Is Google Becoming An Enemy To Open Source?

Open source is always friend to the No. 2 player in a market and always the enemy of the top dog. That appears to be the big lesson after connecting a few dots on various items popping up around the Web.

First David Carr at Baseline notes that Yahoo (YHOO) is a major sponsor of Hadoop, a big open source project designed to replicate Google’s (GOOG) techniques for storing and processing information.

Carr documents how Yahoo has become increasingly cozy with Hadoop and has even swapped a few employees. Carr reports:

The basic technique Hadoop uses is part of what has allowed Google to manage the massive data processing challenges associated with indexing the Web—and do it economically. Google has not released source code for its Google File System or the associated distributed computing environment, known as MapReduce. But what Google has done is publish academic papers on the computer science behind both—presumably knowing full well that competitors and open source programmers would be likely to create their own implementations.

Google hasn’t exactly handed over its technology to Hadoop and appears to be taking a hands off approach. And why would it open source the very techniques that give Google an edge?

From there, Dana Blankenhorn asks a bigger question: Is Google becoming an enemy to open source? Dana tracks some heated exchanges between Microsoft (MSFT) and Google on the topic and press folks appear to be siding with Microsoft.

On the surface, Google’s relationship with open source is more nuanced. Earlier this month Google gave a big boost to the Open Invention Network, which could get an enterprise boost on the move. But the open source community wants the kimono opened on everything. What’s lost is the big dollars at stake for any top dog in a market.

In the end, Google will pick its shots when it comes to open source. In other words, Google will toggle between open source friend and foe based on its own interests.

Comments

[George R:]

"Toggling" only works for a very short amount of time, Larry. You are either a Democrat or a Republican (Roos Perot, Ralph Nader, Pat Paulson, and the other independent aside) n this country. You don't ge tot wait to see how weveryone is voting asnd then decide.

Google is a hypocrit on this subject matter. Just like it has become a hypocrit on so many other subjects ... and especially when they relate to copyrights and trademarks.

Google steals food from the farmers and gives it to the poor ... problem is .. most of the farmers are poor as well. It's a PR stunt .. pure and simple. Read on and you'll see what I mean.

The Tip of the Iceberg

Google's "do no evil" slogan sucked in millions and millions of people worldwide. People who had become accustomed to the business practices of Microsoft, Apple, AOL, Novel and others and who wanted, and needed, a break. It was an easy audience to buy into the "hype".

It worked ... probably far better, and far faster, than even Google expected. In fact, when Google's CEO moved to Google from Novel (and earlier Cisco, I think) he indicated it would be a pleasant change of pace for him to not have to deal with Microsoft day in and day out anymore. Right Eric ... we hear you!

Google hired some of the smartest people in the world to help them carry the "do no evil" banner to the masses. Like rallying certain religious cultures to become more hostile to those of us in western civilizations, Google's reach for support became a relatively easy mission and spread like wildfire by word of mouth. Their timing was impeccable, as was their implementation.

Soon word of mouth converted to billions and billions of dollars of venture capital, outside investment, and advertising dollars and "Google" quickly became a common household word ... even a verb in many cases .. much like "Xerox" was used for all copying in the last century. Google stood for "innovation", for "anti-Microsoft", for "free and open source" and "free and open applications", for "open and honest discovery", and most of all for "simple and lightning fast search". I don't see too much evil in those causes, do you? ... "DO NO EVIL".

One thing Google forgot to tell us. Much of the content it planned to deliver for free was going to be stolen from others. It's kind of like a business model that sets out to steal crops from thousands and thousands of hard working, and disadvantaged, farmers, while offering the food for free to the world's millions and millions of starving people. As long as you do a good job promoting your good deeds, not one of the small time farmers (not even the largest ones for that matter) are likely to be able to stop you. And billions of dollars provides a ton of legal and public relations support to help spread the word in that direction as well. "Is it fair to cut off the supply of food to these hungry people throughout the world, your honor?"

Maybe I'm old school, but the shenanigans I've witnessed over the past three years since Google went public are the antithesis of "good deeds" from my experience.

And perhaps even worse, the other giant search engine companies, like Microsoft, IAC, and Time Warner, seem to be following Google's lead rather than trying to do what is fair and just. I know this. I have communicated with senior level attorneys and executives at several of these companies about these concerns.

So, who are the farmers? Well, here's just a few of the many I have heard from, or read about:

- book publishers
- book authors
- illustrators
- cartoonists
- poets
- journalists
- songwriters
- animators
- digitizers
- musicians
- television studios
- designers
- photographers
- playwrights
- universities
- producers
- cable operators
- actors and actresses
- professional athletes
- artists
- comedians
- speech writers
- magazine columnists
- models
- writers
- newspaper editors
- comic strip creators
- videographers
- investigative reporters
- movie makers
- programmers

Seems like each of these groups have been involved in lawsuits involving Google over the past five years ... both here and in Europe. Almost always pertaining to intellectual property ... trademarks, copyrights, patents.

In fact, how do you explain this fact: Google knew that YouTube was involved in literally thousands and thousands of unlawful uploading and downloading activities BEFORE giving its two 20-something founders the lion's share of $1.65 billion in late 2006. And the infringement activity seems to have gotten worse rather than better since Google took the helm.

How does any modern, civilized, government or industry explain that to the Chinese?
What signal has Google given the rest of the world regarding intellectual property and copyright infringement?

How about this one. "You probably shouldn't do it, but if you do, please do it in a very big way like we do, so that we can all profit from the advertising exposure, and the giveaways of our "docs" and other "apps" (one of Google's terms for "food") along the way."

I make my living from one of the categories referenced above. I believe in copyright protection and have always been willing to put my money, and my reputation, where my mouth was. Still am. In my view, Google has become the DOMINANT EVIL EMPIRE it claimed to loath. Microsoft is just laying low now and waiting for Google to fall on its own sword so that the original "Evil Empire" (according to Google anyway) can pick its way through the spoils.

"Do Some Evil" and count on the consuming public, industry journalists, and our elected public officials, to be too stupid, or too afraid of technology, to notice what you're really doing doesn't work across the board, Google.

Google's recent 10Q disclosures should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been following this story closely over the past few months. We've only seen the "tip of the iceberg" ... believe me.

George P. Riddick, III
Chairman/CEO
Imageline, Inc.

[e-mail]...

2007 Aug 22 10:49 AM

[murrquan:]

Sir;

I've tried to make sense of your argument, but it seems to boil down to just two things: "Google is big," and "Google is stealing."

We already know Google is big, but I'm not sure how it is stealing. The only example you give, YouTube, is an archive of user submissions, and keeping the users from uploading copyrighted works can be tricky. Who blows the whistle on each submission, and how long does it take to respond?

You can criticize them for not doing enough on YouTube, perhaps -- arguably, they don't know <i>what</i>... to do with it yet, since it hasn't even come close to turning a profit for them. I don't think they can be criticized for Google Books, though, their YouTube-like archive of written work. The only books they have posted there are the ones they have legal permission to use. And even then, they help you find the books at your local library, or buy them at a bookstore.

In an essay on your website, you lament "the ... distribution networks of pirated works through the online channels of Google and others," and call on "the Google’s of the world" to "step up and do what is right." You say they are doing evil, but the fact is, they are not.

What they <i>are</i> doing is fulfilling their stated mission: To make the world's information accessible to all. That means more people around the world are seeing your artwork, whether it's posted on your website or on the sites of those who are legally licensed to use it. <i>Some</i>... of those people are making the choice to pirate it, and that <i>is</i> evil. But if Google hadn't indexed those sites, they never would have seen your artwork to begin with.

Your abovelinked essay on "Web 2.0" seems to soundly condemn it, and the spirit of sharing it introduced -- a spirit that spills over into piracy, to be sure, but one which has brought profound benefits. Without spending any of my meager income, I've managed to start a website to showcase my own written work, based on the free and open-source software made available by Wordpress, and the work of talented photographers and coders. Furthermore, I did it WITHOUT taking anything that was not given away freely. That is the power of Web 2.0.

The original article did not condemn Google for making such sharing possible. In fact, they acknowledge that this is a good thing, just as Free/Open Source software development has improved countless lives via Linux and other projects. Instead, they condemned Google for not sharing as much as they could have, and keeping some secrets to themselves. I don't see anything wrong with that -- my written work will be copyrighted -- and in fact, I applaud them for what they <i>have</i>... done, and the projects in which they <i>have</i>... given back.

Google has promised to do no evil, and while I'm wary of anything as powerful as they are, the more I look into it the more I'm convinced that they're keeping their promise. And their free services have opened up the web to billions, including me.

If you'd like to see a different take on how to make money off of sharing things freely, I suggest looking at the efforts of Red Hat and Novell -- or Google itself, which makes its best services freely available. Better yet, check out the Baen Free Library, a publisher-run archive where they give a ton of their books away free. Furthermore, <strong>they're doing it to make money</strong>, a proposition that seems absurd on its face but which makes perfect sense once you hear them explain it.

I hope things go well for you, sir, but it's my belief that you're fighting the wrong battle.

Jared Spurbeck
Webmanager
Cats' Nest Productions

jspurbeck (at) gmail.com

2007 Aug 22 06:20 PM