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Google uses Linux on the bulk of their machines and actively contributes to the Linux kernel.
by sounds 13y ago
Google uses Linux on the bulk of their machines and actively contributes to the Linux kernel.
- sz4kerto 13y agoI said core business. Don't know why is it so difficult to read the whole comment, it wasn't long. If Google wanted to, they could migrate to FreeBSD quite quickly and you would not notice too much. Google's core products are: Plus, Hangouts, Chrome, Search, Docs, Mail, and all these products on Android. They're the same to Google as Windows is to Microsoft. Yes, Android is open source, the rest aren't. And what consumers call Android is not free/libre either. I have no problem with that, and I'm not criticizing Google, just saying, that companies very rarely open source their core business stuff.
- nl 13y agoChromium is open source (and Chrome is just Chromium tied into Google services). Your point is valid though.
- frou_dh 13y agoPresumably those big online services expect to be run on top of Google's backends rather than my garden variety VPS, so what it would mean to package them for open source release isn't clear.