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Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

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Re: Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

#81

Post by freedomben »

koffiezet wrote: post #52
fcantournet wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google did profit massively from kubernetes, moreso than any other big company (Hello Red Hat lol) It was (for better and for worse) the #1 reason to adopt GCP for our main cloud platform, and we're not alone. It's has seen immense adoption that it wouldn't have had if it hadn't been in a neutral foundation. The work was definitely not done by Google alone (~30%). IS GCP "still" #3 ? Yes. Is it because they didn't ge…

> (Hello Red Hat lol) I think you underestimate the revenue OpenShift is generating... If I see the support contract bills of my clients, holy crap, you could host a ton of stuff on GCP for that.

Disclaimer: I'm a Red Hat consultant but this is entirely my own opinion

Comparing consulting bills to IaaS bills is apples/oranges. Consultants are really just Humans as a Service (HaaS). A lot of the work we do is to bring in expertise in something that would otherwise be difficult and expensive to hire for and augment a team for a short period. We actually help customers with cloud-stuff (like AWS and Azure) all the time.

A lot of the work I've been doing lately is stuff that would have to be done if you were using K8s on cloud instead of OpenShift. I'm currently helping to migrate services from older platforms (like BlueMix) to OpenShift. You can look for that "feature" all day long in the cloud console, but you won't find it :-)

Re: Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

#82

Post by caniszczyk »

sg1234 wrote: post #24

Disclaimer: i work for Google Cloud and use istio daily. I don't think this matters to practitioners, it's a solution to fix trademark issues. Open Source Licenses (like Apache under which istio is released) doesn't solve the trademark (TM) issue, they are vague around this topic, so the use of the name/logo/mascot to release any sort of managed or supported solution based on an OSS tool becomes a hurdle, a lot of mo…

"The problem with CNCF and why istio was not transferred to that org is that CNCF acts as a mediator, so any decision around trademark takes soo much time and effort because CNCF has to get the blessing of everyone or build something neutral (like the k8s certification), and it's in their best interest that things are complicated as they can make money out of that."

This article paints a more accurate picture of the situation where Google broke its promises to its partners, you should ask them why they did that: https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/09/ibm_oracle_cncf_prote...

Also, I believe people have been asking Istio to develop a conformance program for years and moving it to CNCF which had a track record of building one of the most successful open source conformance programs seemed reasonable: https://github.com/cncf/k8s-conformance

If not CNCF, there are other fantastic open source foundations like the ASF, EF, OSI, SPI and so on that could have helped.

Re: Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

#83

Post by jka »

crb wrote: post #79
jka wrote: post #40

It looks like the Open Usage Commons organization handles trademarking, so roughly speaking (I'm not a lawyer) they set and enforce rules under which other entities may use their hosted project names and brand identities. When GCP's container engine launched[1] in 2014 it was initially referred to by the anagram 'GKE' yet corresponded to the name 'Google Container Engine'. After achieving CNCF certification in Nov 20…

> After achieving CNCF certification in Nov 2017[2], GCP began using the term 'Kubernetes' within the product name, rebranding it as 'Google Kubernetes Engine'. After _creating_ the certification program: it was driven by GKE PM (and upcoming book author[1]) William Denniss. https://kubernetes.io/blog/2017/10/software-conformance-cert... (At the time of GKE's launch, 'containers' were more well known than 'Kubernetes…

Thanks for the explanation; that all makes sense and certainly makes the naming of GKE seem like less of a driving factor.

PS: For anyone curious about the adoption of the word 'Kubernetes', Google Trends provides a good summary: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=kubernet... (2014 was definitely very early days)

Re: Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

#84

Post by BossingAround »

sg1234 wrote: post #24

Disclaimer: i work for Google Cloud and use istio daily. I don't think this matters to practitioners, it's a solution to fix trademark issues. Open Source Licenses (like Apache under which istio is released) doesn't solve the trademark (TM) issue, they are vague around this topic, so the use of the name/logo/mascot to release any sort of managed or supported solution based on an OSS tool becomes a hurdle, a lot of mo…

> The problem with CNCF and why istio was not transferred to that org is that CNCF acts as a mediator, so any decision around trademark takes soo much time and effort because CNCF has to get the blessing of everyone or build something neutral (like the k8s certification), and it's in their best interest that things are complicated as they can make money out of that.

This is a cynical point of view. At this point, Istio takes advantage of a number of IBM, Oracle, Lyft and Red Hat developers while not giving them any governance over it..?

Re: Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

#85

Post by brutus1213 »

foobiekr wrote: post #64
Zafira wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that there is a faction in Google that believes that making Kubernetes freely available as it did was a massive strategic mistake on the part of Google[1], tantamount to giving away the crown jewels. With this in mind, my impression is that there is a strong suspicion that Google is trying to find a way to continue to control the direction and ability to monetize Istio (and future projects if this…

Geeze. If kubernetes is google’s Crown Jewels they must be in terrible shape internally.

Not a google dev but I looked closely at K8s in the early days .. in my personal opinion, I think it is complete fiction that K8s was Google opensourcing their actual code (in the traditional way). I think they rewrote the bulk of the initial code drop.

So agreed that K8s is not Google's crown jewels by any stretch. They were inspired by the Borg paper I'm guessing though the early scheduler in K8s was laughable IIRC.

Re: Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

#86

Post by johannes1234321 »

solarkraft wrote: post #76
johannes1234321 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see altruism, but alignment of different interests. Summer of Code is a huge project they finance, seems altruistic but is a recruiting&marketing tool. Publishing libraries like protobuf and abseil serves to drive standards in directions they like. Chrome/Chromium drives the open web, ensures their say on standards and gives the ability to set them. Android/AOSP brings leadership in mobile devices to them. Ag…

> Publishing libraries like protobuf and abseil serves to drive standards in directions they like. Could you elaborate on why they care? Do they have some kind of competitive advantage when it comes to Protobuf?

For abseil this is a bit simpler, so I start there: On the one hand it is a library they publish so that other libraries they publish (Googletest, protobuf, ..) can use it on the other hand it drives development of the C++ standard and adoption according to their needs ("see our hashmap is faster and more efficient, make it part of the standard! (Then we don't have to maintain it anymore, but compiler vendors will)")

With things like protobuf/grcp it's a bit harder, but if they define the standard for data exchange between machines they can eventually - use it as apart of their search indexer - incorporate external services into their products while keeping their standard architecture - integrate acquired software into their stack (you hope being acquired by google? Prepare ;) ) - it reduces risk of alternative approaches from becoming defaults, which could harm Google's integration wishes - if job candidates are used to protobuf there is one thing less to reach a new hire

This certainly isn't a conclusive list, and I can't judge relevance of each for their decision, but those things certainly impact the decision aside from "we think it's cool"

Re: Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

#87

Post by naringas »

deanCommie wrote: post #15
tedk-42 wrote: post #13

It sounds like Google want to continue maintaining the Istio project under the guise of something called the Open Usage Commons. The other two projects under that are Angular and Gerrit, two other Google products. IBM's disappointment stems from the fact that they feel Istio is also their baby and that it was suppose to goto the CNCF one day, not Googles own umbrella foundation. I think the same. Google for the most…

While I generally believe in Google's altruism in their open source contributions, that good faith does not carry forward to any of their open source initiatives when it comes to Google Cloud. Maybe I'm cynical, but it seems pretty obvious to me that Google embraces OSS with Istio, Kubernetes, etc only out of necessity and being a distant 3rd in the Cloud race, and this is their attempt at some sort of differentiator…

There's something of the older BSD/Unix engeineering culture all through google's technical sutff.

It's noticable through their documentaion and in some of their architectural decisions and general approach/attitude towards software engineering.

I've have noticed that it's faded somewhat but it's still there, it's noticable specially when contrasting it with Amazon's approach which has a different approach or style to it.

I think it has to do with the origins of older google engineers (this also would explain why/how it's diluted but still there)

Also it seems that in some parts of google are trying to move away from these in order to be seem more enterprise friendly?

But personally, I really like google's more engineer-oriented attitude (here are they pieces and how they are made, you can figure it out) versus a more hand-holding style which later makes it difficult to move beyond the happy path.

it's not very easy to explain what I mean exactly as it all comes from a rather vague sensation about engineering style.

Re: Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

#88

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

maffydub wrote: post #20
deanCommie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I generally believe in Google's altruism in their open source contributions, that good faith does not carry forward to any of their open source initiatives when it comes to Google Cloud. Maybe I'm cynical, but it seems pretty obvious to me that Google embraces OSS with Istio, Kubernetes, etc only out of necessity and being a distant 3rd in the Cloud race, and this is their attempt at some sort of differentiator…

I suspect Google felt they got burned with Kubernetes - doing a lot of the initial development, donating it to the CNCF and then not profiting much from it (e.g. still being distant 3rd in cloud).

They're third because of their poor track record with support and a penchant for killing things. They should concentrate on that first.

Re: Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

#89

Post by johannes1234321 »

lokar wrote: post #80
johannes1234321 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see altruism, but alignment of different interests. Summer of Code is a huge project they finance, seems altruistic but is a recruiting&marketing tool. Publishing libraries like protobuf and abseil serves to drive standards in directions they like. Chrome/Chromium drives the open web, ensures their say on standards and gives the ability to set them. Android/AOSP brings leadership in mobile devices to them. Ag…

I think you are partly right here. The problem I see is the use of the word "they". It's a big company, and different people have different goals. IME (I worked there for a long time, but no longer), individual (and small groups of) engineers with a passion for OSS drive publishing/sharing. Execs with the interests you outline approve/agree to the sharing. The motivations are not monolithic, and a corporation is not…

Well, they are still part of a hierarchy serving the goals of the owners (which for a public company means profit) of course that boils down to different things in different groups and I listed different goals for different projects they are involved in. But on a first assumption I, as an external, don't care much about internal structures. (Maybe I care a bit about Google vs. Alphabet, but not by much)

Re: Why IBM doesn’t agree with Google’s Open Usage Commons for the Istio project

#90

Post by pjmlp »

naringas wrote: post #87
deanCommie wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I generally believe in Google's altruism in their open source contributions, that good faith does not carry forward to any of their open source initiatives when it comes to Google Cloud. Maybe I'm cynical, but it seems pretty obvious to me that Google embraces OSS with Istio, Kubernetes, etc only out of necessity and being a distant 3rd in the Cloud race, and this is their attempt at some sort of differentiator…

There's something of the older BSD/Unix engeineering culture all through google's technical sutff. It's noticable through their documentaion and in some of their architectural decisions and general approach/attitude towards software engineering. I've have noticed that it's faded somewhat but it's still there, it's noticable specially when contrasting it with Amazon's approach which has a different approach or style t…

I guess you don't have much experience with Android development.
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