3 ms·

Here, i'll make a provocative statement: Google has released roughly every meaningful patch it has made to the open source software it was built on[1]. As for

Here, i'll make a provocative statement: Google has released roughly every meaningful patch it has made to the open source software it was built on[1]. As for funding, that's definitely not true by the numbers last i looked (and definitely was not true in the past). Without concrete disagreements, this is just handwaving. So if you make some, i'm happy to argue with real data. [1] The only cases i can think of that this isn't true is when the Googler who worked on it left before they got a chance to do that (and nobody has picked it up since)

lacker 8y ago
Google has released roughly every meaningful patch it has made to the open source software it was built on. Chrome or Android seem like good counterexamples, where the software that most people use (Chrome, or Android + Google Experience) is specifically kept in two separate buckets, open source and closed source, so that Google can strategically keep some parts open and some parts closed.
- DannyBee 8y ago
  Err? They are certainly not useful counterexamples. That is open source software Google made itself. The original complaint was about taking other people's open source (mongodb) without contributing back. Not "failing to release stuff it made itself". That's a completely different thing. Even there, what i said is still true: Google has released every meaningful patch to the open source software it used in making Chrome/Android.
darkarmani 8y ago
At least 10 years ago, i thought google had a lot of custom linux kernel patches that weren't public.
- DannyBee 8y ago
  For production server kernel: The only kernel patches these days i'm aware of that aren't upstream are hardware drivers for very custom hardware, or ones we released but upstream didn't want and we still maintain. Like any sane kernel team, google tries to minimize it's difference with upstream since it has huge maintenance cost.

lacker 8y ago

Google has released roughly every meaningful patch it has made to the open source software it was built on. Chrome or Android seem like good counterexamples, where the software that most people use (Chrome, or Android + Google Experience) is specifically kept in two separate buckets, open source and closed source, so that Google can strategically keep some parts open and some parts closed.

DannyBee 8y ago
Err? They are certainly not useful counterexamples. That is open source software Google made itself. The original complaint was about taking other people's open source (mongodb) without contributing back. Not "failing to release stuff it made itself". That's a completely different thing. Even there, what i said is still true: Google has released every meaningful patch to the open source software it used in making Chrome/Android.

darkarmani 8y ago

At least 10 years ago, i thought google had a lot of custom linux kernel patches that weren't public.

DannyBee 8y ago
For production server kernel: The only kernel patches these days i'm aware of that aren't upstream are hardware drivers for very custom hardware, or ones we released but upstream didn't want and we still maintain. Like any sane kernel team, google tries to minimize it's difference with upstream since it has huge maintenance cost.