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> I work on Google Code, and we will be putting a service in place to redirect deep links to project homepages, issues, etc. to their new locations. And this i

by aikah 12y ago

> I work on Google Code, and we will be putting a service in place to redirect deep links to project homepages, issues, etc. to their new locations. And this is an opt in service, nothing is automated. They could ,AT LEAST, partner with Github or someone else to have the whole thing automated... Seriously... the really want to put 0 money in that stuff,they don't give a damn. There are seriously good projects that will be lost no question.Open source code is a community wealth,even in funky languages nobody use anymore. What Google is doing makes sense from a business stand point but totally shameful from a company that boasts itself doing "no evil".

magicalist 12y ago
I seriously doubt Github would ever agree to that automation. First, what accounts would all these orphan repos go under? Second, how much spam would they be agreeing to host by saying yes to that? This is a much better job for The Internet Archive or a read-only google code in perpetuity. edit: in fact, it looks like they're planning on making a read-only version, but the definition of "legitimate" is going to be very important to nail down: > cdibona: 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192554
enjo 12y ago
On what planet is shutting down a service, with months and months of notice, evil? I get it, we all hate Google on HN (for reasons unclear to me) but this is ridiculous. If these projects are truly important than donate some time and move them over yourself. To demand that google invest time and resources into the migration of these migrations or to keeping this running forever is just silly. Hell tools like https://code.google.com/export-to-github/ https://code.google.com/export-to-github/ even exist.
- ocdtrekkie 12y ago
  In actuality, I've found most HN users seem to love Google. To the extent that almost any criticism of Google gets downvoted to death.
  - ocdtrekkie 12y ago
    Case in point, this comment just dropped three points. ;)
    - markcerqueira 12y ago
      Don't sweat it. Don't let imaginary internet points make you feel bad... or good.
- jayvanguard 12y ago
  > On what planet is shutting down a service, with months and months of notice, evil? The current planet? Open source projects have a lifetime of years so five months is not that long in the scheme of things. People put there code on there and participated (providing Google content that they were able to use and drive traffic) with the expectation that it would be there for the long term.
  - oldmanjay 12y ago
    This is a rather watery definition of evil. It is fairly close to saying a restaurant is evil for not keeping a menu item you like.
    - Angostura 12y ago
      > It is fairly close to saying a restaurant is evil for not keeping a menu item you like. Actually closer to saying they are evil for destroying humanity's only copy of the recipe.
      - npizzolato 12y ago
        After shouting loudly they are going to destroy it and waiting months for anyone to come copy the recipe.
    - walterbell 12y ago
      Would it be ok for Google to delete Usenet archives? Or a library to burn down its own buildings? Or Google to delete all scans of old books? History matters, because citations to "old" research/code may become more valuable with new requirements and research. Surely a company that "organizes the world's information" needs no explanation of these topics.
      - krapp 12y ago
        >Would it be ok for Google to delete Usenet archives? If it's their archives, yes. And if those are the only archives of Usenet in existence, then it's not Google's fault no one else cared to back it up.
- dchichkov 12y ago
  Shutting down Google Code is equivalent to destroying a storage full of handwritten articles, some of which exist only in a single copy and some of which are incredibly valuable. Why valuable? For example computer science researchers had been using Google Code to host supplement code for their research publications for years now. These repositories are not maintained by these researchers any more, yet the code some times is incredibly valuable, because it allows to reproduce research results. The reason why researchers were using Google Code, is because it was supposed to be as stable as the underlying company. Yet now, in 10 months, these repositories will be destroyed.
  - NeutronBoy 12y ago
    If the code is that valuable, then perhaps they should put some time into maintaining the code, moving it to another provider, or convincing somebody to pay for hosting.
    - jamiesonbecker 12y ago
      It may not be valuable to the author. That does not mean it's not valuable to some future searcher.
      - Turing_Machine 12y ago
        Right. Researchers would kill to have the balled-up scraps of paper that (e.g) Shakespeare threw in the trash.
    - dchichkov 12y ago
      Example. A cancer researcher, publishes a paper in Nature Genetics. Like this one: http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v42/n3/abs/ng.522.html http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v42/n3/abs/ng.522.html In that paper she publishes a link to a Google Code repository as supplement materials. For example, in the aforementioned paper there is a link to the following repository: http://code.google.com/p/glu-genetics/ http://code.google.com/p/glu-genetics/
- asfaltboy 12y ago
  I like how that project is hosted on Google code
  - skj 12y ago
    It's not a googlecode-hosted project: there is no /p/ in the middle, and you can't see its source (not that there'd be much to see). It's a tool made by the googlecode team to help migrate.
- yellowapple 12y ago
  It would be the open-source world's equivalent to Geocities shutting down. There are still times when I'm trying to search for something (usually some obscure programming or hardware hacking topic) and the only source of information was a Geocities site. I can't imagine how much of a royal pain in the ass it will be if Google Code experiences the same fate. > I get it, we all hate Google on HN (for reasons unclear to me) The reasons should be clear to anyone with historical context; this isn't the first time Google has spontaneously pulled the plug on some "non-core" project it decided wasn't making quite enough money, in complete disregard of said project's use by the real world. It's these sorts of things that make me very reluctant to invest heavily in Google's ecosystem; I've personally been burned in the past by these sorts of things. A part of me wants XKCD #1361 to come true.
- bigiain 12y ago
  FWIW, Google were happy for a lot of other people to invest time and resources into putting their projects there in the first place - you don't think there's some reasonable expectation that Google would expend some extremely minimal resources at their scale - to ensuring those peoples effort wasn't wasted/lost? Having said that, I'm not part of any movement to "demand Google do something different", but I've been a longtime member of the "Warn friends/family/colleagues about the dangers of participating in Google services in any way that'll have any downside when they close it down, because they've got a strong track record of doing that" movement. If _I_ were the person making this decision at Google, my announcement would have been more along the lines of "blah blah shutdown blah blah apologies/excuses blah blah, so we're going to donate enough to archive.org to ensure everything on code.google.com gets archived permanently, and automatically redirect all future code.google.com requests to that permanent archive".
zanny 12y ago
> that will be lost no question We have over a year. There will be backups of all of google code made, and even then the Internet Archive will certainly have a backup of all the software projects on it. I doubt any code will be lost - active participation might be, from developers who don't want to relearn how to do things on github.
scott_s 12y ago
A sibling comment already pointed this out, but the existence of https://code.google.com/export-to-github/ https://code.google.com/export-to-github/ and its explicit mention in the post along with the clear language that they did work with GitHub and Bitbucket, leads me to believe that you did not read the post.
tcheard 12y ago
> What Google is doing makes sense from a business stand point but totally shameful from a company that boasts itself doing "no evil". Oh come on! I'm not a fan of everything Google does, and I can see, and in part agree with, the point you are trying to make, but this is just grasping at straws. You just lost all credibility with this comment. Yes, I can see unmaintained code being lost here, and that is unfortunate. But Google provided this service for free, a service they started to promote open source software development. They noticed that there was a big move to other hosting platforms, that they themselves also believe are better than theirs. This has led to support for this platform to be little more than dealing with abuse cases, and they feel that the benefit to the community no longer outweighs the cost of the platform. They have gone out of their way to provide ways to migrate code from Google Code to these other "better" platforms, and they are giving people over 18 months to migrate their code: > January 25, 2016 - The project hosting service is closed. You will be able to download a tarball of project source, issues, and wikis. These tarballs will be available throughout the rest of 2016. They really didn't have to provide any of this. None of this is "evil". There are plenty of acts that Google do that border on "evil", but this is really just the wrong one to choose to call them out on. What do you really expect them to do here?

by aikah 12y ago

magicalist 12y ago

I seriously doubt Github would ever agree to that automation. First, what accounts would all these orphan repos go under? Second, how much spam would they be agreeing to host by saying yes to that? This is a much better job for The Internet Archive or a read-only google code in perpetuity. edit: in fact, it looks like they're planning on making a read-only version, but the definition of "legitimate" is going to be very important to nail down: > cdibona: 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192554

enjo 12y ago

On what planet is shutting down a service, with months and months of notice, evil? I get it, we all hate Google on HN (for reasons unclear to me) but this is ridiculous. If these projects are truly important than donate some time and move them over yourself. To demand that google invest time and resources into the migration of these migrations or to keeping this running forever is just silly. Hell tools like https://code.google.com/export-to-github/ https://code.google.com/export-to-github/ even exist.

ocdtrekkie 12y ago
In actuality, I've found most HN users seem to love Google. To the extent that almost any criticism of Google gets downvoted to death.
- ocdtrekkie 12y ago
  Case in point, this comment just dropped three points. ;)
  - markcerqueira 12y ago
    Don't sweat it. Don't let imaginary internet points make you feel bad... or good.
jayvanguard 12y ago
> On what planet is shutting down a service, with months and months of notice, evil? The current planet? Open source projects have a lifetime of years so five months is not that long in the scheme of things. People put there code on there and participated (providing Google content that they were able to use and drive traffic) with the expectation that it would be there for the long term.
- oldmanjay 12y ago
  This is a rather watery definition of evil. It is fairly close to saying a restaurant is evil for not keeping a menu item you like.
  - Angostura 12y ago
    > It is fairly close to saying a restaurant is evil for not keeping a menu item you like. Actually closer to saying they are evil for destroying humanity's only copy of the recipe.
    - npizzolato 12y ago
      After shouting loudly they are going to destroy it and waiting months for anyone to come copy the recipe.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Would it be ok for Google to delete Usenet archives? Or a library to burn down its own buildings? Or Google to delete all scans of old books? History matters, because citations to "old" research/code may become more valuable with new requirements and research. Surely a company that "organizes the world's information" needs no explanation of these topics.
    - krapp 12y ago
      >Would it be ok for Google to delete Usenet archives? If it's their archives, yes. And if those are the only archives of Usenet in existence, then it's not Google's fault no one else cared to back it up.
dchichkov 12y ago
Shutting down Google Code is equivalent to destroying a storage full of handwritten articles, some of which exist only in a single copy and some of which are incredibly valuable. Why valuable? For example computer science researchers had been using Google Code to host supplement code for their research publications for years now. These repositories are not maintained by these researchers any more, yet the code some times is incredibly valuable, because it allows to reproduce research results. The reason why researchers were using Google Code, is because it was supposed to be as stable as the underlying company. Yet now, in 10 months, these repositories will be destroyed.
- NeutronBoy 12y ago
  If the code is that valuable, then perhaps they should put some time into maintaining the code, moving it to another provider, or convincing somebody to pay for hosting.
  - jamiesonbecker 12y ago
    It may not be valuable to the author. That does not mean it's not valuable to some future searcher.
    - Turing_Machine 12y ago
      Right. Researchers would kill to have the balled-up scraps of paper that (e.g) Shakespeare threw in the trash.
  - dchichkov 12y ago
    Example. A cancer researcher, publishes a paper in Nature Genetics. Like this one: http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v42/n3/abs/ng.522.html http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v42/n3/abs/ng.522.html In that paper she publishes a link to a Google Code repository as supplement materials. For example, in the aforementioned paper there is a link to the following repository: http://code.google.com/p/glu-genetics/ http://code.google.com/p/glu-genetics/
asfaltboy 12y ago
I like how that project is hosted on Google code
- skj 12y ago
  It's not a googlecode-hosted project: there is no /p/ in the middle, and you can't see its source (not that there'd be much to see). It's a tool made by the googlecode team to help migrate.
yellowapple 12y ago
It would be the open-source world's equivalent to Geocities shutting down. There are still times when I'm trying to search for something (usually some obscure programming or hardware hacking topic) and the only source of information was a Geocities site. I can't imagine how much of a royal pain in the ass it will be if Google Code experiences the same fate. > I get it, we all hate Google on HN (for reasons unclear to me) The reasons should be clear to anyone with historical context; this isn't the first time Google has spontaneously pulled the plug on some "non-core" project it decided wasn't making quite enough money, in complete disregard of said project's use by the real world. It's these sorts of things that make me very reluctant to invest heavily in Google's ecosystem; I've personally been burned in the past by these sorts of things. A part of me wants XKCD #1361 to come true.
bigiain 12y ago
FWIW, Google were happy for a lot of other people to invest time and resources into putting their projects there in the first place - you don't think there's some reasonable expectation that Google would expend some extremely minimal resources at their scale - to ensuring those peoples effort wasn't wasted/lost? Having said that, I'm not part of any movement to "demand Google do something different", but I've been a longtime member of the "Warn friends/family/colleagues about the dangers of participating in Google services in any way that'll have any downside when they close it down, because they've got a strong track record of doing that" movement. If _I_ were the person making this decision at Google, my announcement would have been more along the lines of "blah blah shutdown blah blah apologies/excuses blah blah, so we're going to donate enough to archive.org to ensure everything on code.google.com gets archived permanently, and automatically redirect all future code.google.com requests to that permanent archive".

zanny 12y ago

> that will be lost no question We have over a year. There will be backups of all of google code made, and even then the Internet Archive will certainly have a backup of all the software projects on it. I doubt any code will be lost - active participation might be, from developers who don't want to relearn how to do things on github.

scott_s 12y ago

A sibling comment already pointed this out, but the existence of https://code.google.com/export-to-github/ https://code.google.com/export-to-github/ and its explicit mention in the post along with the clear language that they did work with GitHub and Bitbucket, leads me to believe that you did not read the post.

tcheard 12y ago

> What Google is doing makes sense from a business stand point but totally shameful from a company that boasts itself doing "no evil". Oh come on! I'm not a fan of everything Google does, and I can see, and in part agree with, the point you are trying to make, but this is just grasping at straws. You just lost all credibility with this comment. Yes, I can see unmaintained code being lost here, and that is unfortunate. But Google provided this service for free, a service they started to promote open source software development. They noticed that there was a big move to other hosting platforms, that they themselves also believe are better than theirs. This has led to support for this platform to be little more than dealing with abuse cases, and they feel that the benefit to the community no longer outweighs the cost of the platform. They have gone out of their way to provide ways to migrate code from Google Code to these other "better" platforms, and they are giving people over 18 months to migrate their code: > January 25, 2016 - The project hosting service is closed. You will be able to download a tarball of project source, issues, and wikis. These tarballs will be available throughout the rest of 2016. They really didn't have to provide any of this. None of this is "evil". There are plenty of acts that Google do that border on "evil", but this is really just the wrong one to choose to call them out on. What do you really expect them to do here?