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Google Exec Hints At Future Open Platform

Posted by timothy on from the all-very-vague dept.

rsmiller510 writes "At the recent Web 2.0 Summit, Dave Girouard, who is president of Google's enterprise division, stated that his company's long-term goal is to open up the Google development stack to outside developers. If this is true, then it could have some serious long-term implications for developers who could use Google services in new and interesting ways."

13 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Informative

    I read the entire article. Can I have my five minutes back please?

    Summary of article:

    Google Exec: We're going to open.... The box!
    People: Open what?
    Google Exec: The box! With... the wires, and blinky lights, and stuff in it!
    People: What's in the box?
    Google Exec: New and interesting things!
    People: O RLY?
    Google Exec: YA RLY!
    People: ...
    Google Exec: Oh look, pretty shiny...

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    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:Well... by Smauler · · Score: 2, Informative

      Basically, Google haven't made an announcement of anything - they are not committing themselves to anything, and they never fucking said they were when they made this "hint". This is basically a non-story about a blogger with too much time on his hands who has overanalysed Google's output and managed to get himself on /.. That's just my take, others may see this as significant, but to me : nothing to see here, move along.

    2. Re:Well... by i.of.the.storm · · Score: 4, Funny

      I read your comment. Can I have my 30 seconds back please?

      Summary of comment:

      girlintraining: Generic rant about genericness of article
      me: lol

      On a more serious note, I hate it when they do that. Google is awesome with the things that they do but they can be so hopelessly vague. And while I like that Android/the G1 are more open than most cellphone platforms, it's really not much different from other smartphone platforms like Windows Mobile, with the exception that you can't run native programs on Android (yet). I'm not entirely sure whether their Dalvik VM is optimized enough for this to not matter, and I am most proficient in Java, but it would be nicer to have more options for development on Android.

      --
      All your base are belong to Wii.
    3. Re:Well... by SevenSpirits · · Score: 2, Funny

      The planet does not consist of just software.

      I see you took the red pill.

  2. If by open... by retech · · Score: 5, Funny

    he means they'll track all my personal information and use it to their advantage... then count me in!

    1. Re:If by open... by TheSpoom · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't worry, you were counted in a long time ago whether you knew it or not.

      --
      It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
      - E. Debs
  3. It's a Smart Strategy by Anik315 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Allowing everyone to help out with Google's product development is a smart strategy because of how difficult it is becoming to keep up with software enthusiasts who like to collaborate on open source projects. It will be interesting to see how Google will be able to harness the power of collaborative development in their core products.

    1. Re:It's a Smart Strategy by rfelsburg · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As much as I would love to see google's code become open source, I have a feeling that's not what they were talking about. At the moment, their apps are what are making them a substantial amount of money, if all of a sudden gmail became open source what would that do to their business.

      I have a feeling this is more Ala Apple, where they are interested in creating some semblance of openness by allowing some interaction from outside developers.

      -Rob

  4. Open may not mean what we would like by Morgaine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's a danger with the word "open", as it carries such good connotations for us here. However, just because we like "open" doesn't mean that whatever is coming from Google is going to match our expectations, let alone our desires.

    You have to remember that Google is a very different beast to RedHat for example. Google's business M.O. is like that of no other corporation, so it's hard to draw comparisons, but nobody would ever suggest that they are "an open source company" (not even close), despite the many open source projects that they host, promote, support, and of course use. At best, they are a "somewhat open source friendly" company, and undoubtedly they also know that being open is becoming increasingly important, so they're responding to that.

    Note that Google's main products are all closed, and most of them possess a few annoying "features" that would have been fixed by now if they were an open source company --- I'm sure that we can all point to some "feature/bugs" that irritate us personally. :-) In fact they're not even very good at responding to popular feature requests (almost apathetic), so true wide-scale openness is really a long way off for Google.

    Given the above, I think that some caution is required when interpreting highly non-specific words spoken by Google execs. While we would like them to become massively more open, their openness may not come in a form that the FOSS community would find particularly attractive. In particular, any thought that Google is going to cede huge amounts of control over to open source developers is almost certainly sheer fantasy.

    --
    "The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
  5. Open Android by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Informative

    Android was supposed to be an open mobile phone OS. But now it seems that it's "open" for reading, not writing or executing. That is, you can look at the source code, but you can't write any changes to your phone. The firmware locks out any OS software that doesn't match the checksum or something. That lockout gives Google control of the Android OS, which means the phones are not open, and Google can even lock out apps it doesn't like, or keep features like remote shutdown (by Google, not by you), even if you want to delete that "feature".

    How about Google just opens the Android platform, by allowing the phones to run even altered Android OS versions? Then I'll start believing Google when it claims to "open" some other platform even more likely to stay closed, because it runs on their own hardware, not mine.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  6. Isn't that called App Engine? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Google has been opening up their platform already; App Engine gives developers (some) access to GFS, BigTable, auto-scaling magic, etc.

  7. Open Hardware vx branding by krischik · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, it's not the OS's fault when the hardware (aka the phone) won't accept altered versions.

    Note that in the mobile phone business software locks are the norm - and for a reason: branding. Without the ability to brand phones many network providers won't sell the phone for a subsidised price. Branding if course needs to be sufficiently complicated to remove. And shall consist of more the a start-up screen. Orange for example likes to remove the ability to use mp3 as ring tone - so you need to buy ring toned from - you guessed it - orange.

    So Google is between the devil and the deep blue see here. Without software lock down no subsidised phones which in case of a smart phone means a â1000 price tag. Which in turn means: very few customers.

    Of course I can see a way out of it: Developers edition phone for everyone who is prepared to pay the unsubsidised price to get total freedom and end user edition with the needed lock downs.

    Usually developers editions (at least for Windows Mobile, Symbian etc. pp.) are only available to those you can prove that they are full time mobile phone developers and sign NDA's on top of it.

    Martin

  8. As open as Android? by Godji · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If whatever they are going to open up (didn't RTFA) is as open as Android, it will only be open to you if you are a large company that has the money to manufacture . To the rest of us, it will be as open as an iPhone.

    After Android, I don't hold my breath when Google promise anything open. I'll believe them again when they open-source Google Earth or something.