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Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

android.googlesource.com

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Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#61

Post by geofft »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #28
geofft wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whoever chose to commit anonymously (or gave the order to) knew they were doing something shitty and didn't feel comfortable doing it "in public". That isn't necessarily true (although it definitely seems possible in this case, especially given the choice of name). The other possible reason is that they knew they were doing something perfectly reasonable but controversial, that other people would dislike, and they…

Deliberately breaking an existing feature that caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user is never, in any circumstances, "perfectly reasonable". It may be largely inconsequential, it may be cynically obvious, it may be not worth fussing about, but not "perfectly reasonable".

> caused zero trouble to any past, present, or hypothetical future user

Yes, but I don't think that is true of this feature:

1. It's a feature. Features have inherent maintenance cost. A team can only support so many features, and new features generally come at the cost of other features being well-developed. A significant part of my day job involves killing features that technically work but require so much maintenance overhead that we can't effectively work on new things. This makes some existing users of those features unhappy. We're killing them anyway.

2. The change improved the level of corporate support for Android, thereby improving Android's future headcount and budget, thereby improving the ability for other features to get delivered. Trashing that on principle does harm users. There are plenty of dead and dying mobile OSes with a customizable search engine that aren't helping users in their current state.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#62

Post by FrozenVoid »

toyg wrote: post #55
sethrin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I note that people are referring to Slashdot in the past tense. I don't disagree with the implied statement, but do regret its passing.

I just noticed they deleted old accounts, one of the worst mistakes long-running sites can make.

Maybe only accounts which have not logged in years. My account seems fine and i check it a few times per year. Slashdot is fairly active these days(of course its isn't the giant of IT it was) .

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#63

Post by jacobush »

mikekchar wrote: post #27
ajross wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is because of the desire for the kernel to be able to prove authorship (i.e. that it wasn't "stolen" code that got committed). This is a Google commit, it's not owned by the author. Clearly Google owns the copyright, it was done at Google's direction and for reasons that are relatively obvoiusly in line with Google's interests. There's no meaningful ambiguity here. Corporations donate code all the time, even to…

Yeah, the requirement for an identifiable entity in order to merge code is ass covering and nothing more. They want to know who the author is in case of copyright infringement. In that case they can say, "If you want to sue someone, sue them. They claimed that they were able to merge this code." There's no legal requirement to do this; it's just a good idea. You can allow random people to merge code into your reposit…

They will always knock at your door, but you have anon contributors, you can't point any fingers.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#65

Post by gnode »

scrollaway wrote: post #6

This is why I love open source (as in source-available, not necessarily free-software). Transparency trumps everything. Whoever chose to commit anonymously (or gave the order to) knew they were doing something shitty and didn't feel comfortable doing it "in public". It doesn't prevent things like that from happening but it makes you question if it's the right thing to do. Sometimes that's the best we can hope for.

The committer did so anonymously for the same reason executioners wear hoods. The executioner is only acting as an agent of the court, or in this case Google, to carry out a controversial act which they may not personally agree with.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#66

Post by ninjin »

gnode wrote: post #64

Maybe this practise should be extended, such that several Anonymous Cowards simultaneously commit the change, each being able to live in the belief that it wasn't their commit which effected the change.

For those unfamiliar with this reference to the idea of “diffusion of responsibility” [1], this is fascinating stuff.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_by_firing_squad#Blan...

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#67

Post by llampx »

archi42 wrote: post #50
TeMPOraL wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this pretty much the same thing Microsoft got fined for with Internet Explorer back in the heyday era of PCs?

That'd exactly my thought as well. Maybe Google Search is not big enough in terms of market share to trigger an investigation? Or the authorities didn't think of it?

Google learned from Microsoft and is much more politically savvy.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#68

Post by jdbernard »

jacobush wrote: post #63
mikekchar wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the requirement for an identifiable entity in order to merge code is ass covering and nothing more. They want to know who the author is in case of copyright infringement. In that case they can say, "If you want to sue someone, sue them. They claimed that they were able to merge this code." There's no legal requirement to do this; it's just a good idea. You can allow random people to merge code into your reposit…

They will always knock at your door, but you have anon contributors, you can't point any fingers.

Which means you can't pass the responsibility along. Without someone else to point the finger at you will be left holding the bag if the anonymous committer committed stolen, copyrighted code.

Re: Choice of search engine on Android nuked by “Anonymous Coward” (2009)

#70

Post by Fnoord »

peterwwillis wrote: post #33
realusername wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android has 75% market share, it's not like you can avoid it, they have practically a monopoly. As much as people like Apple here, it's nowhere near the same market share as Android. Also you should put quotes around open-source, AOSP does not run on any real device due to a lot of android parts being private + private drivers. It took me one month to run a custom kernel on my Samsung to get the basic hardware workin…

Back in the day Microsoft actually used the existence of Linux as a legal argument that they could not possibly be a monopoly. The judge didn't buy it.

It was mostly Apple and MacOS which were used as the excuse, not Linux. And Microsoft kept both on life support by supporting software for them (e.g. Internet Explorer pre Safari).
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