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Google Gets Serious About Open Source Mac Projects

Posted by Soulskill on from the much-more-productive-than-freecell dept.

mjasay sends us a link to a CNet story, which begins: "In the '20 percent time' that Google employees have to work on projects of personal interest, it turns out that an increasing number are spending time writing open-source projects for their Macs. Google has long had a fondness for the Mac, with upwards of 6,000 of its 20,000 current employees opting to use the Mac over Windows. It is in the 20 percent employee development time, however, where this statistic becomes interesting. At Google, development time translates into products. The more Mac-friendly employees, the more Mac-related development. The more Mac-related development, the more Google-sponsored Mac-based open-source code. As Google's Mac Developer Playground demonstrates, some of this code is quite interesting."

4 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Mac developers don't do cross platform. by GalionTheElf · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you disagree, can you name a single significant open source desktop application that originated on the Mac and is now cross platform (supporting Windows, Mac and Linux at least)? Handbrake.

    Please note though that I'm not particularly up on the politics here, but handbrake is a brilliant, once mac-only, video conversion tool.
    --
    I'm going over here and I don't know why!
  2. Re:Mac developers don't do cross platform. by cleatsupkeep · · Score: 5, Informative

    Transmission.

    http://www.transmissionbt.com/

  3. Re:Incorrect summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Incorrect summary and incorrect correction. I work at google and we get to choose twice: on the desktop and on the laptop. Most developers choose a linux desktop and mac laptop. A few choose a windows laptop, but end up installing linux on it as well.

    Also, nothing in the company is 'by default'. If it involves how you work, you get asked how you want to do it. If it's not something completely insane, it's usually approved, since forcing you to go work in a way that you're not used to causes loss of productivity until you get used to the new way.

  4. Re:Mac developers don't do cross platform. by blacklint · · Score: 5, Informative

    Did you actually look at that link? Darwin Streaming Server and CalendarServer are Apple written server applications that can be run on other operating systems, not the other way around. I've personally run Darwin Streaming Server, the open sourced version of QuickTime Streaming Server, on a Debian box.