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Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

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Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#121

Post by throwaway2048 »

shuzchen wrote: post #71
purpleidea wrote: post #60

It's obvious that Golang is Google's language. The most obvious part is they require a CLA that gives them and only them special rights. It's a sham.

I don't know of any large open source project that doesn't require a CLA. As the post suggests, perhaps one day there'll be a Golang Foundation, which would otherwise have ownership of whatever code you contribute. See that Python has a CLA that gives the PSF ownership of your code: https://www.python.org/psf/contrib/contrib-form/ Even the linux kernel has a CLA, they just call it by another name (Developer Certifica…

There is a world of difference between a CLA that gives your code to a for profit entity and one that gives it to a foundation that (at least in theory) only cares about the health of the language/community.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#122

Post by microtonal »

dpc_pw wrote: post #76
objektif wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really true though? What abiut python and javascript for example? Did they have a giant corp behind them?

Wasn't it Google that heavily used Python that popularized it a lot? And JS was born and evolved with the browser.

Python was picked up by companies like Red Hat at the end of the nineties (e.g. in the Anaconda installer). So in Linux circles Python had already gained quite a bit of popularity.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#123

Post by tomnipotent »

mr_tristan wrote: post #117

I kind of read the original argument that Go is dominated by a "Google point of view", and there really isn't a significant alternative view that's as coherent. And that may be a risk. It's not obvious to figure out how Go "plays with others". And it's unclear if that's much of a risk or not. As an outsider, you read of the funky module system duality and you wonder... "What if I don't want to 'work like Google'? Wil…

> And that may be a risk.

How is it a risk? Is Rust at risk because of Mozilla? What about Java given all its corporate sponsors?

People need to stop with this predictive FUD crap, it's tiring.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#124

Post by [deleted] »

objektif wrote: post #65
c3534l wrote: post #58

Everyone's upset that Go is Google's language, but no one would have adopted it if it weren't. It's not enough to have a cool idea for a language, even if your cool idea is not to put any new cool ideas in the language. You have to be Mozilla, or Google, or someone it seems in order to convince people this language is for real and will be supported for many years to come, and will have a healthy ecosystem. If I had m…

Is that really true though? What abiut python and javascript for example? Did they have a giant corp behind them?

[deleted]

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#125

Post by skybrian »

KirinDave wrote: post #17

Googler here, but these are my own opinions formed from less than a year at the company. My observation of Google's culture is that it can be very difficult to see the ways in which they dominate projects they participate in because it's very difficult to keep perspective on how even small investments by Google tend to overwhelm the volume of other contributers project. Google has a lot of great, productive engineers…

There is a notion here that the community is unified and all the core team needs to do is listen to the community and do what they say. In reality the community is too large to get a grip on and has conflicting ideas. You can run polls and read online arguments but in the end this won't result in a design.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#126

Post by joeblau » 

  I recall a time when Google's SVP of Engineering saw some of us in 
  the cafeteria and congratulated us on a release; this was surprising 
  since we hadn't released anything recently, and it soon came up that 
  he thought we were working on the Dart language, not the Go language.
That's a great little story. As an IC, I always felt that VP's, Staff, etc would know everything about what was going on in their organization. This story lets me know that even at that level, they don't know everything.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#127

Post by arendtio »

et2o wrote: post #23

“It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It” —- Google employee’s defenses of Go Even if it is theoretically true that Go is open source, by employing the majority of the Core Go team, Google exercises extensive soft power over Go. All of the defenses of Go seem to gloss over this.

While in general, I agree with that quote, I don't think that we have a problem with the Go core team in that respect. I think they do understand the problem but don't really have a solution.

I mean, the community has (so far) just a few cases were decisions of the core team were 'not so good'. Sometimes because we didn't like the process and sometimes because of the outcome. But I guess, in general, the majority of Go users likes what the core team does.

The problem is more about that many of us have a problem with Google (for a myriad of reasons) and seeing that the core team is tied so deeply into that company makes us worry about future decisions of the core team (as you said). But what could/should the core team do about it?

Suggestions?

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#128

Post by throwaway2048 »

thanatos_dem wrote: post #36
shawnz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Even if it were GPL, how would that prevent "some corporate overlord" from changing the license later?

You can still fork the code up until the point of the license change and freely modify it going forward.

Whoever owns the copyright on the code can change between licenses at will, they are not constrained by the GPL's restrictions on re-licensing (because they aren't licensing the code to themselves, they own it)

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#129

Post by kd0amg »

0815test wrote: post #114
c3534l wrote: post #58

Everyone's upset that Go is Google's language, but no one would have adopted it if it weren't. It's not enough to have a cool idea for a language, even if your cool idea is not to put any new cool ideas in the language. You have to be Mozilla, or Google, or someone it seems in order to convince people this language is for real and will be supported for many years to come, and will have a healthy ecosystem. If I had m…

> ...but no one would have adopted it if it weren't. It's a C-like language with GC, that compiles to native code supported by an efficient runtime, and can work effectively with parallel/concurrent code. In many ways it's Java done right, or a more intuitive (and from certain POVs, preferable) alternative to Haskell and Ocaml. That would seem to be enough to drive adoption.

Go shot past similar languages because Google's backing got lots of instant attention from people who would never even hear of something like Nim or Clay.

Re: Ian Lance Taylor's Response to “Go Is Google's Language”

#130

Post by javajosh »

c3534l wrote: post #58

Everyone's upset that Go is Google's language, but no one would have adopted it if it weren't. It's not enough to have a cool idea for a language, even if your cool idea is not to put any new cool ideas in the language. You have to be Mozilla, or Google, or someone it seems in order to convince people this language is for real and will be supported for many years to come, and will have a healthy ecosystem. If I had m…

> You have to be Mozilla, or Google, or someone it seems in order to convince people this language is for real

Counter-examples: Clojure, Elm.

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