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GPL pretty much guarantees Google won't use you code. Although in this post "Do no evil" world that may no longer be true. And even if it is, Google don't nee
by bigiain 1y ago
GPL pretty much guarantees Google won't use you code.
Although in this post "Do no evil" world that may no longer be true.
And even if it is, Google don't need to use your code. They have enough resources to clean-room re-engineer pretty much any useful piece of code ever written - perhaps short of Linux, MacOS, and Windows.
If Google decide they need to use your GPL Open Source project, they'll just assign a team to fully document it while meticulously not using any copyrightable text from your project in their version of the documentation, then assign a different team to write software that matches their own internal documentation - most likely in a different language - probably Golang.
Or more likely, they'll make sure there are enough subpoena-able internal internal comms to make it look like they did that, then just get some external-jurisdiction non-english-speaking intern to use Gemini to copyright whitewash the Golang rewrite directly from your open source code.
(I just sat here for 5 minutes trying to work out how to end this post on a positive note - but I've got nothing...)
- Philpax 1y agoThe positive note, I think, is that Google won't use your software and you won't have to deal with Google problems as a result :-)
- bigiain 1y agoThank you! That's what I was looking for.
- bawolff 1y agoIs that a bad thing? I don't write code specificly so google can use it. If they find it useful and are willing to abide by the license, then by all means great, but if they don't want it, that is their business. As far as white room reimplementations go - why would i care about that at all? Its no longer my code at that point. Copyright is not a patent, all that is their right to do. Just like i have the right to do the same thing to them. (How do you think our nice linux computers manage to interact with proprietary protocols?)
- sokoloff 1y agoI've never worked at Google, but I'd be shocked if they won't use GPL code. AGPL, sure, as lots of companies won't touch AGPL code (so, if you don't want companies to use your code, license it under AGPL). But GPL is so commonly used and pretty well understood how to use it productively and safely and still run a profitable company. Avoiding it entirely seems extremely wasteful, at a scale that even Google probably won't be able to choose to. Any Googlers/x-Googlers care to summarize the open-source usage policy?