4 ms·

This is why I love open source (as in source-available, not necessarily free-software). Transparency trumps everything. Whoever chose to commit anonymously (or

This is why I love open source (as in source-available, not necessarily free-software). Transparency trumps everything. Whoever chose to commit anonymously (or gave the order to) knew they were doing something shitty and didn't feel comfortable doing it "in public". It doesn't prevent things like that from happening but it makes you question if it's the right thing to do. Sometimes that's the best we can hope for.

gsnedders 8y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if part of the motivating factor is the fact the decision was made well above the person who wrote the code, and it wouldn't be fair for the person who wrote the code to take all the flack publicly. And, well, I'm unsurprised that the manager didn't end up with their name on it.
millstone 8y ago
How does “transparency trumps everything” apply here? There’s nothing transparent about this. The anon tasked with committing this change surely had no influence on the decision, so it’s doubtful the OSS nature drove any questions.
geofft 8y ago
> Whoever chose to commit anonymously (or gave the order to) knew they were doing something shitty and didn't feel comfortable doing it "in public". That isn't necessarily true (although it definitely seems possible in this case, especially given the choice of name). The other possible reason is that they knew they were doing something perfectly reasonable but controversial, that other people would dislike, and they didn't want the Internet pitchfork mob coming after them. It is interesting that major corporate-run-open-source projects like Android have individual names associated by commits. It's a huge change from software engineering in general - the general public doesn't know what I personally do at work, and can't come after me for it - and there's not even a need for it for open-source reasons: since copyright is owned by Google, there's no requirement to identify the individual employee more precisely. Everything could have been committed by nobody@google.com. If the person behind this commit had the position that they stand behind this commit but they only intend to stand behind it 40 hours a week and then they want to go home, I would sympathize with that.
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It may be largely inconsequential, it may be cynically obvious, it may be not worth fussing about, but not "perfectly reasonable".
  - systoll 8y ago
    > Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It's also not a realistic scenario. Anyone who bought a Samsung Galaxy S from Verizon got a phone with Bing as the default search engine. Some of the people who bought that phone would've preferred Google. Because of this feature, there was added additional effort in using the phone due to the need to switch the search engine. And likely some of them didn't even know about the option, and wound up with an experience worse than they would've without it being present. Adding to this, there is malware that changes this setting. I think this was a valuable option to have -- but there are no features that cause zero trouble to anyone.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      Isn't this pretty much the same thing Microsoft got fined for with Internet Explorer back in the heyday era of PCs?
      - archi42 8y ago
        That'd exactly my thought as well. Maybe Google Search is not big enough in terms of market share to trigger an investigation? Or the authorities didn't think of it?
        llampx 8y ago
        Google learned from Microsoft and is much more politically savvy.
gnode 8y ago
The committer did so anonymously for the same reason executioners wear hoods. The executioner is only acting as an agent of the court, or in this case Google, to carry out a controversial act which they may not personally agree with.

gsnedders 8y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the motivating factor is the fact the decision was made well above the person who wrote the code, and it wouldn't be fair for the person who wrote the code to take all the flack publicly. And, well, I'm unsurprised that the manager didn't end up with their name on it.

millstone 8y ago

How does “transparency trumps everything” apply here? There’s nothing transparent about this. The anon tasked with committing this change surely had no influence on the decision, so it’s doubtful the OSS nature drove any questions.

geofft 8y ago

> Whoever chose to commit anonymously (or gave the order to) knew they were doing something shitty and didn't feel comfortable doing it "in public". That isn't necessarily true (although it definitely seems possible in this case, especially given the choice of name). The other possible reason is that they knew they were doing something perfectly reasonable but controversial, that other people would dislike, and they didn't want the Internet pitchfork mob coming after them. It is interesting that major corporate-run-open-source projects like Android have individual names associated by commits. It's a huge change from software engineering in general - the general public doesn't know what I personally do at work, and can't come after me for it - and there's not even a need for it for open-source reasons: since copyright is owned by Google, there's no requirement to identify the individual employee more precisely. Everything could have been committed by nobody@google.com. If the person behind this commit had the position that they stand behind this commit but they only intend to stand behind it 40 hours a week and then they want to go home, I would sympathize with that.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It may be largely inconsequential, it may be cynically obvious, it may be not worth fussing about, but not "perfectly reasonable".
- systoll 8y ago
  > Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It's also not a realistic scenario. Anyone who bought a Samsung Galaxy S from Verizon got a phone with Bing as the default search engine. Some of the people who bought that phone would've preferred Google. Because of this feature, there was added additional effort in using the phone due to the need to switch the search engine. And likely some of them didn't even know about the option, and wound up with an experience worse than they would've without it being present. Adding to this, there is malware that changes this setting. I think this was a valuable option to have -- but there are no features that cause zero trouble to anyone.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Isn't this pretty much the same thing Microsoft got fined for with Internet Explorer back in the heyday era of PCs?
    - archi42 8y ago
      That'd exactly my thought as well. Maybe Google Search is not big enough in terms of market share to trigger an investigation? Or the authorities didn't think of it?
      - llampx 8y ago
        Google learned from Microsoft and is much more politically savvy.

gnode 8y ago

The committer did so anonymously for the same reason executioners wear hoods. The executioner is only acting as an agent of the court, or in this case Google, to carry out a controversial act which they may not personally agree with.