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Google Launches New Website To Showcase Its Open Source Projects and Processes (betanews.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the open-source-community dept.

BrianFagioli writes: Google is an essential member of the open source community. The search giant contributes some really great projects, offering code to be used many -- it claims more than 2,000 such contributions! Heck, the company even hosts the annual Summer of Code program, where it pairs students with open source projects teams. In other words, Google is helping to get young folks excited about open source. Today, Google announced that it is launching an all-new website to focus on open source. It is not a general open source site, but a destination to learn more about the search-giant's relationship with it. "Today, we're launching opensource.google.com, a new website for Google Open Source that ties together all of our initiatives with information on how we use, release, and support open source. This new site showcases the breadth and depth of our love for open source. It will contain the expected things: our programs, organizations we support, and a comprehensive list of open source projects we've released. But it also contains something unexpected: a look under the hood at how we 'do' open source," says Will Norris, Open Source Programs Office, Google.

36 comments

  1. Well, heck! by subk · · Score: 0

    2,000 Contributions?!? Gee golly! Brian Fagg-holio strikes again

    --
    Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
    1. Re:Well, heck! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2,000 projects, not 2,000 changes.

      The summary is misleading.

    2. Re:Well, heck! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      google is actually one of the *worst* members of the open source "community" and has a shitty history of "support" for open source and open source projects. microsoft, perhaps, is a better member of the "community" (that still isn't saying much for microsoft) than google, even with microsoft's ties to lawsuits against linux, among other things.

    3. Re:Well, heck! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget to pay your $699 licencing fee!

    4. Re: Well, heck! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Open source, especially Apache 2 type releases, although useful to the public, can be abused via secret handshake style recruit ing whereby insider developers are tipped off to work on certain projects to get a job or a H1B, especially from the far east, it can be abused by getting contributors to do the work for you - related to above, and it can be a mechanism (this point is pretty big) to shephard developers into workibg with the application of such technology according to their constraints and design. This means you are forced not only into a constrained way of looking at problems but also the labor force which seeks to apply the theory they learn is skillfully more experienced in the technology they are exposed to via open source, which helps big tech companies guarantee a stream of practitioners eho can use their technological implementation.

  2. How Google does Open Source by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Funny

    1) Start hosting open source projects for free
    2) Stop hosting open source projects for free
    3) Profit!

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:How Google does Open Source by Tough+Love · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wow, what an annoying front end. I don't want to see bouncy balls and random projects, I want some kind of rational, useful view, perhaps by popularity, contribution rate, dependent projects? Something that does not scream PR. Something that does not scream style over substance. As PR, this just reminds of Google's sad record of trying to force its anti-copyleft views on the community. So far, every random project that popped up is Apache-licensed. Hey Google, Apache may be your favourite license, it is not necessarily ours. Looks like the same arrogant people running this PR effort as Google's previous abandonware project hosting. At least they seem to have stopped beating the dead Subversion horse, that is at least something. All the random projects that popped up for me point at Github.

      If this page is indicative of how Google "does" open source, then Google has serious issues "doing" open source. Maybe Google should be less concerned about "doing" open source and more about participating in it.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    2. Re:How Google does Open Source by haruchai · · Score: 1

      Click the grid View button on the upper right

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    3. Re:How Google does Open Source by Tough+Love · · Score: 2

      Click the grid View button on the upper right

      Already did. Another lame view, what is it trying to be, pretty on a 4 inch handset? Why does it waste so much screen space, just to show a title, short description and icon? Continues the theme of form over function. Where is a simple list of all projects, one per line? That should be the base functionality, then shovel on the shiny, if you must. Or not. The kind of person who matters to this site doesn't want shiny, they want deep and functional. Take a look at Github if that isn't clear.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    4. Re:How Google does Open Source by alantus · · Score: 1

      Right, click the grid view, then click on "Load more" about 30 times.

    5. Re:How Google does Open Source by haruchai · · Score: 1

      Or you can also filter by Category and Language

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    6. Re:How Google does Open Source by trawg · · Score: 3, Interesting

      While I don't disagree with you (I hate fancy pants websites as much as the next nerd that just wants a plain text list of things), I'd note two things:

      1) There's a 'grid view' option at the top right of the list of projects that provides a simple interface to view the list. It's still not as good as a simple table list but it's better than the weird mess that you get by default.

      2) I have to wonder if part of the reason for this is to intentionally make it the sort of flashy shit that appeals to less nerdy more mainstream types (CxOs who want to see pretty colours and animations). Open source still has a reputation as ugly, scruffy, immature, etc (we can argue about whether that is deserved or not all day), and this approach makes it a little more slick.

      Perfectly willing to agree this is annoying. I want a table list. But if it helps people take a look at open source with fresh new eyes maybe it isn't all bad?

    7. Re:How Google does Open Source by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      Agreed even the grid view is hard to navigate it's all show and no substance

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    8. Re:How Google does Open Source by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Message not received.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  3. Rofl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well self-masturbatory, but yeah, thx google

    1. Re: Rofl by subk · · Score: 1

      Self-masterbatory

      Isn't that kind of redundant?

      --
      Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
    2. Re: Rofl by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

      Self-masterbatory

      Isn't that kind of redundant?

      As opposed to mutual-masterbatory.

      --
      When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
    3. Re: Rofl by haruchai · · Score: 1

      Self-masterbatory

      Isn't that kind of redundant?

      It was redundant before you changed the spelling

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
  4. 3/29/18 google shuts open source website down by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Whoops we did it again. You started to trust us and we decided to shut another service down. Sorry?

  5. Youtube Censorship Algo? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Will that be open sourced too? The problem appears to be legacy media attacking the now dominant form of information by attacking the advertisers and revenue streams of those who earn a living from producing content. They're even demonetizing videos from the LBTGWhatever community and it's fantastic that they are finally starting to care about free speech, rather than shutting opposing points of view down.

    What happened to "do no evil"? Fuck off pro-censorship Google!

  6. front-end GUI is crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What do they think the target audience is ? Do they intend to sell Nike shoes ? This site should have been implemented more in the lines like any other relevant site like postgreSQL documentation etc etc, think wiki wikipedia etc; buy hey ! it seems it was made by the PR department or the "design generation using the cloud"

    Seriously, a plain text interface, this is for developers only, I was browsing the projects and have to hit "show more" every 9 silly big icons for every project stating almost nothing about it: a text list with descriptions alongside please, and a show all button/link/whatever

    1. Re:front-end GUI is crap by haruchai · · Score: 1

      It could be better but there are 2 filters you can use to cut down on the number of squares shown.
      There's the Filter Languages so you can show only the projects written in, for example, Go and the arrow to the right of the Search field to pick a category.
      So if you filter on Rust and choose Utilities for the category, it shows only Bazel and the Hat Backup System, whatever the hell those are.

      --
      Pain is merely failure leaving the body
    2. Re:front-end GUI is crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      yes, I've seen it; and it's almost useless

      I wanted to (and I did it) check a description of every project and since there was no show all projects button/link I had to browse every category one by one, seeing the same projects over and over again since almost all are tagged with many categories -the GUI is non-sense.

      Whoever put this crap online lost many many hours "designing" the GUI/style/javascripts/css ... al those man hours could have been better used writing detailed summaries for each project with a barebones interface; in the end, we're programmers, we don't like bouncing balls and non-sense animations on documentation pages.

    3. Re:front-end GUI is crap by telchine · · Score: 2

      What do they think the target audience is ? Do they intend to sell Nike shoes ?

      Yup, hideous UI. whats wrong with a list?

  7. This is a brilliant idea! by tlambert · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is a brilliant idea!

    I vote they name it "Google Labs"...

  8. Sooooooo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google launches marketing site?

  9. Obscure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How can they call it a "showcase" when they make it so difficult to view the set of projects in any reasonable form?

  10. Something about Google and open source stinks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whenever someone tries to tie Google and open source together it makes me cringe. All that Google has done to better open source was for Google's benefit not anyone else. This faux open source claim from Google is just them patting themselves on their own backs.

  11. Say one thing, do another by BigBrownChunx · · Score: 1

    I have a few buddies who work at Google but are in total fear of losing their jobs by contributing to open source projects. On the surface everything seems fine and everyone is super helpful until you hunt down the one person at Google who is the expert and then everything goes silent because they don't want to rock the boat.

    1. Re:Say one thing, do another by wnorris · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Our process for patching external projects is pretty straightforward (https://opensource.google.com/docs/patching/). Tell your buddies to contact me (they can look me up in our internal directory) and I can try to help address their concerns. -Will Norris

  12. Damage Control by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

    This all smacks of attempts at damage control to me. They're being attacked left and right (both figuratively and politically), and their "stick our fingers in our ears" defence isn't working anymore.

    So now they're all, "But... but... look at all the good we're doing!", hoping we'll ignore the fact that they kill off projects as fast as they put them out, and generally can't be trusted with anything that needs to last more than 6 months.

    1. Re:Damage Control by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree and disagree.

      Disagree:

      Google's relationship with the media accounts for their secrecy. They don't get a fair shake. Much of the coverage is absolutely hysterical. It takes a clown president to make the media look remotely respectable. The effect is poisonous because the critiques are rarely effective or on point, but it inoculates well-meaning Googlers who are quite capable of resigning over a principle from all criticism generally. And it breaks process: they should be transparent and accept criticism and oversight given their power, but because the oversight has so little legitimacy they rely on one another's "good intent" and mistake intent for outcome, allowing delusional optimism and infiltrating sociopaths to warp them toward evil that is never noticed by the hyenas in the press.

      Agree:

      Google depends on people who could easily find gainful employment anywhere else, and puts them to work on boring proprietary software, sets requirements by heirarchy, and throws out all their work after about five years. As a colleague says, you may as well flip burgers because at the end of the day you made nothing. You have no professional legacy. Your "output" is measured, but your work is not respected.

      I suspect they identified either through hiring (rejected offers) or their yearly survey that they were losing the best people to free software and keeping the clock-punching monkeys and B-team rejects. This is desperate internal PR. I'm not sure it will save them. There is a cream of excellent people they can keep, top researchers whose work is still respected, and is supported at Google in ways it wouldn't be elsewhere, and are paid millions a year that competitors couldn't afford. I don't think they will lose the inventor of Spanner. However, even these guys are demanding openness: Tensorflow single-machine release, Golang release, GRPC. But the tier below them but above the chattel, I suspect and hope will drain away to open source unless they start respecting desire for professional legacy more.

      This is what happened to Sun after Oracle bought them. After the historic release of OpenSolaris, anyone useful left, partly due to culture but partly due to the closed wall coming back down. I think standards of openness among top engineers are finally rising. It's about fucking time.

    2. Re:Damage Control by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      I wish you could mod on the same discussion you post in. I would give this a +1 interesting.

  13. I launched this to not showcase Google ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  14. bugs by Andrey_Karpov · · Score: 1

    Well, now PVS-Studio has more code to check and to entertain the readers with reports. :) About the analysis of various open source projects by PVS-Studio Team: https://www.viva64.com/en/insp...