Remove the Google logo from the Golang website | Hacker News Reader

Remove the Google logo from the Golang website

github.com

57 pointspiliberto22 comments

I don't get it. Go is a google sponsored project. Nobody cries about .net core including Microsoft logos, or Java using Oracle's, kotlin with jetbrains, etc.

I honestly think it's better that the logo is prominently displayed, lest people forget who actually controls the language.

If it’s not branded as a google product that sure reduces the perceived risk of it being cancelled out of the blue one day.

I’m quite far from the ongoing Go community discussions, but this seems to be a perfect example?

> We’ve discusses this internally and decided...

As one commenter on the PR points out, they’ve discussed it internally, now it’s time to discuss as a community, but this issue has still been closed.

I don’t have an opinion on the actual topic here, but if Google don’t want to be perceived as doing whatever they like with Go and not involving the community, then they have to at least have these discussions. Even if they come to the table with strong opinions and good reasons, keeping up the appearance of community involvement like in this issue creates a culture of Go being community driven, and right now that culture is lacking.

> I don’t have an opinion on the actual topic here, but if Google don’t want to be perceived as doing whatever they like with Go and not involving the community, then they have to at least have these discussions.

Google hires many Go developers, hosts all the infrastructure, etc. They've been spending millions of dollars a year for the last decade or so on the project.

A small logo at the bottom of the website doesn't seem like much to ask for.

It's not even uncommon, but some people seem to see everything Google does as some plan for world domination shrug.

> A small logo at the bottom of the website doesn't seem like much to ask for.

As I said, I have on real opinion on this particular request. It's the culture that their response creates that is of concern to me.

A better response may have been:

"Thanks for the issue. We spent a long time talking about it and are sensitive to this concern, however it would be great to get more of an understanding of how the community feels about this. Let's leave this issue open as a place for discussion for a few weeks and revisit this once we've collected some more thoughts from the community"

Edit: this culture is not a right of the community, but it is a requirement for Google to legitimately call this "community driven". Again, not specific to this particular discussion.

Is "the community" also going to foot the multi-million dollar bill? Or does "the community" simple expect Google to give free money asking nothing in return?

That’s not the OPs point, at all. Nobody disagrees with or does not appreciate Google for their Go support, OP (rightly, imo) calls out that it’s a bit disingenuous to call it a “community” when “internal” continues to get thrown about on relation to language decisions.

A small logo in the bottom-right corner of the website is not a "language decision".

I would say that a community member disagreeing with the logo being there getting shutdown because of “internal” decisions is exactly a “language decision”. The “language” stewardship includes the spec, the code && the community, none of it exists in isolation.

FWIW, I’m totally 100% cool with the logo. Make it fucking huge and marquee that baby. I do think the way this issue went down is total trash tho.

I don't know, I think a lot of people in the Go team are really tired of this whole "you never listen to the community!!!1!" line. Repeating the same discussion over and over again with random strangers on the internet gets ... very tired, very fast.

> A small logo at the bottom of the website doesn't seem like much to ask for.

"ask for" is not what's happening.

What's happening is that Google had a private discussion about it and determined the issue should be squashed before it would be discussed in the public.

To that effect, I feel the suggestion to remove Google's branding would actually be disingenuous as Google has complete control over Go and you should volunteer your time knowing that.

>some people seem to see everything Google does as some plan for world domination

That would be foolish. At least some of the things that Google does are clearly just side-projects.

Almost every sponsored project has internal discussions. Many sync from the internal source control to GitHub.

Is it really realistic to make every chat with a colleague into a formal, public RFC?

I'd say in this case yes. In Go there have been a lot of complaints about Google leading the project in the direction they see fit, with zero input from the community. Often the community has complained and would prefer things done differently, but Google say it should be done their way and that's it.

The way this has been handled just reinforces that Go is not a community project, but a Google project that happens to be open sourced.

> Is it really realistic to make every chat with a colleague into a formal, public RFC?

Maybe, maybe not, but when the community asks for a discussion about something, a response of "too late, we already decided behind closed doors" is not one that builds a culture of the project taking community involvement seriously.

Even if a decision has already been made in private, and will not be changed (which I feel is already somewhat missing the point of a community project), at least showing openness to those discussions, taking feedback, and tracking it in public is important to build the culture that is necessary to make projects succeed like this.

I agree, it's just that the folks who are stirring up drama, they don't represent the Go community. Google does. They're the ones who speak up and stand up for the whole community, many of whom aren't allowed to have a public voice in these matters by their employers. That's what the logo represents. It doesn't mean "this language is google's" but rather "google works for you."

This is overly snarky and should be closed for that alone.

Google funded its development. OSS projects do this. React has Copyright Facebook, yet I don’t see snarky PRs about scrubbing their name. Maybe Google’s logo shouldn’t be colorful?

I agree I am surprised they bothered to answer kindly.

Can’t be a color issue since most gophers are colorblind.

If the community wants to have a say in go's future without Google's veto, then the community should just fork the code and move ahead.

Otherwise it's still Google's thing.

This is petty nonsense. It's not even an interesting thing.

How about Angular? Isn't it a Google product as well? How come it doesn't have the Google logo on https://angular.io/? Maybe someone should raise a ticket to request for the Google logo to be included like in Go? For the sake of consistency...

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