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Off topic. In README, it says "This is not an official Google product.". I've seen that line in some repos under github.com/google organizations. What does it r

by yla92 12y ago

Off topic. In README, it says "This is not an official Google product.". I've seen that line in some repos under github.com/google organizations. What does it really mean ?

Xorlev 12y ago
20% projects maybe? If nothing else, it's a nice perk.
- DannyBee 12y ago
  No, evmar has it right. It means it is some random googler's code. It means Google has literally nothing to do with it, other than happening to own the code. (IE it's not an experimental product, it's not a product at all. It's just some guy releasing some code)
evmar 12y ago
(Edit: comment below from DannyBee is authoritative.) Google has two paths to open sourcing code: in one Google retains the copyright (but grants a permissive license like Apache), and in the other you retain the copyright but cannot work on it on Google time or Google hardware. (You can tell which category a given piece of software is under by looking at the license headers on the code; the linked software is the first category.) It's easier to release software under the first category, even if it's just some random hack you tinker with. (I frequently hack on stuff on my corporate-provided laptop.) But if you do so then the code has the word Google all over it even if it's not something the company intends to support. I don't know for certain the reasoning but I imagine the sentence you quote helps reduce confusion about who is sponsoring the project.
- DannyBee 12y ago
  "but I imagine the sentence you quote helps reduce confusion about who is sponsoring the project." Yes. I've updated the sentence a bit for future projects. But historically, what has happened, is that people make a lot of assumptions about code Google releases and what it means for X or Y. I've seen entire press stories about how Google has created some new product that does X or Y, when it's just some random googler's code. (This started even before it was in the google namespace on github, and it was just a random code.google.com project). It seems without some disclaimer, it is roughly impossible to get people to disassociate the two.
  - evmar 12y ago
    It'd probably help to only publish official things under the google/ namespace on github, but I guess it's too late for that. :)
    - DannyBee 12y ago
      github namespacing at the time made this kind of a pain (we still needed to be able to admin the projects, etc), but yeah.

by yla92 12y ago

Off topic. In README, it says "This is not an official Google product.". I've seen that line in some repos under github.com/google organizations. What does it really mean ?

Xorlev 12y ago

20% projects maybe? If nothing else, it's a nice perk.

DannyBee 12y ago
No, evmar has it right. It means it is some random googler's code. It means Google has literally nothing to do with it, other than happening to own the code. (IE it's not an experimental product, it's not a product at all. It's just some guy releasing some code)

evmar 12y ago

(Edit: comment below from DannyBee is authoritative.) Google has two paths to open sourcing code: in one Google retains the copyright (but grants a permissive license like Apache), and in the other you retain the copyright but cannot work on it on Google time or Google hardware. (You can tell which category a given piece of software is under by looking at the license headers on the code; the linked software is the first category.) It's easier to release software under the first category, even if it's just some random hack you tinker with. (I frequently hack on stuff on my corporate-provided laptop.) But if you do so then the code has the word Google all over it even if it's not something the company intends to support. I don't know for certain the reasoning but I imagine the sentence you quote helps reduce confusion about who is sponsoring the project.

DannyBee 12y ago
"but I imagine the sentence you quote helps reduce confusion about who is sponsoring the project." Yes. I've updated the sentence a bit for future projects. But historically, what has happened, is that people make a lot of assumptions about code Google releases and what it means for X or Y. I've seen entire press stories about how Google has created some new product that does X or Y, when it's just some random googler's code. (This started even before it was in the google namespace on github, and it was just a random code.google.com project). It seems without some disclaimer, it is roughly impossible to get people to disassociate the two.
- evmar 12y ago
  It'd probably help to only publish official things under the google/ namespace on github, but I guess it's too late for that. :)
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    github namespacing at the time made this kind of a pain (we still needed to be able to admin the projects, etc), but yeah.