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Google Announces Open Source Repository

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the competing dept.

NewsForge (also owned by OSTG) has word of Google's newest product: an open-source project repository. Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier sat down for a talk with Greg Stein and Chris DiBona, who say that the product is very similar to sites like SourceForge but is not intended to compete with them. From the article: "Instead, Stein says that the goal is to see what Google can do with the Google infrastructure, to provide an alternative for open source projects. DiBona says that it's a 'direct result of Greg concentrating on what open source projects need. Most bugtrackers are informed by what corporations' and large projects need, whereas Google's offering is just about what open source developers need. Stein says that Google's hosting has a 'brand new look' at issue tracking that may be of interest to open source projects, and says 'nobody else out there is doing anything close to it.'"

16 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. No Public Domain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A quick look through the licenses mentioned in the TFA shows that public domain is missing.

    Although its not a license per se, it might be nice to add that option for those projects that choose to go that route.

    1. Re:No Public Domain by rollercoaster375 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Also missing is the option for Dual Licensing of your application. GPL and MIT (with a fee), for example.

    2. Re:No Public Domain by rucs_hack · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You automatically have copyright unless you specify otherwise.

      Public domain isn't the same as open source, open source means the developers retain rights, public domain means you give them all up, public domain can be taken by a stranger and made proprietary, is that really what you want? I suggest you have a little think on that issue.

      Google isn't specifically addressing that issue yet, just open source. Perhaps you should submit a request to have public domain added, it is after all only in the initial stages.

    3. Re:No Public Domain by rucs_hack · · Score: 2, Interesting

      "No matter how propietary their use of it is, that does not lessen the value of the existing code one bit, and only reflects positively on myself."

      It doesn't reflect on you at all, they can strip your name from the code, there is no obligation to credit you. They might not do this, but they can, and most will (human nature does lean this way as a rule).

      Yes, some large projects are public domain, that's their choice. In the case you cite, SQLlite, the project is so large that people would likely notice a complete copy that was proprietary anyway, bringing discredit to any firm claiming to have developed it in house. The other important aspect is that it is a collaborative work, the people involved will almost certainly have personal work as well. It's different if it's all your own code being taken and locked away.

      I'd never use public domain, although I allow my code to be extensivelly used by others (ports and derivatives take up a lot of my time, I enjoy the collaboration). I would take issue with people claiming my work as their own (in some cases it represents years of hard work on my part, and I definatelly want credit along with my existing academic priority through publications related to the work), but I have no problem whatso-ever with people supplanting my code with better implementations.

      Ok, I don't like public domain much, I'll admit that, but if you want to use it that's your choice, I can do nought but say it's entirely up to you what you do with your own code.

    4. Re:No Public Domain by Zarel · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It doesn't reflect on you at all, they can strip your name from the code, there is no obligation to credit you. They might not do this, but they can, and most will (human nature does lean this way as a rule).
      Few people actually read the credits of a particular piece of software, anyway. It's well worth the extra publicity you get by releasing a project under public domain than to be removed from the credits of a particular piece of software written by people who don't like you.

      I would take issue with people claiming my work as their own
      So would I, but if I had enough evidence to successfully sue them for claiming my works as theirs, I could just as easily ridicule them for trying to pass off my work as theirs. And it'd be that much more of a PR disaster for them. That's a very low price to pay for freedom.
      --
      Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
    5. Re:No Public Domain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      If you released your code into the public domain, you'd have very little luck even ridiculing for someone else passing it off as their own.
      You've explicitly allowed them to do anything with it, including passing it off as their own.

      You could yell from the highest mountain about how they were using your code, and they'd just say "Yes, we know. It was in the public domain, so we used it" There'd be no PR disaster because they hadn't done anything wrong.

  2. Re:What the catch? by swimmar132 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you saying that Google is going to insert code into your C++ open source project that talks to a Google server?

    If so, I'd like some of that crack please.

  3. I was going to say that without ads it was nice... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...before I noticed what bullshit they slipped in.

    I was looking around http://code.google.com/ when I took a look at the "Featured Projects". Pirate Island is a blatent advertisement for Dead Man's Chest, though it looks like a legit project until you go to the site. Google also did some bullshit like that with the Davinci Code too. I don't care if they want to advertise it. I have a big problem when they try to trick their users into thinking it's useful content.

  4. "Sourceforge has the occasional problem" by jbellis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    More like, "sourceforge has constant outages, a glacial improvement pace, and the slowest response time of any site I use on a regular basis."

    Bring on googleforge.

  5. Re:I was going to say that without ads it was nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Another none event:


    This site uses JavaScript.
    Please enable JavaScript in your browser and then click here to enter the site.

    We've detected that you need a later version of Flash Player to view this site.

    It's FREE so download Flash Player here.

    When you've installed Flash Player or if you're sure you have it, click here to enter the site.


    Why the fuck is this garbage listed in an OSS repository?



    Here's a couple of alternative domain names for them:
    discoverthegapingsecurityholecalledjavascript.com
     
    discovertheproprietrypluginthatisruiningtheworldwi deweb.com

  6. Read the FAQ by dmoore · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The FAQ for Google's hosting service is here:
    http://code.google.com/hosting/faq.html

  7. Beating SF ... by lintux · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Beating SourceForge shouldn't be hard. Just leave out that terrible mirrors page on every binary download and they're done. I really hope there'll be a day when the SourceForge people will come up with something more convenient... (Just using HTTP Location: header forwards instead of HTML META tags would be a start!)

  8. Microsoft monopoly a good thing? by QuantumFTL · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder - if Microsoft was not such a big player, but rather there were several somewhat smaller players, like Microsoft, Apple, and IBM, would there be any large companies that invest in open source as IBM does now? I mean, it seems like one of the big reasons that IBM and Google invest in FOSS is because it is a good way to strike indirectly - and often directly - at Microsoft. If there was no "king of the hill," would we still see this level of investment?

    1. Re:Microsoft monopoly a good thing? by oneandoneis2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      IBM don't invest in Linux out of philanthropy, and they don't do it to "get at" Microsoft. They invest because Linux is a huge cash-cow, IBM knows how to milk it, and thus it makes them large amounts of cash. And that's what matters to a big company. They make money, we get something like a billion dollars a year invested in Linux, and everybody's happy.

      Except MS. But that's their problem ;o)

      --
      So.. it has come to this
  9. No Disclaimer? by indrax · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Isn't Sourceforge owned by Andover, which also owns Slashdot?

    Isn't it generally policy to note such potential conflicts of interest?

  10. Feature I Need: Migrate Project from Sourceforge by hritcu · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If they would have a feature entitled "Migrate Project from Sourceforge" that would require only 1 click then I would use it.

    --
    If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. (Alan Kay)