4 ms·

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

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
I work at Google, openness is not PR, it is part of the culture. People here believe in it, which is why I was the first person to bitch about this, and I'm not alone. Often if someone is doing something that cries for an interop spec, but they aren't doing it, chances are they have some good reasons that don't involve a corporate master plan to "talk about openness to make people like us, but secretly silo-the-world" Often, it revolves around having a task list of a gazillion things to work on and prioritize, and often open-spec is 'nice to have, but not critical for launch' kind of thing. Really, when you look at the market, 99% of the folks are shipping closed apps, where more time is spent on cute emoticons than on infrastructure. Google risks becoming "open, but irrelevent" in a market of iMessage/WhatsApp/FaceBook messenger, where a niche audience is supremely happy they can build third party clients, but which becomes a service unused by the great unwashed masses. The network effect requires other users to increase value, so they've got to double down on things which delight and wow end users first, and developers second.
- dalke 13y ago
  "Openness ... is part of the culture" It seems that there are any of a number of non-open parts to the Google culture. How many server machines do you all have? How are dirty SEO methods detected and thwarted? What are the details on the influence made by the $18M spent in lobbying D.C. in 2012? That's not to say they shouldn't be private. It's me asking you what it means to be "open" as part of the culture.
  - tomkarlo 13y ago
    Openness being part of the culture doesn't mean that everything Google does is disclosed publicly. Openness to the public, and openness within a company are two entirely separate issues, and there are obvious practical limits to both (at different levels) if you want to be competitive.
    - dalke 13y ago
      I believe the previous poster was only talking about openness to the public. (Is Google distinctively more "open" internally than, say, Microsoft or SAP? I think that's a different topic, and one that I'm not so interested in.) As I wrote, I agree with the view that parts of Google are not disclosed publicly. My question is, we all know that Google has some closely held secrets. In that case, how do I tell if (public) openness is part of the culture? Can I use that to estimation method if the level of openness has increased or decreased at Google over the last decade?
  - moultano 13y ago
    http://www.dataliberation.org/ http://www.dataliberation.org/ I don't know of any other company nearly as committed to making it easy to get your data out.
- skinnymuch 13y ago
  How much is "open" with Google that actually matters to the company being a company? As in stuff that makes Google money? Search, Adwords, almost all data relating to either of those? The data Google has that "personalizes" search? Etc
- cromwellian 13y ago
  All good questions, but I think the idea of open source or open spec is not an "either your 100% or your not". For me, it's more about attitude and orientation, not achieving perfection. Even companies which are primarily open source non-profits keep secrets. I look at Search and Ads and Datacenter secrecy being closed as necessary evils to fund everything else, you've got to have a rich uncle who will let you work in his basement if you want to work on open software. Search in particular, represents a challenge, since even if Google were to just ship the source to it's search engine, it would likely devalue the search engine by showing blackhat SEOs exactly how to spam. Like I said, the natural proclivity of many Googlers is to lobby for open specs and source, to bitch and moan about it internally. Sometimes they win, sometimes they don't. Many googlers don't like secrecy. Google will still have a competitive advantage over most other companies because of the datacenters, so the source availability is often not a threat IMHO. I could give you the source to Gmail, chances are, you won't be able to run it competitively without investing a billion dollars in infrastructure. That said, Google has published papers on it's crown jewels, like Spanner, Borg, GFS, Map/Reduce/ et al, stuff which makes its services scale very well.
- Camillo 13y ago
  Very true, but the network Google is looking to expand is Google+. The point of having a more competitive IM system is not to build a IM network, but to bring their IM users into the Google+ network. Therefore, a proprietary solution where users are forced to use Google's service is a feature. Disallowing third-party clients can even be spun into a move towards openness: since the ultimate goal is to have everything on the open web, the main interface should be the one on Google's website; native clients are a necessary less-open evil on current mobile platforms, not something third parties should waste time on.

cromwellian 13y ago

I work at Google, openness is not PR, it is part of the culture. People here believe in it, which is why I was the first person to bitch about this, and I'm not alone. Often if someone is doing something that cries for an interop spec, but they aren't doing it, chances are they have some good reasons that don't involve a corporate master plan to "talk about openness to make people like us, but secretly silo-the-world" Often, it revolves around having a task list of a gazillion things to work on and prioritize, and often open-spec is 'nice to have, but not critical for launch' kind of thing. Really, when you look at the market, 99% of the folks are shipping closed apps, where more time is spent on cute emoticons than on infrastructure. Google risks becoming "open, but irrelevent" in a market of iMessage/WhatsApp/FaceBook messenger, where a niche audience is supremely happy they can build third party clients, but which becomes a service unused by the great unwashed masses. The network effect requires other users to increase value, so they've got to double down on things which delight and wow end users first, and developers second.

dalke 13y ago
"Openness ... is part of the culture" It seems that there are any of a number of non-open parts to the Google culture. How many server machines do you all have? How are dirty SEO methods detected and thwarted? What are the details on the influence made by the $18M spent in lobbying D.C. in 2012? That's not to say they shouldn't be private. It's me asking you what it means to be "open" as part of the culture.
- tomkarlo 13y ago
  Openness being part of the culture doesn't mean that everything Google does is disclosed publicly. Openness to the public, and openness within a company are two entirely separate issues, and there are obvious practical limits to both (at different levels) if you want to be competitive.
  - dalke 13y ago
    I believe the previous poster was only talking about openness to the public. (Is Google distinctively more "open" internally than, say, Microsoft or SAP? I think that's a different topic, and one that I'm not so interested in.) As I wrote, I agree with the view that parts of Google are not disclosed publicly. My question is, we all know that Google has some closely held secrets. In that case, how do I tell if (public) openness is part of the culture? Can I use that to estimation method if the level of openness has increased or decreased at Google over the last decade?
- moultano 13y ago
  http://www.dataliberation.org/ http://www.dataliberation.org/ I don't know of any other company nearly as committed to making it easy to get your data out.
skinnymuch 13y ago
How much is "open" with Google that actually matters to the company being a company? As in stuff that makes Google money? Search, Adwords, almost all data relating to either of those? The data Google has that "personalizes" search? Etc
cromwellian 13y ago
All good questions, but I think the idea of open source or open spec is not an "either your 100% or your not". For me, it's more about attitude and orientation, not achieving perfection. Even companies which are primarily open source non-profits keep secrets. I look at Search and Ads and Datacenter secrecy being closed as necessary evils to fund everything else, you've got to have a rich uncle who will let you work in his basement if you want to work on open software. Search in particular, represents a challenge, since even if Google were to just ship the source to it's search engine, it would likely devalue the search engine by showing blackhat SEOs exactly how to spam. Like I said, the natural proclivity of many Googlers is to lobby for open specs and source, to bitch and moan about it internally. Sometimes they win, sometimes they don't. Many googlers don't like secrecy. Google will still have a competitive advantage over most other companies because of the datacenters, so the source availability is often not a threat IMHO. I could give you the source to Gmail, chances are, you won't be able to run it competitively without investing a billion dollars in infrastructure. That said, Google has published papers on it's crown jewels, like Spanner, Borg, GFS, Map/Reduce/ et al, stuff which makes its services scale very well.
Camillo 13y ago
Very true, but the network Google is looking to expand is Google+. The point of having a more competitive IM system is not to build a IM network, but to bring their IM users into the Google+ network. Therefore, a proprietary solution where users are forced to use Google's service is a feature. Disallowing third-party clients can even be spun into a move towards openness: since the ultimate goal is to have everything on the open web, the main interface should be the one on Google's website; native clients are a necessary less-open evil on current mobile platforms, not something third parties should waste time on.