much about the language at first. after you learn to program in general, learning a new language will become more or less trivial.

    I surely recomend python. its great for beginners and you will be very productive with it.and it should give you the 'coding itch' this book is great for beginners.. stay out of C and C++ as your first language though.

    esr's how to become a hacker is the best advice I can think of.

  34. Re:In other News! by Nahor · · Score: 2, Funny

    Apache, which has had a grand total of one article in all of 2005.

    What? You mean there was no dupe for Apache yet?
    Shit editors, what are you doing!?!

  35. What I'd Like to See by JMPrice · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm pretty hooked on the Picasa photo organizer from Picasa. It's only missing one thing: an extension to upload photos to your Flickr account.

    I'd like to see some work done on this.

  36. Re:Well done, Chris! by chrisd · · Score: 3, Funny

    Thanks Russ!

    --
    Co-Editor, Open Sources
    Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
  37. Re:In other News! by googisgod · · Score: 2, Funny
    there's already at least one site that is absolutely nothing but google news, every day:

    http://www.fuckedgoogle.com/

    maybe not the type of news they'd like, tho. :-)

  38. Yellow Stickies by hawk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I believe that it is/was 3 hours/week at 3M.

    An engineer wanted something to mark pages in choir books at church. He found an adhesive that they'd previously dismissed as too weak to be useful, diluted it further, and now we don't have to paint our monitors and walls . . .

    hawk

  39. Uh Oh, Another DiBona Project by Jack+Auf · · Score: 3, Informative

    Why is it that people think this guy is great? He typically does NOT do a good or even acceptable job on anything he manages.

    Chris DiBona is *the* guy that single-handedly killed themes.org.

    For those of you who have not been around long enough to remember themes.org it was a wonderful, one-stop-shop for themes for everything. Until Chris took over that is, and then it went into a year and a half long dormant period where no updates were allowed by themers, only to eventually be folded into freshmeat when it was apparent that Chris was never going to deliver.

    How the hell did he ever get hired by Google?

    --
    "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - BF
  40. More info available on http://slashdot.google.com by popo · · Score: 2, Funny
    hah hah hah....heh.....ehh.....

    hmm...

    ..ruh roh!

    --
    ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
  41. Don't spread convoluted simplifications. by fingerfucker · · Score: 2, Informative

    An engineer wanted something to mark pages in choir books at church. He found an adhesive that they'd previously dismissed as too weak to be useful, diluted it further, and now we don't have to paint our monitors and walls . . .

    First of all, he was NOT an engineer, but a scientist. Second of all, the 3M inventor of the Post-It note, Dr. Spence Silver, was NOT looking for a way to mark pages at churg, but rather "looking for ways to improve the acrylate adhesives that 3M uses in many of its tapes". Spencer walked around for 5 years with it an wasn't able to find an application for it.

    It was Art Fry, again NOT an engineer, but a new product development researcher, who found an application for it. And only then the whole church bookmark idea came into the picutre.

    Here is a full article.

    Just because your point was that 3M had a similar approach to empowering employees to innovate, that doesn't give you the right to oversimplify and spread convoluted versions of history.