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> Release only open source products? Google open sources far more than most companies. They've also contributed greatly to building new open source projects, a

by exelius 11y ago

> Release only open source products? Google open sources far more than most companies. They've also contributed greatly to building new open source projects, and they actually keep them open and are a generally benevolent maintainer. They're probably one of the best corporate citizens of the open source community. > Not sell our information to advertisers? It's their entire business model; if you don't like it, don't use their products. > Not collaborate with the government to spy on us? Google never willingly collaborated with the government. They were either hacked by the NSA (this isn't a mark of shame -- just read up on the Equation Group virus that went undetected for the better part of a decade) or they cooperated under a sealed court order. Corporations don't have the agency that individuals do in refusing to cooperate with a court order -- it's literally not possible for a company to refuse to comply with a court order because the feds can just keep arresting people until someone complies. Most companies refuse to put their employees in this position, so they comply under protest (which is exactly what Google did). > Not use their monopoly money to buy all of the smart people in the world? So they shouldn't hire under capitalist principles? Also note that this is beneficial for the smart people of the world, because it forces other companies to pay more as well.

Niten 11y ago
Google doesn't sell your data: http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/#nosharing http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/#nosharing Rather, its business model is using this data on behalf of advertisers. That is a highly significant distinction, in my personal opinion.
- exelius 11y ago
  Yeah, I realize this... Ultimately it's the same effect though (advertisers use your info to show you ads), which is why I didn't make the distinction.
  - Niten 11y ago
    No, it's a huge difference. I'm willing to trust this one, specific company with my data because I know their privacy policy and their practices. Handing that data off to arbitrary other companies for a buck is another matter entirely, I wouldn't be comfortable with that; that's what "selling your data" means, that phrase has a specific meaning, and claiming that's what Google does is a misrepresentation. What you're saying is that if I tell my friend Sean a secret in confidence, it's all the same whether or not he proceeds to share it with all his friends. In my mind, and in most people's minds, it isn't.
- Karunamon 11y ago
  ..And one that gets regularly missed in the amazingly tiresome "YOU'RE THE PRODUCT!!" meme/circlejerk/thing that gets repeated so often without any further thought around these parts.
astazangasta 11y ago
>So they shouldn't hire under capitalist principles? Also note that this is beneficial for the smart people of the world, because it forces other companies to pay more as well. Yes, basically I'm asking for non-capitalism (sorry, I'm a relentless anti-capitalist). It's too much for a HN thread. But I'm sick of this world - Google is a company BUILT on free software. They only exist because of public largesse. Without Linus Torvalds and Stallman (and a million others), Google would not exist, period. Without the Internet, Google would not exist. This sort of thing is rampant - github has a billion-dollar valuation based on the fact that Linus Torvalds wrote and open-sourced git, and pretty much for no other reason. I want a word that acknowledges that we exist together, dammit, that the wealth we've made - all of it - is produced in common, and that we don't use every single scrap of advantage we get to arrogate more power to ourselves. Google is a company that is built on taking a public good, perhaps the greatest public good we have ever made, and turning it into an engine for generating wealth and power for a few individuals. It's the 21st century, dammit. Let's do better. We have the fucking model for how to do this. Let's build on it. Let's share what we produce instead of taking the collective bounty and using it for our own personal gain.
- mynameisvlad 11y ago
  > github has a billion-dollar valuation based on the fact that Linus Torvalds wrote and open-sourced git, and pretty much for no other reason. No, github has a billion-dollar valuation based on the fact that they took a pretty empty market (source code hosting) and created a developer ecosystem around it. Whether they used git, or mercurial, or svn, or any other version control system really doesn't make a big difference. They happened to pick up on the fact that git was picking up steam and went all-in on that bet, but you can replace git with practically any other VCS and it still could have worked. In fact, I'd say it brought more younger developers and enterprise companies to git than git bringing the developers to them.
  - semi-extrinsic 11y ago
    >hedged on that bet I do not think that first word means what you think it means: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/hedge_one's_bets https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/hedge_one's_bets
angersock 11y ago
They're probably one of the best corporate citizens of the open source community. Alternately, they're giving things away for free to discourage non-Google innovation and generally devalue the labor of other companies and developers. Tomato, tomato.
- DannyBee 11y ago
  This isn't even a good troll.

by exelius 11y ago

Niten 11y ago

Google doesn't sell your data: http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/#nosharing http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/#nosharing Rather, its business model is using this data on behalf of advertisers. That is a highly significant distinction, in my personal opinion.

exelius 11y ago
Yeah, I realize this... Ultimately it's the same effect though (advertisers use your info to show you ads), which is why I didn't make the distinction.
- Niten 11y ago
  No, it's a huge difference. I'm willing to trust this one, specific company with my data because I know their privacy policy and their practices. Handing that data off to arbitrary other companies for a buck is another matter entirely, I wouldn't be comfortable with that; that's what "selling your data" means, that phrase has a specific meaning, and claiming that's what Google does is a misrepresentation. What you're saying is that if I tell my friend Sean a secret in confidence, it's all the same whether or not he proceeds to share it with all his friends. In my mind, and in most people's minds, it isn't.
Karunamon 11y ago
..And one that gets regularly missed in the amazingly tiresome "YOU'RE THE PRODUCT!!" meme/circlejerk/thing that gets repeated so often without any further thought around these parts.

astazangasta 11y ago

>So they shouldn't hire under capitalist principles? Also note that this is beneficial for the smart people of the world, because it forces other companies to pay more as well. Yes, basically I'm asking for non-capitalism (sorry, I'm a relentless anti-capitalist). It's too much for a HN thread. But I'm sick of this world - Google is a company BUILT on free software. They only exist because of public largesse. Without Linus Torvalds and Stallman (and a million others), Google would not exist, period. Without the Internet, Google would not exist. This sort of thing is rampant - github has a billion-dollar valuation based on the fact that Linus Torvalds wrote and open-sourced git, and pretty much for no other reason. I want a word that acknowledges that we exist together, dammit, that the wealth we've made - all of it - is produced in common, and that we don't use every single scrap of advantage we get to arrogate more power to ourselves. Google is a company that is built on taking a public good, perhaps the greatest public good we have ever made, and turning it into an engine for generating wealth and power for a few individuals. It's the 21st century, dammit. Let's do better. We have the fucking model for how to do this. Let's build on it. Let's share what we produce instead of taking the collective bounty and using it for our own personal gain.

mynameisvlad 11y ago
> github has a billion-dollar valuation based on the fact that Linus Torvalds wrote and open-sourced git, and pretty much for no other reason. No, github has a billion-dollar valuation based on the fact that they took a pretty empty market (source code hosting) and created a developer ecosystem around it. Whether they used git, or mercurial, or svn, or any other version control system really doesn't make a big difference. They happened to pick up on the fact that git was picking up steam and went all-in on that bet, but you can replace git with practically any other VCS and it still could have worked. In fact, I'd say it brought more younger developers and enterprise companies to git than git bringing the developers to them.
- semi-extrinsic 11y ago
  >hedged on that bet I do not think that first word means what you think it means: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/hedge_one's_bets https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/hedge_one's_bets

angersock 11y ago

They're probably one of the best corporate citizens of the open source community. Alternately, they're giving things away for free to discourage non-Google innovation and generally devalue the labor of other companies and developers. Tomato, tomato.

DannyBee 11y ago
This isn't even a good troll.