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To be fair, releasing an open source reference implementation takes a separate engineering effort. You can't just take Google services engineered for Borg/Spann

To be fair, releasing an open source reference implementation takes a separate engineering effort. You can't just take Google services engineered for Borg/Spanner/et al, and drop them in OSS. It took Google Wave team a lot of resources to open source a non-Google-datacenterized version. Hangouts is also intertwined with lots of other Google services, so it's not a matter of just code dumping. Imagine that you have a small team trying to hit 3 platforms (Web, Android, iOS), in time for Google I/O launch, packaging up an OSS release along with spec document is probably the least priority.

mindcrime 13y ago
True, but I still think they should commit to doing it eventually. Even if they just came out today and said "We'll have an OSS reference implementation and detailed spec available within 6 months" I think most people would be OK with that (as long as they followed through). But just throwing a new protocol over the wall and creating more walled gardens is not cool.
- RivieraKid 13y ago
  > But just throwing a new protocol over the wall and creating more walled gardens is not cool. Well, what financial incentive does Google have for creating a completely open and free communication standard?
  - mindcrime 13y ago
    That's a good question. In strictly financial terms, it would be hard to quantify, because you wind up talking terms of subjective measures like "user good will" and "brand perception" etc. There might not, in fact, even be a strictly financial argument that favors doing this. I still think it's the Right Thing To Do though. I know the old saw about "don't be evil" is probably over quoted and that it's just a tagline and not a binding legal agreement, but for a company like Google, given their history and reputation, this feels wrong.
    - kybernetikos 13y ago
      Standards are a mechanism that allow new and innovative market entrants to compete with established giants. Now that google are an established giant, there probably isn't much financial incentive for them. You're right that it's the right thing to do though - it leads to more competition, better services for consumers and faster innovation, enriching humanity. In the past, google knew that having a healthy web platform was more important to their long term profits than huge numbers of tightly tied in users. That no longer seems to be the way they see things.
  - josteink 13y ago
    Well, what financial incentive does Google have for creating a completely open and free communication standard? If their goal is having users on the network, creating more viable options for getting onto the network can't be a bad thing.
    - cbhl 13y ago
      If creating more viable options for getting onto the network was the highest leverage way of getting users onto a network, Wave wouldn't have died.
RyanZAG 13y ago
If the reason they can't document is because they have a small team, then this is an easy solution for Google - hire some people to document the system. They don't even have to be in direct contact with the actual development team, just access to the source code and developer design documents should be enough. For a company the size of Google with the amount of profits they make, 'small team' is just not an excuse for anything. The move is definitely deliberate, they can't have Skype come in and allow people with Skype to make calls to hangout when the hangout client can't make calls into Skype. It would make them look bad.
- cromwellian 13y ago
  I think you've got it backwards. If Google was really concerned with making Hangouts a competitive moat by blocking interoperability, why would they be plowing so much effort into WebRTC, a technology which pretty much commodifies Hangouts and makes it possible for anyone to implement peer to peer video or audio group chat? Skype is actually trying to block WebRTC, as is Cisco WebEx, and Nokia. I don't really see that Google would have anything to gain by blocking interoperability with Skype, Skype is the market leader, it is usually those who are not market leaders in a particular area to push for interop, and usually those who have a hold on the market to resist.
  - sinkasapa 13y ago
    I think that the reason that these aren't contradictions is because Google isn't a person. So if they do one thing that is open and a second that is closed, we aren't using it as evidence to search out a human being's soul or true intentions. An organization of this size can do both things at the same time. If there was a master plan, you could say that the openness is great PR that allows them to do closed stuff without getting as much of a backlash. But again, that is just anthropomorphic BS. In one case people within a personalityless organization are doing one thing. In another case different people in the same organization are doing another. The two cases should be treated separately.
    - cromwellian 13y ago
fyi80 13y ago
Hangouts clients talk HTTP or some network protocol, not Borg/Spanner/GoogleDataCenterMagic Google doesn't need to build open-source apps, just give users a documented way to send messages on their own accounts to the Talk system. At most, the extra engineering effort is to implement an authorization and rate-limiting (anti-DOS/spam) system that doesn't depend on obscurity-via-closed-source-client. Most of that probably already exists, for obvious reasons (attackers). Federation is a different problem, because Google has less control over off-network spammers. Personally, I think it's fine to say that if you want to talk to Google Hangouts users, you need to create a Google account for that purpose. But it would be less evil to have a system by which trusted developers could interoperate, as long as the "trust" filter is non-discriminatory. (Any reasonably public/accountable organization can get an interop key.) And Google should provide a way for users to send Hangout calls to other servers that choose to implement the Hangout protocol and accept incoming connections from Google, a trusted network. Doing so in its first-party app would be non-evil.
shmerl 13y ago
> To be fair, releasing an open source reference implementation takes a separate engineering effort. So what. More effort that's required to do things properly. Create a protocol, publish it, start deploying (especially if it breaks what's working now). Doing things the other way around creates a horrible mess.
- ebiester 13y ago
  And in the same time, their competitors (Facebook, who isn't known for being open exactly) can use the same resources to push out more features. Being open only helps in that users see it as a feature. Right now, not enough users see it as a feature to make being open as a priority for this product. And those who do prioritize openness are already starting to move away from google because it's gotten too big. So google gains what, again?
  - shmerl 13y ago
    Who cares what kind of features others add, if they can't even communicate with each other. Google of course define their priorities. So far they claimed that interoperable protocols are basis of their features. If it's the features they are after and they don't care about interoperable protocols then they aren't better than Facebook and other "competitors" who disrespect their own users by not letting them to communicate with others, as if we are in the stone age of computing, when one couldn't send e-mail from AOL to Compuserve. If that's the case, it should be a good reason to advise others to dump Google services. They gain advancing interoperable and connected IM network. If they are OK with creating another walled IM mess for selfish interests (as if we don't have enough of these Skypes, Whatsapps and etc.) then let them be boycotted.
sinkasapa 13y ago
Is the implication here that Google would like to do this but cannot because it doesn't have enough time and resources? If that is the case and they care for openness, why not just wait to kill their open product until they are able to do the right thing according to their values with the new product? After all, Talk already exists and works. It is hard to say whether Google as an organization is something you can characterize as "nice" or "mean" but the actions taken here have clear implications. They are deleting the open protocol and replacing it with a proprietary one. Whether their heart is in the right place or they just have some rotten circumstances to deal with doesn't matter really. Perhaps Microsoft with Skype might say that they are closed on purpose but Google will say they are closed by accident because, well, you know, of all the things they can do, this is the one that is too hard. But it doesn't matter. It is the exact same effect.

mindcrime 13y ago

True, but I still think they should commit to doing it eventually. Even if they just came out today and said "We'll have an OSS reference implementation and detailed spec available within 6 months" I think most people would be OK with that (as long as they followed through). But just throwing a new protocol over the wall and creating more walled gardens is not cool.

RivieraKid 13y ago
> But just throwing a new protocol over the wall and creating more walled gardens is not cool. Well, what financial incentive does Google have for creating a completely open and free communication standard?
- mindcrime 13y ago
  That's a good question. In strictly financial terms, it would be hard to quantify, because you wind up talking terms of subjective measures like "user good will" and "brand perception" etc. There might not, in fact, even be a strictly financial argument that favors doing this. I still think it's the Right Thing To Do though. I know the old saw about "don't be evil" is probably over quoted and that it's just a tagline and not a binding legal agreement, but for a company like Google, given their history and reputation, this feels wrong.
  - kybernetikos 13y ago
    Standards are a mechanism that allow new and innovative market entrants to compete with established giants. Now that google are an established giant, there probably isn't much financial incentive for them. You're right that it's the right thing to do though - it leads to more competition, better services for consumers and faster innovation, enriching humanity. In the past, google knew that having a healthy web platform was more important to their long term profits than huge numbers of tightly tied in users. That no longer seems to be the way they see things.
- josteink 13y ago
  Well, what financial incentive does Google have for creating a completely open and free communication standard? If their goal is having users on the network, creating more viable options for getting onto the network can't be a bad thing.
  - cbhl 13y ago
    If creating more viable options for getting onto the network was the highest leverage way of getting users onto a network, Wave wouldn't have died.

RyanZAG 13y ago

If the reason they can't document is because they have a small team, then this is an easy solution for Google - hire some people to document the system. They don't even have to be in direct contact with the actual development team, just access to the source code and developer design documents should be enough. For a company the size of Google with the amount of profits they make, 'small team' is just not an excuse for anything. The move is definitely deliberate, they can't have Skype come in and allow people with Skype to make calls to hangout when the hangout client can't make calls into Skype. It would make them look bad.

cromwellian 13y ago
I think you've got it backwards. If Google was really concerned with making Hangouts a competitive moat by blocking interoperability, why would they be plowing so much effort into WebRTC, a technology which pretty much commodifies Hangouts and makes it possible for anyone to implement peer to peer video or audio group chat? Skype is actually trying to block WebRTC, as is Cisco WebEx, and Nokia. I don't really see that Google would have anything to gain by blocking interoperability with Skype, Skype is the market leader, it is usually those who are not market leaders in a particular area to push for interop, and usually those who have a hold on the market to resist.
- sinkasapa 13y ago
  I think that the reason that these aren't contradictions is because Google isn't a person. So if they do one thing that is open and a second that is closed, we aren't using it as evidence to search out a human being's soul or true intentions. An organization of this size can do both things at the same time. If there was a master plan, you could say that the openness is great PR that allows them to do closed stuff without getting as much of a backlash. But again, that is just anthropomorphic BS. In one case people within a personalityless organization are doing one thing. In another case different people in the same organization are doing another. The two cases should be treated separately.
  - cromwellian 13y ago

fyi80 13y ago

Hangouts clients talk HTTP or some network protocol, not Borg/Spanner/GoogleDataCenterMagic Google doesn't need to build open-source apps, just give users a documented way to send messages on their own accounts to the Talk system. At most, the extra engineering effort is to implement an authorization and rate-limiting (anti-DOS/spam) system that doesn't depend on obscurity-via-closed-source-client. Most of that probably already exists, for obvious reasons (attackers). Federation is a different problem, because Google has less control over off-network spammers. Personally, I think it's fine to say that if you want to talk to Google Hangouts users, you need to create a Google account for that purpose. But it would be less evil to have a system by which trusted developers could interoperate, as long as the "trust" filter is non-discriminatory. (Any reasonably public/accountable organization can get an interop key.) And Google should provide a way for users to send Hangout calls to other servers that choose to implement the Hangout protocol and accept incoming connections from Google, a trusted network. Doing so in its first-party app would be non-evil.

shmerl 13y ago

> To be fair, releasing an open source reference implementation takes a separate engineering effort. So what. More effort that's required to do things properly. Create a protocol, publish it, start deploying (especially if it breaks what's working now). Doing things the other way around creates a horrible mess.

ebiester 13y ago
And in the same time, their competitors (Facebook, who isn't known for being open exactly) can use the same resources to push out more features. Being open only helps in that users see it as a feature. Right now, not enough users see it as a feature to make being open as a priority for this product. And those who do prioritize openness are already starting to move away from google because it's gotten too big. So google gains what, again?
- shmerl 13y ago
  Who cares what kind of features others add, if they can't even communicate with each other. Google of course define their priorities. So far they claimed that interoperable protocols are basis of their features. If it's the features they are after and they don't care about interoperable protocols then they aren't better than Facebook and other "competitors" who disrespect their own users by not letting them to communicate with others, as if we are in the stone age of computing, when one couldn't send e-mail from AOL to Compuserve. If that's the case, it should be a good reason to advise others to dump Google services. They gain advancing interoperable and connected IM network. If they are OK with creating another walled IM mess for selfish interests (as if we don't have enough of these Skypes, Whatsapps and etc.) then let them be boycotted.

sinkasapa 13y ago

Is the implication here that Google would like to do this but cannot because it doesn't have enough time and resources? If that is the case and they care for openness, why not just wait to kill their open product until they are able to do the right thing according to their values with the new product? After all, Talk already exists and works. It is hard to say whether Google as an organization is something you can characterize as "nice" or "mean" but the actions taken here have clear implications. They are deleting the open protocol and replacing it with a proprietary one. Whether their heart is in the right place or they just have some rotten circumstances to deal with doesn't matter really. Perhaps Microsoft with Skype might say that they are closed on purpose but Google will say they are closed by accident because, well, you know, of all the things they can do, this is the one that is too hard. But it doesn't matter. It is the exact same effect.