Google Cloud offers a model for fixing Google’s product-killing reputation

arstechnica.com

10 pointsandromaton3 comments

"If Google needs to change an API, customers will now get a minimum of one year's notice ..."

That is not overwhelming.

APIs should never be removed. Imagine what would happen if Linux deleted functions like mmap() and read() because Linus thought he built something better? If Google Cloud wants to be more than a commodity substrate for running Linux VMs then they should make the same level of commitment to stability.

Hold up,

> Rumor has it (according to a report from The Information) that Google Cloud Platform is facing a 2023 deadline to beat AWS and Microsoft, or it will risk losing funding.

They're supposedly committing to stability and backwards compatibility. But the same article here says they whole department might be defunded unless they can become a market leader in 2 years, which sounds highly unlikely. Which means that their promises are worthless. I think they'd need to actually demonstrate at least 5 years of real API stability before the enterprise world starts looking at it more seriously.

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