Slashdot Mirror
Google and Oregon Launch Open Source Initiative
* * Beatles-Beatles tells us that Google is entering into a $350,000 joint open source technology venture with both Oregon State and Portland State Universities. From the article: "With the grant, the universities will collaborate to encourage open source software and hardware development, develop academic curricula and provide computing infrastructure to open source projects worldwide. The universities will also help provide a bridge between Oregon's universities and Oregon's growing open technology industry." Google also has their version of the announcement on blogspot.
Isn't it policy to keep religion out of state schools? ;-)
"Analyst firm IDC estimates that the Linux® hardware and software markets will grow to $38 billion by 2008, with annual growth rates topping 25%."
Google will need some of that $38 Billion goodness to keep its stock from stagnating.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I can predict that the majority of posts will be that this is a good thing. However I can't help but think that if Microsoft worked with a state and university to encourage closed source software and hardware development, develop academic curricula and provide computing infrastructure to closed source projects worldwide that everyone would say how dare a company try to buy a university into spreading it's FUD.
While it's a good thing that this university is helping to develop open source software, this sort of zealotry on slashdot makes it difficult to take any points it offers on closed or open source software. Open source zealots ultimately hurt open source software more then closed source software. So perhaps think about the points you make before you start preaching to the choir.
Sounds like a new and improved Sourceforge... interesting.
I'd like to know what would qualify you to computing resources...
I'd also like to know if this is intended as philantropy or investment...
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Did Oregon they feel invisibly sandwiched between Washington and Silicon Valley North California - as not also being on the forefront of the non stop tech - revolutions coming from the northwest USA?
http://george-harrison.info/
in the last 6 articles today, every other article is about google. Google is doing too much stuff, they need to spread their projects around a bit so I could get news about others companies and technological innovations as well.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
...to encourage open source software and hardware development...
Ok, I can see open source software development being done at minimal cost, but hardware? Not trolling here, I'm genuinely curious, can someone explain to me how open source hardware development can be economical? I mean let's face a little reality here, if someone is going to undertake the (rather expensive) industrial task of hardware development, at the very least the need to recoup their investment, and ideally they'll make a profit -- at least that's the goal, or else they wouldn't bother in the first place.
Sooo... Anyone care to chime in here and explain this to me? Thanks in advance.
As long as they don't forget core CS curriculum like data structures, algorithms and operating systems, I see this as a good thing. Also note that this should be part of a well-rounded education.
Learning ONLY about OSS software is just as bad as learning ONLY about proprietary and/or closed source software. Students need to be educated in all aspects of the field so that they can make good decisions when the time comes and not try to apply one solution to every problem.
Anykind of investment in open source is an implicit attack against Microsoft. Google knows this, and they know that with little money, they can create lots of open source software as demostrated by the Google Summer of Code program.
Now I ask you this, creatively think of ways of what Microsoft can do with little investment that can be interpreted as an attack on Google.
I hope google doesn't get dysentery
Welcome to the new Googledot. Enjoy your stay!
I don't keep a lid on my coffee so when I walk around I look busy -me
how this helps Google's investors. They won't own the rights to the software, or anything created with these schools.
While I think its a "cool" "fun" "nice" thing Google is doing, it isn't creating revenue or raising the bottom line (other then the media having pre-mature orgasms over it).
Google is turning into an amazing manipulator of the media, but they still don't have any tangible revenue streams other then their click ads revenue. They are following the path of all the dot bombs to date.
Even look at GMail, wich many of us love, it has a puny share of the email market (hotmail and yahoo), and creates no real revenue.
I hate to say it, but Bill Gates is right. Google is just in a long honey moon phase prolonged by being a media darling. They are just throwing money around like there is no tomorrow.
It concerns me as an investor. PayPal/eBay won't go down without a huge fight. Google's attempt to cut into Amazon's market with Froogle flopped, and quite frankly, I don't see them unseating eBay anytime soon.
I say give them two more years and their stock will be below yahoo and dropping fast.
After the big middle finger they got from the OSU Open Source Lab last year: http://osuosl.org/news_folder/nutch Of course, in their defense, all the hard work their sub-department put into the conversion saved the university over $100,000 a year. Good work, guys!
As a Portland State CS Student I applaud this move, OSS groups are thriving in Oregon mostly do to a group of large tech industry players and a grassroots movement. I see a large amount of influence comming out of Oregon for OSS, (OSDL, OSU Opensource labs, OSCON, bla bla bla). I can say at Portland State that its the largest college in Oregon but a urban college. Their CS is mostly all Solaris Unix Stuff, but most of the CS majors are OSS freaks and Linux geeks.
When I opened up Slashdot today, I saw a googol - 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999997 articles today. That's a lot of news items about Google.
You completely ignore the ethical ramifications of non-free software, and you don't seem to have any criticism of corporate welfare either. It's also telling that pursuing free software gets called "zealotry" while a proprietor pursuing its ends gets no such namecalling.
Digital Citizen
"Latte Town" was coined a few years back and is the most appropriate term for the City of Portland that I have ever heard. A Latte town consists of mostly white, educated baby boomers and young single people. The inhabitants of the town are usually newcomers who have priced out all the original inhabitants. These towns are usually expensive, pretentious, abound in natural fibers and are laid back on the surface. Latte towns like Portland pride themselves on their most cherished concepts of diversity and inclusiveness. Most Portlanders accept this myth as Gospel but upon close examination Portland's dirty little secret is revealed. Portland is an overwhelmingly white, non-ethnic city. It is as vanilla as it gets so it makes one wonder what all the celebrating of diversity is all about. Drive through any neighborhood surrounding the downtown area and the impression that you get is that Portland is nothing more than a series of elitist ghettos compromised of rich white homosexuals, rich white yuppies, rich white hippies, rich white trust funders, and rich white kids from the suburbs pretending to be street people. Where's the diversity? Well it doesn't exist but the average Portlander likes the concept and in their eyes the different shades of rich whites all constituent diversity. In a series of articles I will attempt to breakdown and explain these subtle distinctions between the various factions of lily white, latte people that make Portland what it is.
The Artist-Intellectual
The visitor or newcomer to Portland is bound to be struck by the sheer numbers that belong to this group. They seem to be everywhere and are in fact everywhere. They are the reason that all the coffee shops have tables and chairs. The artist-intellectual fancies himself as a poet, a I practice on my artist-intellectual room mate every nite. But we're artists, so it's not really gay.writer, a musician, a filmmaker, etc. You get the drift. They spend most of their days idling around the coffee establishments that one finds every 10 feet. They are usually equipped with a notebook that they use for their poems, journals or their artwork. No one ever gets to see the contents of these notebooks. More often than not they have a beaten and weathered paper back copy of some book authored by Kafka or William S. Boroughs. They love to discuss their favorite subject, themselves. Given the opportunity they will prattle on for hours about their poems, art work or the film they are making. You never get to actually see any of their work but you do get to hear about it. Their lives are like one never ending semester in grad school. Initially I believed these losers but then got to thinking. What would an aspiring actor, artist, musician, filmmaker being doing in Portland Oregon, a latte town? Why wouldn't they be in NYC or LA? Because they're phonies, that's why. Here's how it works with these clowns. They flunk out of college in New Jersey so their parents send them to Reed College in Portland in hopes that they will get their act together. They drop out of Reed but stay in Portland while still on Daddy's tab or some trust find. One Saturday Josh or Seth drifts down to one of the hundreds of hippie craft markets downtown. Some hippie is selling didgeridoos that he made I between bong reps. Josh buy one and takes it home where he proceeds to get baked after which he blows a few sour notes into the didgeridoo. The next day he's a musician. Not really but that's what he's telling everyone at the coffee house and pretending is good enough for a Portland artist-intellectual, in fact it's everything. In three months he will switch his designation from musician to filmmaker and then onto to something else 3 months later. As long as it sounds cool he will keep this charade up and no one in his circles will call him on it because they are doing the same thing.
Sure, I leech off of daddy's trust fund. Yeah, he's a banker. But I am only using his money to right the wrongs of his generation. And to pay for my lift tickets, dude.The Activist
This group is
Wouldn't also mind if Google invested in Optic Fiber projects to the home.
I understand the 'broadband over powerlines' might get stalled because of protests by ham radio people.
Step 1: Donate a huge sum of money to the people most likely to undo the M$ monoply so that they can work on the biggest competitor making it better, faster, easier, CHEAPER, more secure...and in the process, swicth a whole campus (or two)over to Linux. Step 2: ummm Step 3: Profit
Why doesn't anything interesting happen when I have mod points?
Interestingly, Slashdot had a Google story 22 times since Oct 1. Yahoo had 3 times and Linux 21 times.
I look forward to perusing all googles search engine source code.
Or do they only want other peole to make their source code open?
If they were really committed they would practice what they preach.
Why there are no Linux (or BSD, etc) versions of the majority of Google's software? Kind of unusual, eh?
"We may face a scorched and lifeless earth, but they're accountable to their shareholders first."
It seems pretty obvious ti me that open source software helps google and hurts companies like Microsoft. Why? I have often felt that open source, more exactly GPL-like, software helps web service companies, because they can use GPL software, but they don't have to redistribute their additions to the GPL'd code. Why? Because they don't redistribute their softare, they only provide an interface to use that software on their cpus. Personally, I think this is a flaw in the GPL in the new economy, it favors web service models over traditional models.
As long they're going crazy with spending money and funding new projects, they could always send me money. I don't do much but I am kinda hungry and could go for some food. Google Pizza Money (beta), anyone?
There is no difference in this case. The best thing that can happen for the tech world is decrease the dependancy on MS. Of course, I expect that chair companies all over the world will cry foul over that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Mr Brin must have had his maid stop polishing the gold bidet for a week.
Certainly there's room to promote Google even more...
I mean, come on, what will 350k buy nowadays? Is that enough to equip a full sized office with aeron chairs and furniture? Will there be enough left to purchase hardware? I guess going Open Source will save the M$ tax, so that might cover some of the shortfall, but come on...
Ocean is land, covered with water.
Companies will still make money by selling software, and copyright will still protect the source and binary code, but everything will be a little more open; people won't trust code so much, so they'll insist on seeing it; there won't be any trade secrets in open source; interoperability will be key.
After having three Microsoft articles in a ROW yesterday (or the day before?), we oughta give GOOG some (more) time.
Read a random Google page while you wait for that precious non-Google story, I guess...
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
What was that, Addain? I thought that code in and of itself was neither inherently good nor inherently evil. Lollercost, here I was thinking it was just human-readable instructions to a interpreter/compiler. I suppose closed source might be evil, insofar that "they" (the man, or men? Penguins, maybe.... shift+1) would force only evil source to close itself...
But then again, you could just be a zealot nerd (not affiliated with myself, of course) who believes that anyone trying to make money is somehow evil. This is worse than when you commies flouridated our water to weaken our resolve and corrupt our youth. >.<
I'm sorry. If Bill Gates molestered you when you were young, I shouldn't mock your psychological trauma. </flame>
Anyway..... I still don't get the "holy-war" thing. The instant MICRO$OFT Windows stops being worth $money++, people will stop paying $money and get Linux, or whatever alternatives there are. I mean, it would be a great day for both camps to admit that Windows is a good desktop OS and that Linux runs servers goodly. Then the healing could begin. Heck, if both Windows and Linux camps keep acting so extreme, everyone may just get pissed off and buy a Mac.... And then I'd have to hunt you down. :-D I have my own holy war against Apple to wage....
By the way, can anyone tell me if the W3C deprecated the <flame> tag for some kinda stylesheet? I'd like to know for future rants, 'k thx
Please don't eat my soul <3 moderators
DATABASE WOW WOW
A chair flung towards Oregon was spotted at Microsoft's Redmond,WA headquarters.
"Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
In other news, Oregon authorities have advised Oregon residents to keep an eye out for chairs being lobbed across the Oregon-Washington state border and are advised to duck.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
MOD PARENT UP!
Despite generally being stubborn, Microsoft does bend when it's in its benefit. Remember t3h "glory days" of Windows 95? They were pushing their own communications standard incompatible with TCP/IP. However, when they were getting left out in the cold, they adopted TCP/IP and shipped it with Windows.
My point is that Microsoft's primary source of income is Microsoft Office, as Office promotes Windows. Nice synergies. Open-sourcing something would vastly increase the number of the masses using the software (as opposed to charging great $money). As soon as it becomes cost effective Microsoft will support OPEN SOURCE, if only to increase the distribution of one of their OS or Office platforms.
<THE POINT> Microsoft will do all it can to benefit open source, as soon as its profitable. And that will be the golden age of open source, because when its profitable for Microsoft it will be profitable for all companies and damned near everything will be open source.
Ever think that all open-sourcey people might just be scared of the Windows API? :-D
Oh, and I am a proud Microsoft Zealot, although don't have anything against Linux. Let the best OS and the best coders win.
DATABASE WOW WOW
Ya, dat Google loves open source.
That's why every piece of software they make only runs on WinXP.
Bah.
>>
I am the director, and this is my movie
Google is in a littly hurry. The recent bull activity has made google's market cap close to 100bil$$$, but with only ~4bil$ sales (source: yahoo finance).
Google has some catch up to do. Slowly it IS accepting the corporate aggresiveness many thought to be strange thing for google. In the run, it had to embrace open source, the classified ad service & other avenues (of course, I appreciate the innovation & steps) which were not in the path of big players (read:MS). Ad service would a give a break to the normal users from ebay's near monopoly of bidding/classified business. Open source would hit MS & other commercial players. I believe Google would team up with (for now I think of) Sun's Openoffice to give a deep impact to MS, thus making an entry into software promotions as well.
Good point. Google's rumored free, online Office app could cripple Microsoft. Sure, once again, no revenue, but more text ads.
And, anyone who's seen Googlezon knows that Google and Amazon are not competing. :-D
Once again, don't eat my soul.DATABASE WOW WOW
Google Student pizza program.
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
MS has long offered subsidised software to capture hearts and minds to schools. For years and years. Apple has, too. Go to local computer store, note MS retail prices, then check colleges discounts prices. They do the same with libraries, etc as well. And when they lost the anti trust case,(while still maintaining the monopoly OS install in most mainstream vendors retailed computers for some reason...) the so called "fine" was to subsidise software at free or cheap to schools mostly. I mean, really....google dropping 350 thou on encouraging open source is a joke compared to what MS has dropped.
Maybe Google is going into Oregon just because it will be on TV for thousands of MS employees to see. And then Billy G will buy the TV stations like Howard Hughes just to silence this issue. :)
It will be a minor miracle if the state of Washington does something similar.
With all these Google-related articles now days, why not just make a new Slashdot section?
I now endorse google.slashdot!
google.slashdot
To Slashdot moderators/editors/readers: Get that Anti-Google icon ready for all the future anti-google stories we'll see in about 3 years or so. Think along the lines of that Gate-monocle look.. Then again, Google will probably just buy Slashdot, so don't bother =)
Blog: http://richardrandomrants.blogspot.com/
Slashdot.
News about Google. And some other stuff that matters.
Pretty sure the Open Source Initiative already exists, guys. Could somebody with a passing knowledge of this site's audience please edit submissions?
If Google wants to promote OSS, why not support Cal State, which is using OS directly for learning management systems, at CSU San Francisco and CSU Humboldt?
It works, too:-)
Home of OSU Open Source Lab:
http://osuosl.org/
Go Beavs!
(((((google talk + frappr + blogspot) / myspace) + gmail + google earth) * dark fiber google owns) + google secure wifi app) + some random cellular provider = (google-net enabled wireless pda/celluar service) + (google-net network structure - microsoft)
z3uS -zNet- http://z3us.net/
Easy workaround: Linux has to team up with YaHoo!!! if it ever wants to make the headlines again.
There was a company that made accelerators for the Amiga.
You could download the masks for the circut board,
and populate it yourself. You could get the PAL equations,
and make your own PALs or get the kit. ( The designs, documentation, and software are STILL ONLINE! )
( look for Amiga Accelerator Lucas )
There are also many many electronic projects that are maded this way.
This is how Electronic Projects for Musicians got started, with Craig Andertons book.
if not, they should be! BWAHAHAHAHA
The reason Google invests so much in "Summer of Code" open source and this recent Oregon initiative is to buy silence from critics.
This is because Google relies on its software patent regarding PageRank (named after Larry Page, the co-founder of Google), which is the fundamental reason why Google's search results are better than the competition's. Yet software patents are evil and are opposed by the open source crowd.
By giving money to the open source crowd, Google is trying to buy their silence and support.
Judging from the number of times Google has appeared on Slashdot, which is part of the "Open Source Technology Group", Google's ruse appears to be working.
It's where Washingtonians and Californians go to skip paying sales tax.
Seriously though, Oregon is great. Love those Pacific beaches and if you ever wanted to know where nowhere is at, take a drive on U.S. 395 from Pendleton to Alturas, California.
What?
"Interestingly, Slashdot had a Google story 22 times since Oct 1. Yahoo had 3 times and Linux 21 times."
Maybe there were no more than 3 interesting news pieces about Yahoo. I don't say that all 22 stories about Google were either, but most of them were news for nerds, stuff that matter.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
I want a little graphics gizmo that I can attach to the display port of an LCD or PDP that connects the display to the network and includes a network-upgradeable X server. The display needs to be a network resource. Every device that used to be a peripheral has become more useful when turned into a network resource. The display is no exception.
Google announced during a press conference today their intentions to institute a program to bolster world employment rates by paying teens to help old ladies cross the street & cover puddles with jackets for women. The conference ended on a high note, with Google representitives passing out free kittens.
Don't ya hate it when the correct spelling of your favorite screen name is taken?
You are equating an ad sponsored search engine on a browser to a monopoly desktop operating system that comes pre installed on the vast bulk of the worlds computers? These are supposed to be equivalent somehow? Sorry, not seeing it. MS was convicted of abusing it's status in the market place, violating the law, and their so called "fine" boiled down to further entrenching themselves into the market place by using their software as "legal tender". If YOU got fined by the government, wouldn't you like to be told to keep doing what you have been doing as the punishment? Be able to just print up something, give it an inflated monetary value, and "pay the fine" that way? Who else gets a deal like that? The other example I can think of is some of the **AA media distributors got busted for collusion and the "fine" was they got to dump old tunes that hardly anyone wanted, clean out the backrooms in the warehouses, to libraries and etc. That was covered here sometime back, sorry no link handy.
Anyway, the discussion was about how allegedly "wrong" it was for google to fund some open source projects, to the tune of 350 grand. I disagreed that it was wrong. MS has been subsidising their closed source expensive products for years now, in the schools, in a very obvious attempt to capture hearts and minds so that down the road they can maintain monopoly status. Certainly if all these places paid full retail like the prices you see at the computer shops the numerical value would be vastly more than 350 grand, and the difference is, MS furthers a lock in, contravening the entire exercise of their monopoly abuse and investigations and alleged punishment. THAT is the difference so far in a general political and ethical sense, although apparently not in any common sense law enforcement actions. I am suspicious of that as well, that perhaps some...consulting fees...changed hands someplace. Obviously can't prove it of course, merely suspicious of it. I never had anything against MS until it became obvious what business slimeballs they were and still are, THEY changed my mind about them. In the earlier days, meh, a software company. Then it comes out over the years that there isn't a sleazy trick they won't pull, multiple times. Basically, lying bullies, strong arm goons.
When and if google gets busted and loses in court for abusing their services in some manner, then we can discuss some sort of parity situation, now though, it is two different things. I have some issues with google as well, but at this time on the ethics scale I'll still put them head and shoulders over MS.
Despite being a libertarian, I've been brainwashed almost thoroughly by slashdot into a bias against Microsoft. So, I was surprised that www.ocw.mit.edu is published using Microsoft software: this from their FAQ, at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Global/OCWHelp/help.htm# 25
"30. What technology is used to publish the MIT OCW Web site?
The MIT OCW technology solution supports a complex publishing process. This is a large-scale digital publishing infrastructure that consists of planning tools, a content management system (CMS), and the MIT OCW content distribution infrastructure. The current technical solution has been in use since April 2003 with a four-person technical support team managing all aspects of this infrastructure.
The planning tools used by the MIT OCW team to assist faculty in publishing their course materials include a custom application of FileMaker Pro, and several checklists and documents. For creating and managing content, we use several desktop tools (file conversion tools) as well as the CMS, an extensively customized version of Microsoft Content Management Server 2002 that fully supports our publishing process. Our content delivery infrastructure includes a sophisticated publishing engine, content staging server, and a content delivery network utilizing Akamai's EdgeSuite platform."
Well finnaly something that does proof, there is no such thing such as inteligent design
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
Come to Oregon and find out! There's a lot going for this state. Not only does Google plan to open a site in the Dalles, but Linus Torvalds lives in Lake Oswego. Wireless connectivity is almost ubiquitous, and there's a ton of great beer here.
So why pay sales tax and work in California or Washington, when you can live in Oregon? Although BEWARE! It rains a lot here (wink, wink, nudge, nudge!) PDX LUV, sucka.
Browse at 1. You'll thank me later.