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.

Comments

Google in State Universities?

[pen]

Isn't it policy to keep religion out of state schools? ;-)

Re:Google in State Universities?

[jzeejunk]

only if it isn't designed intelligently ;)

A prediction

[aussie_a]

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.

Re:A prediction

[Aadain2001]

You must be new here

Open Source = Good
Closed Source = The Devil

Re:A prediction

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

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.

1. I don't see what Microsoft has to do with it. If Google were pushing closed source curricula on a university, I think the reaction would be negative.
2. I don't see what Fear Uncertainty and Doubt anyone could be spreading by doing anything like this.
3. How could a company pushing open source be looking to buy a university? The university can just go to another provider if they don't like Google's attitude -- that's why it's different with open source software. With closed source it would be a lock-in.
4. Open source fits in more with academia. Mainly, academic/scientific discoveries are usually funded by the university and open to the world. The idea isn't to make profit (closed source), but to share information (open source).

It's not as though open source = Good! closed source = Bad! all the time, it's just that in this situation, it seems clear open source is a better choice and doesn't apply to what you said.

Re:A prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

A key difference is that it's unlikely Microsoft would give a University that kind of money with no strings attached and say "do unspecified good things with it". I've never seen them do so. This is what Google did, and I think it's pretty amazing.

Re:A prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

-------

Microsoft gives free version of Visual Studio .NET 2003, XP, 2k, Virtual Server, SQL, and a host of other programs for free to people who are in the engineering department of my school. The interesting thing is, even if you are in a completly unrelated curriculum (such as Electrical Engineering or Assembly Programming), you still get the whole lot of it for free.

Draw whatever conclusions you like, I for one feel good about owning a valid Microsoft CD key for the first time since I played Zork. Then again, I liked Crystal Pepsi and the band Styx, so YMMV.

Re:A prediction

[sivadnitsuj]

I almost never post comments here (and thus will probably never be seen), but I had to say something..

While I might agree with some of the philosophical ideologies common on slashdot, I do get tired of the seeming group think sometimes.

regardless, your comment seems ill thought out..

If Microsoft contributed money, time, resources and influence to promote closed source software through American Universities, all it would add up to is a sponsored marketing effort, no different than coca-cola or pepsi sponsoring a high school to get their vending machines exclusively represented on campus.

Google dumping money into open source projects (while it obviously provides them with some good PR) directly benefits everyone. *Everyone*.. or at least, everyone that's not supported by closed-source companies.

cheers..

Re:A prediction

[LionKimbro]

ROCK ON, PORTLAND!

Face it: We're fighting a battle, and we see signs of winning! What's not to be excited about?

Don't be shocked that we're happy and cheering! :) This isn't the place people go to for well reasoned arguments. They exist; They're just not here. This is where we cheer, talk, and give off-the-cuff strategy, ideas, encouragement.

I don't know of any good effort that succeeds without room for clapping & celebration over small victories.

Re:A prediction

[size1one]

"The university can just go to another provider if they don't like Google's attitude -- that's why it's different with open source software. With closed source it would be a lock-in."

In fact thats just what Oregon State University did when googles prices were too high. They replaced thier Google box with Nutch Search Engine and saved around $100,000 a year. Fortunatly Google apparently does not have any (or enough) bad blood about this to prevent them from taking the initiative to promote open source.

Re:A prediction

[Goalie_Ca]

Academia is by its very nature open source. Try publishing a closed source paper :P

Me want info!

[mister_llah]

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...

Why was Oregon U Chosen?

[* * Beatles-Beatles]

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?

Re:Why was Oregon U Chosen?

[genericacct]

For one thing, we are home to the OSDL and Linus Torvalds. PSU and OSU have pretty good Computer Science programs. Intel and Tektronix have huge campuses here. There's no shortage of computing professionals in Oregon.

I'm just surprised Portland State and Oregon State don't have anything about it on their front pages.

They're doing too much stuff

[nEoN nOoDlE]

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.

OSH?

[werewolf1031]

...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.

Re:OSH?

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

Open Source Hardware

Seems they share schematics for the design. I'd imagine you could sell the hardware for profit (binaries) so long as you made the schematics (source code) available to those who bought it. Seems like a reasonable idea.

Re:OSH?

[po8]

Open hardware is like open source; it's about designs, schematics, PCB layouts, FPGA codes, etc. There are several existing open hardware projects at Portland State, notably Portland State Aerospace Society's rockets and a Software-Defined Radio project built on the open-hardware Universal Software Radio Peripheral. More are expected.

Core curriculum

[kevin_conaway]

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.

Re:Core curriculum

[Eivind]

Bull.

CS-students learn about computer-science primarily, and only a distant second about licensing. In-depth studies over licensing is law, not CS. Sure, CS students should know the very basics, enough to avoid breaking the law themselves, or atleast enough to know when to consult a lawyer, but licenses are not central to a CS-curriculum.

You can only usefully learn from a program you can study. You can only reasonably study a program where you are allowed picking the program apart and look at the innards. That is a lot more practical for programs that come with source-code.

It's easy to pick say Linux apart and find examples where the kernel use semaphores, spinlocks, linked-lists, heaps, priority-queues, binary trees and a lot of other concepts a CS-student should know about.

It's an exersize in frustration to try the same with say Windows, unless you've got the sourcecode. Actually, doing so with a closed program would teach you more about decompilers etc than it would about the basic algorithms and datastructures. (this migth be a worthwhile thing to learn btw, but it's still something different)

Proprietary linked lists aren't conceptually different to OS linked lists. 99% of the stuff you learn in CS should be totally independent of the license the finished work will be published under.

Re:Core curriculum

[slapout]

I could see the Freshman starting with learning the data structures, etc. Then having the Seniors work on OSS for their work as opposed to a project that the prof makes up.

An attack on Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Welcome

[The-Perl-CD-Bookshel]

Welcome to the new Googledot. Enjoy your stay!

not sure...

[CDPatten]

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.

Re:not sure...

[darkmeridian]

I think we ain't seen nothing yet from Google. The projects are synergistic. Once it all comes together, then watch out.

Froogle wasn't meant to compete with Amazon because Google never stocked products. But pretend Google gets a good micropayment system going. GMoney lets you buy from vendors that show up on Froogle. Or GMail/GTalk gives you an ad from a GMoney accepting vendor. So Google makes money from the ads and from the GMoney transaction fees.

GVideo? Yep. Micropayments.

GData? Don't use Microsoft. Just use our webbrower based system.

You sell your Google stock. I think Google will do just fine.

Re:not sure...

[Aadain2001]

Supporting Open Source is not throwing away your money or doing something purely for philosophical reasons. Look at it this way: Google uses Linux/OSS heavily, so promoting future developers to improve current OSS projects and create new ones could potentially lead to yet more OSS that Google can use in their business. Google is probably banking on the idea that this investment will be much lower than whatever future OSS that is developed from this program ends up saving.

So you can support OSS with an eye on the bottome line. Maybe not the bottom line this quarter or next quarter, but sometime in the future. Look at IBM. They won't make a dime directly off of Linux, but they can use Linux to help them sell their servers. So it is in their interest to keep Linux improving and moving forward in performance. With IBM it's easy to see why they would want to support Linux. With Google it's a bit harder because they benifit from Linux in their daily operations of their company and services, which isn't directly seen by regular users.

Software freedom should be valued for itself.

[jbn-o]

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.

Google mentioned more than Yahoo or Linux in Oct

[elfguygmail.com]

Interestingly, Slashdot had a Google story 22 times since Oct 1. Yahoo had 3 times and Linux 21 times.

Makes me wonder..

[FunWithKnives]

Why there are no Linux (or BSD, etc) versions of the majority of Google's software? Kind of unusual, eh?

Re:Really Committed to Open Source?

[PrvtBurrito]

This is exactly correct, and suggests at a flaw in the GPL. Web service companies can edit GPL'd code all they want and they do not have to redistribute those changes. This clearly favors web service models over traditional ones.

Is that even enough for the furniture?

[tivoKlr]

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...

News at 10

[Comatose51]

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.

well, they do

[zogger]

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.