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Google Gives Reason Why it is Built on Linux
Rob writes "A common reason why more governments and enterprises around the world are moving to
open source software is unhappiness, it was revealed during a panel discussion at the
LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco yesterday. Google Inc open source programs
manager Chris DiBona said the search giant has stuck with Linux throughout the company's
life, in part, because it
was unhappy with the terms of another software company. Which borgware company is he referring to?"
Seriously-- yeah it is MS, but the problem exists with any proprietary technology. The company doesn't need to be borg-like, just closed.
I've had plenty of jobs where we got locked in on the O.S. or on applications and it sucks. It is a rotten feeling when you want something changed but it is either impossible or it will cost you an arm and a leg. (Then you have to wait on their timing too)
I know throwing apple out there is a bit inflammatory around here but it proves the point. There are plenty of bad options out there without even pointing out Microsoft.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Google does a lot of things differently than most OSes are meant for. It's only logical that they'd choose one that they can customize to their needs...
Join the Empire! http://www.empirereborn.net/
It was just cheaper.
He was refering to Microsoft!
The article seems to imply that. But on closer reading, it indicates that Microsoft was just used as an example. The same would have been equally true of Sun, SGI, IBM, etc. And when you really look at what they were doing with Google, I think that Sun is actually more likely to have been the target than Microsoft.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Why can't I run the really cool stuff like Google Earth on my Debian machine
Broken assumption: You assume everyone wants to profit from OSS... they dont. I've seen plenty of OSSoftware written for the mac that's free, usable and easy to work with.
if they've relied on it so much, it would be nice if some of their apps would run on linux.
When you look at copyrights like a government regulation that controlls how people use information, rather than some kind of "property" right. Then it becomes clear that Linux is truely more accountable to free market paradigms, and in the information age - as information becomes commoditized, that will be even more so - as the companies that treat unrestricted copying over the internet like a threat will loose, and those that treat it like an advantage will win.
It's good to see some company finally step up to the plate and publicly admits that free/open source software provides independence and freedom. IBM, Novell, HP always put out the "cheaper" argument which is seen as "less value".
Freedom is strength, Ignorance is peace, War is slavery.
Rubbish. If you make an open source OS that is blindingly simple to install and use, there are going to be some enterprises that STILL want to have the OS backed by a company for their own piece of mind, security, and as an outlet to yell at in case they have a problem.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Google can't pay $90 a CPU for Windows XP Professional Global Oppression Server or whatever. (I'm a Mac guy so I don't know exactly what Windows is calling itself now.) I bet both Microsoft and Sun are kicking themselves for not cutting Google a deal. Imagine the PR Sun could have gotten by using Google as a reference customer.
Tristan Yates
Even if he is referring to MS, it's not as if google can be considered impartial. They must have known they'd be competing with redmond on one level or another. How would it sound if someone said to them, yeah but doesn't your search technology run on Windows? Not horrible but not great either. Especially if the competition becomes even more heated.
Besides being customizable, Google uses oodles of servers. At $300 / seat for something proprietary, they are saving ungodly amounts of money.
In the end though, it is always about control.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
Open source can never be very easy to use and easy to run
Ever hear of a product called Tivo? Runs Linux. Or maybe a linksys router...
I guess those products are beyond your ability to use or run...
IDC predicts Linux revenues at $35bn worldwide within the next three years.
I wonder how much "Linux revenues" google has contributed to? How many Linux licenses have they purchased for their 100k machine farm?
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
Maybe you'd be biased if you actually had to pay for 03EE.
Who the hell are you?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Wow, that sounded a lot like an employer that I had. For instance, there was an issue where a COM+ server was throwing access violations. After taking some time and using literally basic debugging tools, I found the problem in the disassembly and traced it back to something in COM+ constructor strings. My company still needed to open a ticket to Microsoft because "they were the experts". Low and behold, they found the same thing... five days later. The moral of the story is that no matter how many talented, well-qualified geeks we have, the business people still want the assurance of their vendor. Google, having engineered their solution on their own without a vendor, took the risks and was rewarded handsomely.
Coderz 4 Life
And the price of OSS is not its main draw. I chose to develop a number of projects with Java rather than Visual Studio because VS was expensive to buy, while Java cost nothing. But then I was frustrated by my dependence on Sun to fix problems in the closed VM and class libraries. So I'm now developing on an OSS language and framework.
That one tripped me up. A communist nazi would be a very conflicted person indeed.
Let me help you out with some terms:
Communism -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
Fascism -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
Nazism -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
Stalinism -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism
All very similar but not all the same thing.
I don't think "$300 / seat for something proprietary" really matters that much. Even if they re-bought that license every single year, it is less than $1/day to match whatever they are paying the butt that sits in the seat. I have to imagine that even peons are getting more than $100/day.
More likely, they just found that Linux did what they needed, and the non-cost, per seat, was a bonus.
It's the "big idea" that google is, that makes it a multi-billion dollar enterprise... not the fact that they may or may not have pinched a few pennies here and there.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
For some strange and unknown reason, you believe that the value is in your code and NOT in you. I suppose you are happy with the idea of being out sourced since under your definition of "cool" and not being a "nazi/communist" you have placed ALL of the value in the code. If this is what BSD is... then you can have it!
GPL protects ideas and people. Unlike BSD and other licenses which ONLY serve to support patent protected software farms. Rather than supporting the ideas of "dead projects" and "forgotten shelfware" and "replaceable people" (the BSD way you've defined here), the GPL ensures that good ideas, good people and good software do not go the way of the dodo.
Figures that you are a Microsoft...err.. I mean Solaris fan.
If there's any good news to your post.. its that not all BSD folks think like you.
Remember, they're running a cluster made of hordes of cheap, little machines -- vastly more machines than they have employees.
Also remember that they didn't always have that market cap, or any.
It's a little more thana kernel really. Only the OSX GUI is really closed.
But Google would not need that part for a million headless boxes in a rack. Being able to modify Darwin would let them do as much customizing as they have done with Linix.
However of course when you have a million boxes any licencing fee is too much, so they are really better off with Linux anyway as it's been hammered on a lot more, even though they could have just grabbed Darwin and gone with it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Like whoever moderated your comment as Insightful?
If you take away your flamebait tone and your off-topic remarks about graphic and media software support which are not relevant for Google's server farm it sounds like the point you're making is to "use the right tool for the job". From this article for Google it looks like the right tool for their purposes is an OS that lets them make their own customizations.
If that is an annoying poke at Microsoft and other proprietary vendors then so be it. For this particular job they aren't the right tool.
Transmitting energy without a license.
Yes, Borgware. Microsoft crushes both its competitors and its 'partners' alike. What's really cool about the success of Google is that, first, it comes on a non-Microsoft platform, and two, Google's success comes at the expense of Microsoft. Google is taking business that Microsoft wants.
Google is doing this by using a business model that is orthogonal to Microsoft's model; Google is open, non-proprietary, platform agnostic. Google does not restrict browser traffic, does not exclude 'competitors' sites, browsers, platforms, etc.
Google helps provide more for less. If Google helps bring Microsoft to heel, that's a good thing.
Best regards.
Erm... ALL of it?
there something else going on?
Google has a very different model then the traditional news sites.
Remember how the News companies work: Traditional news websites & TV stations, like CNN, MSNBC have news editors who pick their news tidbits as they see fit, either subconsciously or purposely, regardless of what the viewers find interesting. They pick the stories based on how much ad revenue the story will bring. This can be a very flawed analysis-- Sometimes they are right on, other times they are way off the mark. Do you ever watch the news and wonder why they spent 30 seconds on an important news story while discussing Star Wars for 3 minutes?
There is a disconnect between what the viewers find interesting, and what the news editors believes that the viewers will find interesting. It's a somewhat flawed model.
News.google.com and the Google Personalized Homepage works differently--there is no news editors. The top news stories make it to the top of the list because people find the stories more interesting, and click on those links more often. Google analyzes the viewer's behavior to determine which headlines should be at the top of the page. Everything is done programmatically, and some people claim it's more democratic.
For instance, the morning of the Spanish Train Bombings the Spanish Government first blamed the bombings on the Basque separatists. As such, the news was not very interesting to the news editors at CNN, MSNBC, Good Morning America, etc. The big news stations and news websites were mostly discussing results of American Idol and the Laci Peterson Murder Trial. Later, when Al Qaida entered the picture, the news stations started covering the Train Bombings nonstop. All of a
On the other hand, News.google.com always had the headlines in the correct order-- as the visitors selected the news-- Spanish Train Bombings were top topics, Laci Peterson & American Idol were way at the bottom of the list. Google's model works pretty well.
I remember this pretty clearly-- I could not find any news on the Train Bombings for an hour, except for one line of scrolling text at the bottom of the screen.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
This is probably the most ignorant post about Linux I have ever read. I love the way he bashes the GPL for not generating money when the philosophy of the GPL is not to just make money, but to better society. I also love how he ignores that most GPLed software is written by coders who are paid to write it. Remind me where in the GPL it says that you cannot sell a product under the GPL? It is possible to release source and make money. Damn flamebait.
-Glitch "We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds." - Linus Torvalds
Is this why Google Earth, Google Desktop Bar, Google Web Accelerator all support Windoze only ? Google might be harnessing the power of Linux behind the scenes, but all of its innovations for desktop users are on M$ only. Granted, that they are Beta/Preview versions .. but Linux could be a great candidate too !
The history of your searches are not in the cookie. The cookie is a key to some data structure in a hash table or tree that resides in the server, which stores further information about you.
Please look into how this stuff works before you start posting.
I believe that it's different because they're not trying to hide what they collect, and why, from anyone.
Assimilate ('Assimilation, from Latin assimilatio meaning "to render similar"') != copy.
Microsoft finds something, then assimilates it: makes a "standard" similar to the original, but different in details, making it impossible to use both properly. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
F/OSS on the other hand like the Ferengi (partly) without money: a huge market of ideas.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I really can't wait for the day when you don't have to justify why you use anything other than Microsoft's products.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
OSS Software's advantages are often cited as being 1: free, and 2: Open. Both of these are strong advantages in some situations, but not necessarily in all. Most companies aren't firstly concerned with direct purchase price. In fact, many OSS projects have commercial components that provide custimization and support for a fee. Open software is a strong pull for those of use in the software field, but usually doesn't translate for the end user of software directly.
For me, the biggest advantage of OSS is that of availability and access. If I need a widget right now to solve a problem, I don't have to go through a formal purchase process with PO's and the like, I can just find what I need NOW. Then the other advantages kick in, because I can now modify it to exactly meet my needs. Yes, this translates to price via time saved, but not actual dollars. And yes, we do support OSS project with cash.
}#q NO CARRIER