6 ms·

X has been really good about open sourcing all of the technical information from shut down projects. They did the same for the Makani power-generating kites. Lo

by gundmc 5y ago

X has been really good about open sourcing all of the technical information from shut down projects. They did the same for the Makani power-generating kites. Love to see stuff like this

TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Citation needed. I worked there for two years and there are a LOT of projects that are sitting collecting dust that in my opinion could really help people if they were released as open source. The one I am thinking of (not my place to disclose what it is) was canned in 2017 and I always wished they would have just released it. X has open sourced some stuff and that is great, but whether they have been "really good" about this is debatable IMO.
- asadlionpk 5y ago
  I am guessing either a) nobody pursued this for that project or b) the implementation had some cutting-edge/proprietary/secret-sauce (AI algos, models, data, etc) involved that came from some other part of Google.
- gundmc 5y ago
  Fair enough, maybe I should have said "X has done this several[1][2] times with shut down projects and I think that's pretty cool because they had no obligation to do so." [1] - https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-project-amber-with-the-mental-health-community/ https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-project-amber-with-the-... [2] - https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-makani-with-the-world-the-energy-kite-collection/ https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-makani-with-the-world-t...
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    It's cool, but one gets kind of irritated when they talk this big talk about changing the world but do not seem to appreciate just how transformative open source can be as a tool for innovation. At least, I got frustrated.
    - antonvs 5y ago
      > they talk this big talk about changing the world The unspoken part of that is that the changes in question should be profitable for Alphabet. Anything else is just PR for recruiting and marketing.
      - capitalsigma 5y ago
        The X website is very explicit that X is not a non-profit: > "Is it a research center? An incubator? A non-profit? No, it’s a moonshot factory"
        TaylorAlexander 5y ago
        What bothers me is that they really want to "change the world". Well in my mind, intentionally open sourcing something so that innovators all over the world can contribute can be a powerful force for improving upon an idea and lowering costs. When 3D printers were under patent the single company developing them got the cost down to $25k in 12 years. When the patents expired and people all over the world worked on it, the cost dropped to $250 in ten years. X spends huge sums of money but never takes this approach of intentionally open sourcing a project during continued development in order to tap in to eager innovators all over the world who could contribute. And I think that is unfortunate because that approach can be extremely effective for lowering the cost of things and making them accessible to people all over the world. Personally I feel like they could do this with a few small projects as it is a very cheap development methodology. It would cost them basically nothing compared to their other projects. But then you can't profit from it (as much), so it doesn't fit in to what X is doing. Which is weird, because X is a powerful development house. They could score a lot of goodwill if they did this on a few of the right projects. And it would have kept me there. But I couldn't find anything like that.
        thefunnyman 5y ago
        I fully agree, open source is incredibly underutilized. When it works well it can be extremely powerful. Take for instance the recent flipper zero kickstarter/product. It’s finally shopping and even though it’s very incomplete there’s already a vibrant community of hackers tinkering with it. I feel the same disappointment as you. As a child I envisioned a world where I could go work at somewhere like Google and truly use their resources to give back but every project seems in some way tainted by the underlying drive to make everything profitable for the company funding it.
- cdeonier 5y ago
  Here's some Makani code open-sourced by Google: https://github.com/google/makani https://github.com/google/makani Here are some flight logs they released: https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/bigquery-public-datasets/makani-logs?pli=1&project=just-coda-126505 https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/bigquer... They also released reports that describe their findings; it's quite detailed (here's part 1 of 3): https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/Makani_TheEnergyKiteReport_Part1.pdf https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/Maka... I don't know what standard we're holding companies to for projects they're shutting down. From my experience, projects that are closing down don't get as much support prioritization, especially when they're deemed unsuccessful. I share your sentiment that we could get even more; it sounds like you're seeing even more interesting things the public is not. I am grateful for what they have provided so far.
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    Yes I'm aware of the Makani stuff. In fact according to a Makani team member I was probably the first person outside X to run their code when I generated some screenshots of their UI and posted the pictures to Imgur. But Makani is one project, and again my only push back is whether they have been "really good" about releasing projects or whether there have been a relatively small number of notable releases. My general feeling was that they are really almost 100% focused on profit and for the managers I met, I did not feel like they even understood the world-changing potential of open source. If your primary interest is in changing the world, you can get a LOT done with open source. Especially with the money they have. A relatively small project that releases a quality design and then continues to develop it while other people clone it in my mind has the best chance of gaining traction. But that requires letting go of control. And I did not get the sense they were interested in that kind of thing. So I left and started my own open source project to explore this theory. In three years we have spent as much money as they would spend on a single mistake. I really wish they were more open to this kind of development, but I don't think they are really set up for it. https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simulation-brakes-funding-and-navigation-improvements/202 https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simu...
- asvitkine 5y ago
  Be the change you want to see in the world. Inquire about getting it open sourced.
  - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
    I was very new and low level when that happened. But as I stayed there for a while I did inquire about some other things, and the responses I got showed me that they don’t really care. I tried to start an internal initiative for something and more or less got shot down. It was pretty upsetting actually. So then I left and started an open source farming robot project I am really proud of: https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simulation-brakes-funding-and-navigation-improvements/202 https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simu...
heavyset_go 5y ago
Genuine question, when Google open sources these designs, are they actually open source/free, or are they like Tesla's "open source" patents, that if used, gives the company the ability to violate your patents and IP without the threat of litigation[1]? [1] https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5-401b-b80d-36473d0754c7 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5...
- seltzered_ 5y ago
  There's a patent non-assertion pledge linked in the documentation: https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/H2E%20Patent%20Non-Assertion%20Pledge.pdf https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/H2E%...

by gundmc 5y ago

X has been really good about open sourcing all of the technical information from shut down projects. They did the same for the Makani power-generating kites. Love to see stuff like this

TaylorAlexander 5y ago

Citation needed. I worked there for two years and there are a LOT of projects that are sitting collecting dust that in my opinion could really help people if they were released as open source. The one I am thinking of (not my place to disclose what it is) was canned in 2017 and I always wished they would have just released it. X has open sourced some stuff and that is great, but whether they have been "really good" about this is debatable IMO.

asadlionpk 5y ago
I am guessing either a) nobody pursued this for that project or b) the implementation had some cutting-edge/proprietary/secret-sauce (AI algos, models, data, etc) involved that came from some other part of Google.
gundmc 5y ago
Fair enough, maybe I should have said "X has done this several[1][2] times with shut down projects and I think that's pretty cool because they had no obligation to do so." [1] - https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-project-amber-with-the-mental-health-community/ https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-project-amber-with-the-... [2] - https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-makani-with-the-world-the-energy-kite-collection/ https://x.company/blog/posts/sharing-makani-with-the-world-t...
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  It's cool, but one gets kind of irritated when they talk this big talk about changing the world but do not seem to appreciate just how transformative open source can be as a tool for innovation. At least, I got frustrated.
  - antonvs 5y ago
    > they talk this big talk about changing the world The unspoken part of that is that the changes in question should be profitable for Alphabet. Anything else is just PR for recruiting and marketing.
    - capitalsigma 5y ago
      The X website is very explicit that X is not a non-profit: > "Is it a research center? An incubator? A non-profit? No, it’s a moonshot factory"
      - TaylorAlexander 5y ago
        What bothers me is that they really want to "change the world". Well in my mind, intentionally open sourcing something so that innovators all over the world can contribute can be a powerful force for improving upon an idea and lowering costs. When 3D printers were under patent the single company developing them got the cost down to $25k in 12 years. When the patents expired and people all over the world worked on it, the cost dropped to $250 in ten years. X spends huge sums of money but never takes this approach of intentionally open sourcing a project during continued development in order to tap in to eager innovators all over the world who could contribute. And I think that is unfortunate because that approach can be extremely effective for lowering the cost of things and making them accessible to people all over the world. Personally I feel like they could do this with a few small projects as it is a very cheap development methodology. It would cost them basically nothing compared to their other projects. But then you can't profit from it (as much), so it doesn't fit in to what X is doing. Which is weird, because X is a powerful development house. They could score a lot of goodwill if they did this on a few of the right projects. And it would have kept me there. But I couldn't find anything like that.
        thefunnyman 5y ago
        I fully agree, open source is incredibly underutilized. When it works well it can be extremely powerful. Take for instance the recent flipper zero kickstarter/product. It’s finally shopping and even though it’s very incomplete there’s already a vibrant community of hackers tinkering with it. I feel the same disappointment as you. As a child I envisioned a world where I could go work at somewhere like Google and truly use their resources to give back but every project seems in some way tainted by the underlying drive to make everything profitable for the company funding it.
cdeonier 5y ago
Here's some Makani code open-sourced by Google: https://github.com/google/makani https://github.com/google/makani Here are some flight logs they released: https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/bigquery-public-datasets/makani-logs?pli=1&project=just-coda-126505 https://console.cloud.google.com/marketplace/product/bigquer... They also released reports that describe their findings; it's quite detailed (here's part 1 of 3): https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/Makani_TheEnergyKiteReport_Part1.pdf https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/Maka... I don't know what standard we're holding companies to for projects they're shutting down. From my experience, projects that are closing down don't get as much support prioritization, especially when they're deemed unsuccessful. I share your sentiment that we could get even more; it sounds like you're seeing even more interesting things the public is not. I am grateful for what they have provided so far.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  Yes I'm aware of the Makani stuff. In fact according to a Makani team member I was probably the first person outside X to run their code when I generated some screenshots of their UI and posted the pictures to Imgur. But Makani is one project, and again my only push back is whether they have been "really good" about releasing projects or whether there have been a relatively small number of notable releases. My general feeling was that they are really almost 100% focused on profit and for the managers I met, I did not feel like they even understood the world-changing potential of open source. If your primary interest is in changing the world, you can get a LOT done with open source. Especially with the money they have. A relatively small project that releases a quality design and then continues to develop it while other people clone it in my mind has the best chance of gaining traction. But that requires letting go of control. And I did not get the sense they were interested in that kind of thing. So I left and started my own open source project to explore this theory. In three years we have spent as much money as they would spend on a single mistake. I really wish they were more open to this kind of development, but I don't think they are really set up for it. https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simulation-brakes-funding-and-navigation-improvements/202 https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simu...
asvitkine 5y ago
Be the change you want to see in the world. Inquire about getting it open sourced.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  I was very new and low level when that happened. But as I stayed there for a while I did inquire about some other things, and the responses I got showed me that they don’t really care. I tried to start an internal initiative for something and more or less got shot down. It was pretty upsetting actually. So then I left and started an open source farming robot project I am really proud of: https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simulation-brakes-funding-and-navigation-improvements/202 https://community.twistedfields.com/t/march-2022-update-simu...

heavyset_go 5y ago

Genuine question, when Google open sources these designs, are they actually open source/free, or are they like Tesla's "open source" patents, that if used, gives the company the ability to violate your patents and IP without the threat of litigation[1]? [1] https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5-401b-b80d-36473d0754c7 https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ca6c332f-2cc5...

seltzered_ 5y ago
There's a patent non-assertion pledge linked in the documentation: https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/H2E%20Patent%20Non-Assertion%20Pledge.pdf https://storage.googleapis.com/x-prod.appspot.com/files/H2E%...