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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 r

by 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.
      - bigiain 12y ago
        Somebody else did have a usenet archive - Google bought them, mashed up a bunch of other nn-usenet Google stuff into it, then let it bitrot until it was effectively useless, and then removed the only search features that worked... (Admittedly, if I recall correctly, Dejanews had already gone broke trying to maintain that archive before Google bought it, so arguably Google didn't kill it, they just bought the dying corpse and kept it animated in a zombie-like state for a decade or so past it's natural death...)
        12y ago
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".

by enjo 12y ago

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.
    - bigiain 12y ago
      Somebody else did have a usenet archive - Google bought them, mashed up a bunch of other nn-usenet Google stuff into it, then let it bitrot until it was effectively useless, and then removed the only search features that worked... (Admittedly, if I recall correctly, Dejanews had already gone broke trying to maintain that archive before Google bought it, so arguably Google didn't kill it, they just bought the dying corpse and kept it animated in a zombie-like state for a decade or so past it's natural death...)
      - 12y ago

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".