Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm • Hacker News Board

Re: Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm

#11

Post by Mystalic » Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 3:22 PM UTC

Google is a business. Their job, legally defined, is to create value (aka profit) for its shareholders. A more open web has helped Google, but opening up its search algorithms, a cornerstone to Google's growth, is just ludicrous and bad business.

Compared to a lot of other companies (Apple, Microsoft, nearly every other tech giant), they are an open company. It's already great that they realize there's value in an Open-source browser, and open-source OS, and multiple open platforms.

Re: Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm

#12

Post by mlLK » Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 3:24 PM UTC

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/ easily brings down this bogus claim. I honestly don't think much would change even if they did open-source their PageRank algorithm because the people willing and able enough to exploit it already do, and regardless of how much their PageRank increases Google will send your domain deep into an internet abyss and out of their index.

Re: Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm

#13

Post by tome » Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 3:26 PM UTC

Mystalic wrote: post #11

Google is a business. Their job, legally defined, is to create value (aka profit) for its shareholders. A more open web has helped Google, but opening up its search algorithms, a cornerstone to Google's growth, is just ludicrous and bad business. Compared to a lot of other companies (Apple, Microsoft, nearly every other tech giant), they are an open company. It's already great that they realize there's value in an Op…

Their job, legally defined, is to create value (aka profit) for its shareholders.

This is a meme I see a lot, but never with any evidence. That the board has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders I can understand. That it would have a legal obligation to create value, well, I think that would be hard to define, and I have never seen any evidence for the existence of this obligation.

Re: Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm

#14

Post by rriepe » Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 3:27 PM UTC

showerst wrote: post #2

The notion that being 'committed' to open source means that a company should give away everything of value is ludicrous. Google came up with great software that makes millions of peoples' lives easier, and they have every right to keep it secret and profit off of it. The zealous idea that open source and trade secrets cannot coexist is detrimental to the open source movement as a whole, in my opinion.

Well put. Almost any good idea taken to its extreme is a bad idea.

Re: Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm

#15

Post by mattmanser » Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 3:31 PM UTC

showerst wrote: post #2

The notion that being 'committed' to open source means that a company should give away everything of value is ludicrous. Google came up with great software that makes millions of peoples' lives easier, and they have every right to keep it secret and profit off of it. The zealous idea that open source and trade secrets cannot coexist is detrimental to the open source movement as a whole, in my opinion.

I think you're missing the point, the article is pretty much a direct response to:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/meaning-of-open.html (submitted here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1008908)

In it a Google open source zealot rants wildly about openess being ultimate, apart from search algorithms which should be closed. It also fails to mention all the times open has failed (communism being one of the more spectacular failures of open).

A cynic might surmise what they actually mean is content should be open so they can profit from their closed search algorithm.

Re: Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm

#16

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 3:35 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #13

Mystalic wrote: post #11

Google is a business. Their job, legally defined, is to create value (aka profit) for its shareholders. A more open web has helped Google, but opening up its search algorithms, a cornerstone to Google's growth, is just ludicrous and bad business. Compared to a lot of other companies (Apple, Microsoft, nearly every other tech giant), they are an open company. It's already great that they realize there's value in an Op…

Their job, legally defined, is to create value (aka profit) for its shareholders. This is a meme I see a lot, but never with any evidence. That the board has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders I can understand. That it would have a legal obligation to create value, well, I think that would be hard to define, and I have never seen any evidence for the existence of this obligation.

[deleted]

Re: Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm

#17

Post by mbreese » Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 3:36 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #13

Mystalic wrote: post #11

Google is a business. Their job, legally defined, is to create value (aka profit) for its shareholders. A more open web has helped Google, but opening up its search algorithms, a cornerstone to Google's growth, is just ludicrous and bad business. Compared to a lot of other companies (Apple, Microsoft, nearly every other tech giant), they are an open company. It's already great that they realize there's value in an Op…

Their job, legally defined, is to create value (aka profit) for its shareholders. This is a meme I see a lot, but never with any evidence. That the board has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders I can understand. That it would have a legal obligation to create value, well, I think that would be hard to define, and I have never seen any evidence for the existence of this obligation.

In the context of a publicly traded company this is the definition of fiduciary. The company has sold stock to investors with the sole purpose of increasing the value of the stock. Therefore, it is up to the board to make decisions that reflect this duty.

You can argue about the timeline (short versus long-term growth), but you can't say that there isn't a legal obligation to attempt to increase value.

Re: Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm

#18

Post by RyanMcGreal » Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 3:37 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #15

showerst wrote: post #2

The notion that being 'committed' to open source means that a company should give away everything of value is ludicrous. Google came up with great software that makes millions of peoples' lives easier, and they have every right to keep it secret and profit off of it. The zealous idea that open source and trade secrets cannot coexist is detrimental to the open source movement as a whole, in my opinion.

I think you're missing the point, the article is pretty much a direct response to: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/meaning-of-open.html (submitted here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1008908 ) In it a Google open source zealot rants wildly about openess being ultimate, apart from search algorithms which should be closed. It also fails to mention all the times open has failed (communism being one of the m…

> communism being one of the more spectacular failures of open

Wait, what? Communism is a spectacular failure of centralized planning over the entire economy. It has nothing to do with open or closed in principle, and in every implementation it has been aggressively closed in terms of information flows and decision making.

Re: Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm

#19

Post by minsight » Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 3:37 PM UTC

stuff4ben wrote: post #10

I don't get it, is the author talking about PageRank? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank What more does he want?

The algorithm used by Google today is light-years away from that described in the PageRank paper. It uses a form of PageRank, but it also uses many other parameters.

Re: Google should open source what actually matters: their search ranking algorithm

#20

Post by allenp » Tue, Dec 22, 2009, 3:38 PM UTC

showerst wrote: post #2

The notion that being 'committed' to open source means that a company should give away everything of value is ludicrous. Google came up with great software that makes millions of peoples' lives easier, and they have every right to keep it secret and profit off of it. The zealous idea that open source and trade secrets cannot coexist is detrimental to the open source movement as a whole, in my opinion.

Additionally it may be the case that a large part of the value of the algorithm is created from its secrecy. If the algorithm was open it would be trivial to create sites with artificially high rankings which would reduce the value of the search results.