Closed Open Source? Why can't Google be more like Microsoft? | Hacker News Reader

Closed Open Source? Why can't Google be more like Microsoft?

theregister.co.uk

30 pointslouismg17 comments

This article is ridiculous crap. At the end of the day, Google gives you their freakin' code, damn it. This means that if you're not happy with the way Google is running things, you can go ahead and fork your Chrome OS or Android. And if you do manage to build something significantly better than what Google can offer and people use your stuff over theirs, there's nothing Google can do about it.

Jeez.

Discussion / constructive criticism of open source code management or business decisions that affect developers shouldn't just be dismissed with a "fine then if you're so smart just fork the code, jeez".

Sure, but starting off the discussion by implying that Google is somehow less open than Apple or Microsoft is really just flamebait. If the Register were really interested in inciting change, they could use a headline like "Google May Be Open, But Keeps Community In The Dark".

Im not disagreeing but I think your rebuttal fails to note the major point of the article (which I found actually fairly accurate).

I was amazed when Google released Chrome (the browser). One day there was nothing, the other day there was web comic explaining dream about the browser and the next day there was the browser itself.

How could they build a web browser in complete secrecy without anyone spilling a word about it to the public?

I didn't know it was possible in times when even government documents make their way to the web and copyrighted movies are routinely published as torrents days before their premiere.

There were rumours that Google was building a browser (also: Operating System; Phone) for a long time. The fact that there was no official confirmation/denial isn't really remarkable, and neither is it that there was no Google employee who was willing to put his head on the line.

How about any product released by Apple? That's complete secrecy.

Well, FSJ (Fake Steve Jobs) jokes that they have a squad of ex-Israeli Special Forces guys on pay to punish any traitors. Given the results, I half-believe it. Can't imagine how it could be achieved in another way.

Because Apple makes a serious effort to find and fire people who release even basically irrelevant information, while in the US they're probably not going to come after you like that unless the information was classified.

Not amazing at all, when you consider Google's corporate culture.

Not to equate the two, but the Scientologists have been about as successful as keeping their actual religious texts secret.

Actually, the Scientologists have not been nearly as successful as Google at keeping their actual religious texts secret. They have been leaked numerous times. In fact, in 2008, almost everything from OT 1-8 was posted on wikileaks, and it is still there.

Chrome OS isn't built for developers. It's built for Google. And online advertisers.

ChromeOS is built for users. The comparison in this article is ridiculous. Somehow because Google does not provide a developer prerelease they are anti-developer. It seems to me there is plenty of time to develop: there is a a period of time between when Android gets released and when it gets onto the handset of your choice.

If you are writing a development tool that you need early access to releases perhaps it's best talking to google. I'm sure that Google is willing to work with anyone who is supporting their platform.

The problem with Android is, that the time between when it gets released and when it gets onto the handset of your choice is one week (Motorola Droid and Eclair). And that is the improvement, in past it used to get onto handsets and into the wild first, then released to developers (G1 and 1.1, I'm looking at you).

Basically the development process of Android is closed, Google does not comment on ongoing developments, the sources (or information) are occasionally dumped on developers. The 2.0 is still not fully open. The older releases still do not build for G1/G2 - you cannot checkout the source, configure for particular device and at the end of the process have an image that you can flash.

Or the situation with ADP1 - it is supposed to be development phone, but there was still no communication, whether 2.0 will be able to run at all at the device. Developers outside Google/HTC cannot work on the tree, because it does not build...

ChromeOS is built for users. The comparison in this article is ridiculous.

Nothing Google does is for "users". Advertisers are Google's customers. Users are Google's product.

Nothing Google does is for "users". Advertisers are Google's customers. Users are Google's product.

That's mostly true, but a little too glib in some ways. Their raw material is prospective users, their salable product is actual users, and attracting and retaining those users is their manufacturing process. They absolutely do things "for users" in the same sense that an iron refinery does things "for iron ore".

Nothing? That's pretty bold. Google has begun to charge for services in the cloud: this though is a competitive environment. I see ChromeOS as a move to build a user-base for they cloud-based software services. Some of those services will be advert funded, but no-doubt they will have a paid model too.

How something is funded is separate from who it is designed for. For example newspapers copy is partly funded by advertisements too as is television. The product in both these cases is not the readers/viewers.

Most of what Google does is for the users, as they want to keep their market share. The same way that a television station needs good programming to keep viewers.

By that circular reasoning you could also say that developers are important, since that's the way to attract users ... since nobody will use your OS if it isn't capable of running your favorite apps.

I know that the browser is the new OS and all that crap, but a laptop/netbook capable of only running web apps (or apps designed for Chrome's APIs) seems pretty pointless to me. And I'm really thankful for Moore's law ... with multi-core Intel/ARM processors, and all those GPUs ... you'll now be able to run your all your apps in a browser. That's a serious accomplishment.

Developers should be able to choose the platform based on real technical requirements, not on artificial limitations. All your applications running in the cloud? Who's cloud?

Meet the new boss, same as the old one.

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