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Googles backends are all proprietary solutions. So you’d need to open source a huge swath of google code. Much of which has assumptions of running in Google’s D

Googles backends are all proprietary solutions. So you’d need to open source a huge swath of google code. Much of which has assumptions of running in Google’s DCs.

rvnx 3y ago
Yes, everything is in the soup called /google3. And it's time wasted; the SWE working on the Jamboard may prefer to work on higher impact projects; The PO as well. For example, an hypothetical PO @ Google may have this possibility to launch a new product instead (e.g. deprecating the Pixel 7); - New launch = promotion. - Promotion = better salary. - Better salary = happy wife. - Happy wife = happy life. Indeed, shutdowning Jamboard was the right solution from his perspective. It's all about alignement of incentives.
josephg 3y ago
Eh. They could just opensource the code but not its dependencies. The opensource world is remarkably good at taking something like that and getting it working again. They won’t though, unfortunately.
- bushbaba 3y ago
  I don’t think you get how difficult that is. It wouldn’t build, it would include a ton of internal libraries. For example stubby is not open source. Internal spanner is different than external spanner, including API/SDKs. The code pulls in a ton of internal libraries. Etc. So open sourcing just jamboard specific code and nothing else even if possible wouldn’t build or be really useful.
  - josephg 3y ago
    I know exactly how difficult it is. I was part of the cleanup crew who stayed back to opensource wave after google decided to pull the plug. My name is all over the opensourced Google Wave ("Wave in a box") codebase. We rewrote the whole data layer so you could run it without google's infra. That took a nontrivial amount of engineering time - a month or two if memory serves. > So open sourcing just jamboard specific code and nothing else even if possible wouldn’t build or be really useful. Oh, it definitely wouldn't build. But you'd be surprised how resourceful opensource developers can be when they have a clear scope & clear spec to work towards. This sort of work is akin to making the world's simplest emulator for a video game console - except you only need to get "one game" to run, and you have its source code and you can change the code as much as you like. Its fun, satisfying work. Obviously you're rolling the dice on whether or not anyone from the community would step up and do that work on your behalf. But the alternative is killing your product entirely. The opensourced wave died because we didn't grow an opensource community who understood & wanted to maintain the codebase. Looking back, we might have done a better job of that if we didn't do all the work ourselves to make it usable first. Mind you, I have no idea how the community at large would react to google releasing broken source code. They might complain even more than the service just going dark. But I can still dream.

Googles backends are all proprietary solutions. So you’d need to open source a huge swath of google code. Much of which has assumptions of running in Google’s DCs.

rvnx 3y ago

Yes, everything is in the soup called /google3. And it's time wasted; the SWE working on the Jamboard may prefer to work on higher impact projects; The PO as well. For example, an hypothetical PO @ Google may have this possibility to launch a new product instead (e.g. deprecating the Pixel 7); - New launch = promotion. - Promotion = better salary. - Better salary = happy wife. - Happy wife = happy life. Indeed, shutdowning Jamboard was the right solution from his perspective. It's all about alignement of incentives.

josephg 3y ago

Eh. They could just opensource the code but not its dependencies. The opensource world is remarkably good at taking something like that and getting it working again. They won’t though, unfortunately.

bushbaba 3y ago
I don’t think you get how difficult that is. It wouldn’t build, it would include a ton of internal libraries. For example stubby is not open source. Internal spanner is different than external spanner, including API/SDKs. The code pulls in a ton of internal libraries. Etc. So open sourcing just jamboard specific code and nothing else even if possible wouldn’t build or be really useful.
- josephg 3y ago
  I know exactly how difficult it is. I was part of the cleanup crew who stayed back to opensource wave after google decided to pull the plug. My name is all over the opensourced Google Wave ("Wave in a box") codebase. We rewrote the whole data layer so you could run it without google's infra. That took a nontrivial amount of engineering time - a month or two if memory serves. > So open sourcing just jamboard specific code and nothing else even if possible wouldn’t build or be really useful. Oh, it definitely wouldn't build. But you'd be surprised how resourceful opensource developers can be when they have a clear scope & clear spec to work towards. This sort of work is akin to making the world's simplest emulator for a video game console - except you only need to get "one game" to run, and you have its source code and you can change the code as much as you like. Its fun, satisfying work. Obviously you're rolling the dice on whether or not anyone from the community would step up and do that work on your behalf. But the alternative is killing your product entirely. The opensourced wave died because we didn't grow an opensource community who understood & wanted to maintain the codebase. Looking back, we might have done a better job of that if we didn't do all the work ourselves to make it usable first. Mind you, I have no idea how the community at large would react to google releasing broken source code. They might complain even more than the service just going dark. But I can still dream.