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Open sourcing the Firebase SDKs

opensource.googleblog.com

31–40 of 77 posts

Re: Open sourcing the Firebase SDKs

#31
This means that I can host my own Firebase-built web application myself? It'll be just as fast as if it ran on Google's infrastructure (assuming machines are the same)?

Is this kind of an insinuation that Google plans to drop Firebase soon and leave it to the open source community to take care of? What are Firebase's revenues like?

Re: Open sourcing the Firebase SDKs

#32
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've mischaracterised things a bit in your post - not sure if this is just because you're repeating what you read elsewhere? Anyhow, regarding the bullet points: 1. Google Wave was released an experimental consumer product, designed to combine the best of IM and email. According to the announcement, it was finally sunset due to lack of interest from the public. Personally, I was super excited about Wave - I…

> This is a pretty bold claim - can you cite any examples of this? I don't know if you have read the original thread, but there are a few examples of this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14356409 Also this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/38959321/firebase-databa...

The parent comment posted in that thread, so I assume he has read it. While I read parts of the comment thread earlier when if first came up, I searched some key phrases and couldn't really find specifics other than the SO link you already mentioned. There was a lot of discontent and general ramblings about Google support being terrible, but I saw more people praising the paid support options and support in general for paid products than giving concrete examples of being burned.

Re: Open sourcing the Firebase SDKs

#33
post #31

This means that I can host my own Firebase-built web application myself? It'll be just as fast as if it ran on Google's infrastructure (assuming machines are the same)? Is this kind of an insinuation that Google plans to drop Firebase soon and leave it to the open source community to take care of? What are Firebase's revenues like?

Up about 7000% on last month. The service is growing like gangbusters.

Re: Open sourcing the Firebase SDKs

#35
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed dumping on Google earlier too. I love firebase, but I've talked two companies I've worked with out of using it for new, mission critical projects. The earlier article made me feel completely vindicated in my recommendations. I simply have no trust that: - Google won't randomly cancel firebase (wave, reader, etc) - Google won't randomly, suddenly jack up the prices for firebase, leaving users in the lurch (a…

I think you've mischaracterised things a bit in your post - not sure if this is just because you're repeating what you read elsewhere? Anyhow, regarding the bullet points: 1. Google Wave was released an experimental consumer product, designed to combine the best of IM and email. According to the announcement, it was finally sunset due to lack of interest from the public. Personally, I was super excited about Wave - I…

I uploaded a small chrome extension a few months ago. Shortly after my developer account was closed for "violations of terms". I had just opened the account, and paid a nominal $5 fee for it.

I tried appealing a few times and was still not told what I did wrong or any way to get back on.

I got the impression that it was being handled automatically and that nobody could be bothered to write anything.

Re: Open sourcing the Firebase SDKs

#36
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said two years ago¹, Google is too large to have actual customers, per se, since any group of paying users is still too small for Google to need to pay attention to. ① https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9912754

These are all little hobby projects for the advertising company.

Part of ecosystem. See how firebase today is integrated with analytics/ads.

Re: Open sourcing the Firebase SDKs

#37
post #31

This means that I can host my own Firebase-built web application myself? It'll be just as fast as if it ran on Google's infrastructure (assuming machines are the same)? Is this kind of an insinuation that Google plans to drop Firebase soon and leave it to the open source community to take care of? What are Firebase's revenues like?

This is the client sdk, not the server

Re: Open sourcing the Firebase SDKs

#38
This post shows, how mis-informed the community can be. If you have been following up Google Cloud and Firebase, most of the questions regarding long term support, phasing out and Google turning rogue wouldn't be asked. Firebase is one key aspect of Google's cloud strategy. Pretty much everything on Mobile services is tied with Firebase, some way or the other. We have now built 2 products on Firebase and are reasonably happy. The real-time nature of FB makes it alluring to so many use cases.

Having said that, Google should surely address questions on pricing and supporting other key Mobile platforms like Xamarin. Tweeting to the Firebase handle on issues never get replied. With other bleeding edge services that Google provides, Firebase certainly has positioned itself nice. The teething issues should be small things to fix.

Re: Open sourcing the Firebase SDKs

#39
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed dumping on Google earlier too. I love firebase, but I've talked two companies I've worked with out of using it for new, mission critical projects. The earlier article made me feel completely vindicated in my recommendations. I simply have no trust that: - Google won't randomly cancel firebase (wave, reader, etc) - Google won't randomly, suddenly jack up the prices for firebase, leaving users in the lurch (a…

I think you've mischaracterised things a bit in your post - not sure if this is just because you're repeating what you read elsewhere? Anyhow, regarding the bullet points: 1. Google Wave was released an experimental consumer product, designed to combine the best of IM and email. According to the announcement, it was finally sunset due to lack of interest from the public. Personally, I was super excited about Wave - I…

It's my understanding that Google has ramped up enterprise cloud support by outsourcing it. We ran into evidence of this recently. It's not helpful when the heavily accented, scripted Indian support guy at the other end is less technically informed than yourself, and there's no magic phrase to get bumped up to the next support level.

We're on Google Cloud Platform because of Kubernetes, and I'm dreading the day where we will need urgent support for something. My only consolation is that the Kubernetes community is very active, with lots of googlers on Github, Slack, Google Groups, and so on. We're trying to avoid using services outside of GKE in order to keep our vendor lock-in minimal (Kubernetes potentially allows us to switch vendors), and to stay within the realm of Kubernetes.

You have to face it -- Google's reputation has been severely damaged over the years, not just things like Reader, but also AppEngine, Google Apps support, arbitrary account shutdowns, and so on. Even innocuous, well-intentioned deprecations are hurting your rep these days, and you should consider avoiding this just to let your karma recharge; people will eventually forget and forgive, but if a new breaking change happens every month, they won't. (Contrast the situation to AWS, which has hardly deprecated anything since they started up, and manages to keep unpopular products running years after they became effectively obsolete.)

Re: Open sourcing the Firebase SDKs

#40
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed dumping on Google earlier too. I love firebase, but I've talked two companies I've worked with out of using it for new, mission critical projects. The earlier article made me feel completely vindicated in my recommendations. I simply have no trust that: - Google won't randomly cancel firebase (wave, reader, etc) - Google won't randomly, suddenly jack up the prices for firebase, leaving users in the lurch (a…

I think you've mischaracterised things a bit in your post - not sure if this is just because you're repeating what you read elsewhere? Anyhow, regarding the bullet points: 1. Google Wave was released an experimental consumer product, designed to combine the best of IM and email. According to the announcement, it was finally sunset due to lack of interest from the public. Personally, I was super excited about Wave - I…

How about glass? That was hailed as the second coming according to the IO presentation, then they quietly dropped it.
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