"The meaning of open" according to Google

[Posted December 22, 2009 by corbet]

Here is a lengthy weblog posting by Google VP Jonathan Rosenberg on what "open" means to that company. It was, evidently, initially meant for employees, then made available to the wider world. "So as you are building your product or adding new features, stop and ask yourself: Would open sourcing this code promote the open Internet? Would it spur greater user, advertiser, and partner choice? Would it lead to greater competition and innovation? If so, then you should make it open source. And when you do, do it right; don't just push it over the wall into the public realm and forget about it. Make sure you have the resources to pay attention to the code and foster developer engagement."

to post comments

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 14:41 UTC (Tue) by sturmflut (subscriber, #38256) [Link] (19 responses)

"And when you do, do it right; don't just push it over the wall into the public realm and forget about it. Make sure you have the resources to pay attention to the code and foster developer engagement."

...like Android?

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 15:08 UTC (Tue) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] (15 responses)

...or ChromeOS?

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 15:51 UTC (Tue) by lyda (subscriber, #7429) [Link] (14 responses)

Huh?

Note, I work for Google but don't work with either project you describe.
However looking on the web I find:

The ChromiumOS source repo: http://src.chromium.org/cgi-
bin/gitweb.cgi

And that seems to include the browser as well as the OS. Looking at the
commit logs for the different projects I see recent commits from
google.com addresses and external addresses.

For Android there's this page: http://source.android.com/download

There's a link to the tree which shows a lot of subprojects with varying
levels of activity. The recently changed bits have checkins from Google and
non-Google addresses. That page also explains how to contribute code -
a similar page for Chromium OS is here:
http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/getting-involved-in-c...
os

So I fail to see the point of either comment here.

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 15:58 UTC (Tue) by jjs (guest, #10315) [Link]

On the Android - see the recent dropping of Android changes to the kernel because no one was maintaining them.

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 16:44 UTC (Tue) by ewan (guest, #5533) [Link]

Also see Spot's recent post on why Chromium isn't in Fedora proper for a long list of ways to not 'do it right'.

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 17:18 UTC (Tue) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link] (9 responses)

Having a public source repo is an important step towards "Make sure you have the resources to pay attention to the code and foster developer engagement.", but far from all the way.

The Android code contributions to the kernel has been handled exactly like the post is warning against. Dumped on the kernel devs, then completely forgotten about.

- That being said, this is still a million times better than any of Google's competition is doing.

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 17:56 UTC (Tue) by robla (subscriber, #424) [Link] (3 responses)

That being said, this is still a million times better than any of Google's competition is doing

This is key. It seems that the community is often harder on companies that almost get it right than companies that fail miserably

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 20:47 UTC (Tue) by ballombe (subscriber, #9523) [Link] (1 responses)

I would rather say that the community is harder on companies that boast about their partial success than on companies that fail miserably but silently.

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 21:26 UTC (Tue) by robla (subscriber, #424) [Link]

Are you saying that's any better?

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 21:30 UTC (Tue) by martinfick (subscriber, #4455) [Link]

The community isn't hard on those who fail miserably because the larger part of the community isn't even interested in them or their products. The key word is "community", those in it are mostly discussed.

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 23, 2009 8:18 UTC (Wed) by intgr (subscriber, #39733) [Link] (4 responses)

> That being said, this is still a million times better than any of Google's
> competition is doing.

Huh?
Nokia is a Google competitor. OpenMoko was a Google competitor. They both
get it mostly right.

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 23, 2009 12:22 UTC (Wed) by Los__D (guest, #15263) [Link]

Ah, of course. I was mostly thinking companies like Google, that covers many different kinds of business/software, but pure Android competition should of course also be counted.

I'll change that to _most_ of Google's competition.

- The worst about forgetting Nokia is that I'm writing this on an N900...

Hmm...

Posted Dec 24, 2009 0:07 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (2 responses)

OpenMoko was never a competitor (it was a joke), and as for Nokia... are you really saying binary blobs are better then thrown-over-the-wall code?

Hmm...

Posted Dec 24, 2009 2:03 UTC (Thu) by intgr (subscriber, #39733) [Link] (1 responses)

Nokia does have binary drivers, but they do "get it" as far as the distribution and user space software is concerned. Google is only releasing their source so they can say "look at us we're open source" while they're actually stifling community participation.

Yes, I will claim that Nokia is doing better.

Funny, two years ago situation was different...

Posted Dec 24, 2009 11:00 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

So to get high marks from community Google should stop publishing drivers, start dropping support for older devices but instead should publish more design docs and beta versions? Ok, got it, I'll think Google will do better in the future.

Starting with ChromeOS ARM netbooks: I doubt we'll see sources for 3D hardware on these beasts, but development is more open then was with Android so looks like your pleas were heard...

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 18:16 UTC (Tue) by corvus (guest, #82) [Link] (1 responses)

In addition to the recent kernel changes others mentioned, the Android Open Source Project as a whole is largely an example of throwing the code over the wall rather than fostering a developer community.

Development on the Android platform happens in secret and in source code repositories other than the AOSP repository to which you pointed. Only after major releases are made by the carriers, and generally start arriving on handsets, are the huge monolithic code dumps made to the AOSP tree, with commitlogs like "eclair snapshot". It is rarely possible to build a version of the AOSP that even resembles what is actually run on production phones. The pitfalls of working with the AOSP have been covered in a number of very good articles here on LWN.

Outsiders wanting to contribute to Android must write their code to a version of the software that is out of date and does not match what is run on actual devices. After overcoming those hurdles, if that code does make it to the AOSP tree, who knows if it will ever make it "upstream" from there to where real Android development happens.

There is no doubt that the openness of the Android platform, such as it is, has made a big difference in the field. However, it is a far cry from what FOSS would consider an open source project and does not live up to the level of openness and developer engagement in Mr. Rosenberg's post.

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 19:00 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

Interestingly, http://g1files.webs.com/AndroidProject.html does imply a certain level of relatively
recent backtracking in terms of Android and community interaction.

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 18:45 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (2 responses)

Nobody would write an internal memo if what it said to do was already being done. That said, in the Android case, the main thing where they are failing is the kernel drivers, which they legally had to release source for, even if they didn't have the resources to maintain it and interact with the community.

Actually, taking the contrapositives of that memo gives: if you don't have the resources to interact with the community, don't release source, and if you don't release source, don't do anything that would improve the world if it were open. But, obviously, the right interpretation is that you should follow as much of the memo as you can: do projects that could be open source if it makes sense to, release source if it would be useful, make it a priority to support it; it's better to do step 2 and fail at step 3 than to not even do step 2.

They designed nicer hardware for running open source software on than they might have, and they threw more source over the wall than they might have, and, if just one person (Pavel Machek) has had his life improved because of it, it was the right thing to do. Of course, it would be better if it benefited more than one person, but a journey of a thousand miles starts with one guy charging off alone, leaving a trail of broken branches that other people occasionally think about following.

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 21:07 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link] (1 responses)

If I were inside the Google-dome and I got that memo... my next question would be. Okay.. so how do I request and secure additional resources from my management so that I can open up this code the right way instead of just throwing it over the wall? Is Google as a corporate entity going to back up their internal staff with paid time and mid and low level managerial support to handle the code the right way?

-jef

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 21:41 UTC (Tue) by blitzkrieg3 (guest, #57873) [Link]

Companies like Red Hat and Novell do, and I'm sure that google makes more per employee than those two...

"The meaning of open" according to Google

Posted Dec 22, 2009 15:29 UTC (Tue) by sylware (guest, #35259) [Link]

The GNU GPL helps recover optimal code. But Google has the same powerfull weapon than the other corporations have: money.

It's a nice blog entry, who would not agree?

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 22, 2009 17:41 UTC (Tue) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] (10 responses)

It's kind of weird when there's an Adobe EULA between Google and the user. I'll be happy if I can use Youtube without a plugin: Google toys with plug-in free YouTube.

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 22, 2009 17:56 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (9 responses)

I use Youtube without a plugin. Youtube is nice in the way that it does not try to obsofgate the video stream in javascript BS.

There are two ways that I do it:

1. Through the perl-based clive program.
2. Through the Chrome plugin called "YouTube HTML5-ifier" (there is another one called YouTagger. This blocks the flash from working and adds html5 video tags to the webpage so that I can watch video without flash.

Too bad something like that will never work on Firefox due to the refusal to allow the use of external codecs unlike every other multimedia application in the known f-ing universe.

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 22, 2009 18:06 UTC (Tue) by bboissin (subscriber, #29506) [Link] (5 responses)

Interesting extensions, too bad they don't work if you don't have flash in
the first place...

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 22, 2009 19:22 UTC (Tue) by donbarry (guest, #10485) [Link] (3 responses)

Try youtube-dl. It's a command-line script.

Then you can use your favorite (preferably free)
multimedia tool to play or manipulate the video,
or save it to your library.

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 22, 2009 21:16 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (1 responses)

I like "clive" since it works with more services then just youtube.

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 22, 2009 23:01 UTC (Tue) by dtlin (subscriber, #36537) [Link]

And I like "cclive" since it has been more reliable (clive will still choke
on oddly-encoded pages), but it's all the same idea :)

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 23, 2009 1:00 UTC (Wed) by bboissin (subscriber, #29506) [Link]

Yes, I'm aware of those. But it's still simpler for me if it runs in the
browser :)

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 23, 2009 1:05 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Try totem. It has a youtube plugin (you have to enable it). No flash involved AFAIK.

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 22, 2009 19:44 UTC (Tue) by rillian (subscriber, #11344) [Link] (2 responses)

It would work fine if youtube published their content in a royalty-free format. Back to openness again.

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 23, 2009 17:57 UTC (Wed) by __alex (guest, #38036) [Link] (1 responses)

H.264 is royalty free for most uses.

I CAN HAZ <video> PLZ?

Posted Dec 24, 2009 4:04 UTC (Thu) by Simetrical (guest, #53439) [Link]

Not true. See a summary of the terms. You have to pay them if you distribute encoders, if you distribute decoders, or if you sell video, or if you give it away for free except over the Internet. The only thing that has an unlimited royalty-free license for now is distribution of video for free over the Internet, and that may change in 2011: "there will be no royalty during the first term of the License (ending December 31, 2010), and after the first term the royalty shall be no more than the economic equivalent of royalties payable during the same time for free television."

Website admins might not be too concerned for the next year. But after that, better watch out. I'm sure MPEGLA would love nothing more than to get everyone hooked on free video and then suddenly start charging major video-sharing sites a large sum of money if they don't want to reencode everything.

Granted, the license fees for free television right now are pretty small, but the point is, patented software formats are a trap unless you hold an irrevocable license. Otherwise you get locked in and are at the patent-holder's mercy. Even more than with closed-source software – at least you can usually keep using closed-source software for free once you've bought it.