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It appears a lot of the negative Google stuff I read is driven by emotions upset with the alt right thinking they are against them. Seems to have started with

It appears a lot of the negative Google stuff I read is driven by emotions upset with the alt right thinking they are against them. Seems to have started with firing Damore. I have ZERO problem criticizing anyone. But if we look at all the tech companies there has never been any tech company that give away more IP than Google. Nobody even close. So my post is a lot more about removing the social politics emotions and look at actual data. It is crazy giving away Borg and the K8S trademark. But Google has open sourced so much stuff. We have five OSs today. iOS, OS X, Windows, Android and ChromeOS. Two are open source. Yes I realize there was a OSS of Apple OSs but that is NOT what is used today. But then Chrome and well so many other things. But look at giving away Map/Reduce and GFS and so many other things in papers. I tire a bit of the bitching on HN and really worry Google will end giving away stuff. It is hard to see why they continue. There is little in it for them.

scarface74 8y ago
have ZERO problem criticizing anyone. But if we look at all the tech companies there has never been any tech company that give away more IP than Google. Nobody even close. Google only "gives away" IP that isn't part of their core business - just like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. Where is the code for Google crawler and search algorithm? Gmail? Google Play Services? The back end for Google Docs?
- jacksmith21006 8y ago
  Would argue nothing is more core than Borg. So would disagree. I do think they are holding back some stuff and a big one is SDC stuff. Plus we do not get the info until next release. So we got gen 1 TPUs after Gen 2. We will probably get gen 2 details with gen 3 release. But Google shares so much more than any other tech company. I think possibly ever?
  - scarface74 8y ago
    What has Google open sourced that would put it at a competitive disadvantage if a competitor uses it? Android? Earlier on they really didn't have a choice if they wanted to compete with Microsoft with the OEMs. When they became basically the only game in town for device manufacturers, they closef off much of what made Android Android to most people. Even Apple open sources stuff when they want to gain traction in a market as does Microsoft. How is Google's strategy any different from Microsoft's and Netflix's? It would have been unthinkable a few years ago that MS would open source .Net and make it cross platform or gone through the trouble of creating Visual Studio Code that supports almost every popular language.
    - jacksmith21006 8y ago
      Android and Amazon using for the Echo and much of their hardware?
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Google didn't have a choice but to "open source" Android to compete for OEMs against Microsoft. But as soon as they gained dominance, they started closing off more and more of what makes Android what it is to most people. Look at how many of Google Services are not only not available on Amazon devices, Google actively blocked YouTube from being on Amazon devices. Besides, Android itself doesn't make Google money - advertising and to a lesser extent Google Play does. Why else would Google pay Apple $2 billion a year to be the preferred search provider on iOS?
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    That would be like saying nothing is more core to Microsoft than .NET, which they also gave away for free. In reality, this is nonsense, because both are backend technical tools, NOT core products. Google is not going to open source Google Search any more than Microsoft is going to open source Windows: Google is a closed product company and they're not going to give away what actually makes them money. Microsoft has actually been topping GitHub's contributions graph for a while. Even Apple's been opening a bunch of stuff up lately. And apart from some licensing squabbles, nearly everyone's been moving their frontend web code to a framework made by Facebook. Of course, again, none of those companies open source their actual products, just like Google doesn't open source any of theirs. The closest place they come is open sourcing Android, but it's basically useless without the proprietary half of the OS, and Google uses a hilariously draconian contract to control everyone who uses Android, and they actively punish anyone who dares to fork it, because you're not actually supposed to fork Android.
virgilp 8y ago
> We have five OSs today. iOS, OS X, Windows, Android and ChromeOS. > Two are open source. Did you just ignore the likes of Linux & BSD? :D (I mean, there are plenty more OSes of course, saying "we have 5 today" is incredibly far from the truth; but I expected at least these 2 to sound familiar for most HackerNews readers)
pjmlp 8y ago
There are so much more OS out there than a plain 5.

scarface74 8y ago

have ZERO problem criticizing anyone. But if we look at all the tech companies there has never been any tech company that give away more IP than Google. Nobody even close. Google only "gives away" IP that isn't part of their core business - just like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. Where is the code for Google crawler and search algorithm? Gmail? Google Play Services? The back end for Google Docs?

jacksmith21006 8y ago
Would argue nothing is more core than Borg. So would disagree. I do think they are holding back some stuff and a big one is SDC stuff. Plus we do not get the info until next release. So we got gen 1 TPUs after Gen 2. We will probably get gen 2 details with gen 3 release. But Google shares so much more than any other tech company. I think possibly ever?
- scarface74 8y ago
  What has Google open sourced that would put it at a competitive disadvantage if a competitor uses it? Android? Earlier on they really didn't have a choice if they wanted to compete with Microsoft with the OEMs. When they became basically the only game in town for device manufacturers, they closef off much of what made Android Android to most people. Even Apple open sources stuff when they want to gain traction in a market as does Microsoft. How is Google's strategy any different from Microsoft's and Netflix's? It would have been unthinkable a few years ago that MS would open source .Net and make it cross platform or gone through the trouble of creating Visual Studio Code that supports almost every popular language.
  - jacksmith21006 8y ago
    Android and Amazon using for the Echo and much of their hardware?
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Google didn't have a choice but to "open source" Android to compete for OEMs against Microsoft. But as soon as they gained dominance, they started closing off more and more of what makes Android what it is to most people. Look at how many of Google Services are not only not available on Amazon devices, Google actively blocked YouTube from being on Amazon devices. Besides, Android itself doesn't make Google money - advertising and to a lesser extent Google Play does. Why else would Google pay Apple $2 billion a year to be the preferred search provider on iOS?
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  That would be like saying nothing is more core to Microsoft than .NET, which they also gave away for free. In reality, this is nonsense, because both are backend technical tools, NOT core products. Google is not going to open source Google Search any more than Microsoft is going to open source Windows: Google is a closed product company and they're not going to give away what actually makes them money. Microsoft has actually been topping GitHub's contributions graph for a while. Even Apple's been opening a bunch of stuff up lately. And apart from some licensing squabbles, nearly everyone's been moving their frontend web code to a framework made by Facebook. Of course, again, none of those companies open source their actual products, just like Google doesn't open source any of theirs. The closest place they come is open sourcing Android, but it's basically useless without the proprietary half of the OS, and Google uses a hilariously draconian contract to control everyone who uses Android, and they actively punish anyone who dares to fork it, because you're not actually supposed to fork Android.

virgilp 8y ago

> We have five OSs today. iOS, OS X, Windows, Android and ChromeOS. > Two are open source. Did you just ignore the likes of Linux & BSD? :D (I mean, there are plenty more OSes of course, saying "we have 5 today" is incredibly far from the truth; but I expected at least these 2 to sound familiar for most HackerNews readers)

pjmlp 8y ago

There are so much more OS out there than a plain 5.