5 ms·

While true that no one uses Google Code. Every now and then, I bump into some obscure but a little useful project being hosted on Google Code. Maybe, makers of

While true that no one uses Google Code. Every now and then, I bump into some obscure but a little useful project being hosted on Google Code. Maybe, makers of those projects have grown out of them and don't wish to put any more effort but still, there is a bit of value, I am able to derive from them. What will happen, if those projects are not migrated because their developers have simply forgotten about them?

AnkhMorporkian 12y ago
Perhaps archive.org will take it upon themselves to archive all the projects.
btown 12y ago
Someone needs to do an Internet Archive style project on all these repositories, put them up on Github, and make sure that they are indexed properly by search engines (i.e. intro pages become README.md, wikis are migrated, etc.).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - nothrabannosir 12y ago
    Not at all, that's 100% the point of most open source licenses. Which are compulsory for a project on GC. E.g. MIT: Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. Specifically, note "Permission is granted" and "distribute". Comply with those terms (i.e. include that piece of text when you redistribute) and you satisfy MIT. GPL, &c, they all have similar clauses. In fact, MIT goes much further. I could take all those projects, mirror them, and charge people insane amounts of money for it. If you can't even rehost on Github, what good would copyleft be?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - DannyBee 12y ago
    Not really. Unlike a lot of other hosting services, Google code required you to pick an open source license for the project. Even if there are no headers on source, you have a good argument that they were proclaiming to the world it was licensed a certain way, ... (now, third party code they may have included is a different issue, you can't get rights to that through someone else's claims, but ...)
    - jamiesonbecker 12y ago
      Agreed. and that's what the DMCA was ostensibly intended for anyway. Someone who claims copyright could always make that claim in the normal fashion.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- DannyBee 12y ago
  If someone wants to make an actual serious effort on this, feel free to contact me.
habitmelon 12y ago
Find those useful projects and post them on Bitbucket or GitHub
ocdtrekkie 12y ago
This is the one thing I'm a bit worried about. I've downloaded several Google Code projects this year so far alone.
cdibona 12y ago
We are planing on taking the majority of these legitimate, open source, 'abandonded' projects and putting them up in cold storage in a git repo on googlesource.com
- ctb_mg 12y ago
  What is the criteria for "legitimate"? A project useful for me may not be "notable" enough for most to consider "legitimate".
  - mintplant 12y ago
    Presumably, not abusing Google Code as a hosting site for pirated content.
    - duskwuff 12y ago
      Or for personal data. I've seen some people using Google Code as a pseudo-Dropbox. Clever, but ultimately not what the service was intended for.
- grizzles 12y ago
  Thanks for this, Chris. Could you publish a list of projects w/descriptions? That would be great for others (gitlab?) who might want to host / cherry-pick / curate the collection a bit more than that.
- wiseleo 12y ago
  Will it keep existing deep links published in books and research papers from breaking? What prevents Google from setting the whole site into read-only mode as-is? Keep it working as it does now and disable changes.
  - sk5t 12y ago
    Was that a rhetorical question--how could any third party possibly prevent deep links from breaking?

AnkhMorporkian 12y ago

Perhaps archive.org will take it upon themselves to archive all the projects.

btown 12y ago

Someone needs to do an Internet Archive style project on all these repositories, put them up on Github, and make sure that they are indexed properly by search engines (i.e. intro pages become README.md, wikis are migrated, etc.).

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- nothrabannosir 12y ago
  Not at all, that's 100% the point of most open source licenses. Which are compulsory for a project on GC. E.g. MIT: Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. Specifically, note "Permission is granted" and "distribute". Comply with those terms (i.e. include that piece of text when you redistribute) and you satisfy MIT. GPL, &c, they all have similar clauses. In fact, MIT goes much further. I could take all those projects, mirror them, and charge people insane amounts of money for it. If you can't even rehost on Github, what good would copyleft be?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- DannyBee 12y ago
  Not really. Unlike a lot of other hosting services, Google code required you to pick an open source license for the project. Even if there are no headers on source, you have a good argument that they were proclaiming to the world it was licensed a certain way, ... (now, third party code they may have included is a different issue, you can't get rights to that through someone else's claims, but ...)
  - jamiesonbecker 12y ago
    Agreed. and that's what the DMCA was ostensibly intended for anyway. Someone who claims copyright could always make that claim in the normal fashion.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
DannyBee 12y ago
If someone wants to make an actual serious effort on this, feel free to contact me.

habitmelon 12y ago

Find those useful projects and post them on Bitbucket or GitHub

ocdtrekkie 12y ago

This is the one thing I'm a bit worried about. I've downloaded several Google Code projects this year so far alone.

cdibona 12y ago

We are planing on taking the majority of these legitimate, open source, 'abandonded' projects and putting them up in cold storage in a git repo on googlesource.com

ctb_mg 12y ago
What is the criteria for "legitimate"? A project useful for me may not be "notable" enough for most to consider "legitimate".
- mintplant 12y ago
  Presumably, not abusing Google Code as a hosting site for pirated content.
  - duskwuff 12y ago
    Or for personal data. I've seen some people using Google Code as a pseudo-Dropbox. Clever, but ultimately not what the service was intended for.
grizzles 12y ago
Thanks for this, Chris. Could you publish a list of projects w/descriptions? That would be great for others (gitlab?) who might want to host / cherry-pick / curate the collection a bit more than that.
wiseleo 12y ago
Will it keep existing deep links published in books and research papers from breaking? What prevents Google from setting the whole site into read-only mode as-is? Keep it working as it does now and disable changes.
- sk5t 12y ago
  Was that a rhetorical question--how could any third party possibly prevent deep links from breaking?