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What is Google doing with its open source teams?

theregister.com

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Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#31

Post by varelse »

bushbaba wrote: post #28
spinningslate wrote: post #23

I've no inside knowledge on Google, so can't comment on the rationale for selecting those being let go. From the outside though, Google under Pichai increasingly looks like Microsoft under Ballmer in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Balmer was lauded for delivering good numbers from a dominant market position. That was fine - until it wasn't. Under his watch, Microsoft completely misjudged the internet and totally missed…

Pichai never fully supported google cloud either. The fact google cloud exists is thanks to Amit Singh’s leadership. Palo Alto networks is lucky to have such a visionary CBO at their helm.

Too bad about all the sexual harassment, but he was good people.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#32

Post by omoikane »

AlbertCory wrote: post #10

I knew Chris DiBona quite well. While I don't know the whole community as well so this is a rash statement, it's hard to imagine anyone knowing more about open source than Chris does. And Chris, if you're reading this: you rock, man.

I only worked with Chris on a few occasions, and those interactions had been very pleasant -- he was in a relatively high ranking position and definitely had a lot of responsibilities, but he still communicated plainly and treated everyone like a peer. I wish him the best.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#33

Post by dboreham »

Google no longer paying developers of code that we all use for free is obviously not good (for us or those developers), but this article is otherwise really quite bogus because it suggests that "open source developer" is a thing, when it...isn't. The article implies that Google is cutting off its own nose because the prime OSS devs they fired could just as well be writing OSS AI code. That's not how this stuff works.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#34

Post by mike_d »

bushbaba wrote: post #28
spinningslate wrote: post #23

I've no inside knowledge on Google, so can't comment on the rationale for selecting those being let go. From the outside though, Google under Pichai increasingly looks like Microsoft under Ballmer in the late 2000s/early 2010s. Balmer was lauded for delivering good numbers from a dominant market position. That was fine - until it wasn't. Under his watch, Microsoft completely misjudged the internet and totally missed…

Pichai never fully supported google cloud either. The fact google cloud exists is thanks to Amit Singh’s leadership. Palo Alto networks is lucky to have such a visionary CBO at their helm.

Google should have never been in the cloud business to start with. It is a race to the bottom, and revenue depends on your ability to scale up staff - a model Google doesn't have in any of it's other businesses.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#35

Post by jraph »

noorkersz wrote: post #2

step one: shift the focus from free software (liberty minded software) on to "open source" software. i.e. software which you can look but not touch. step two: profit

> software which you can look but not touch.

This is "source available".

Open source software and free software are philosophically different but refer to mostly the set of programs (with two different but equivalent definitions [1,2]).

[1] https://opensource.org/definition

[2] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html.en#fs-definition

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#36

Post by bbor »

As a google employee (who obviously has no privileged info) I really don’t buy this whole activist-investor explanation for the layoffs. Besides the fact that the investors in question own I’m much more convinced by the argument that they saw this sector-wide wave of layoffs as an opportunity to scare their engineers and change the culture to be a more intense, hierarchical one.

Google engineering culture has long been described as permitting coasters and encouraging employees to structure their work around what might get them promoted; that might be great for an innovative growing company, but I suspect Sundar & Co. know that that label doesn’t really fit google’s position anymore. I really don’t see any other reason they’d lay off high performing employees on important projects - especially OSS giants.

If my guess is right, it worked, to say the least; the internal culture is best characterized as “terrified” and “stunned”

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#37

Post by RhodesianHunter »

mike_d wrote: post #34
bushbaba wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pichai never fully supported google cloud either. The fact google cloud exists is thanks to Amit Singh’s leadership. Palo Alto networks is lucky to have such a visionary CBO at their helm.

Google should have never been in the cloud business to start with. It is a race to the bottom, and revenue depends on your ability to scale up staff - a model Google doesn't have in any of it's other businesses.

You should tell AWS about that race to the bottom while they continue to produce a majority of Amazon's profit.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#38

Post by mike_d »

buildbot wrote: post #27
lazide wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? He doesn’t have control of Alphabet, for sure. This is broad and across the industry.

Yes that is correct, but specifically this person is the activist investor publicly pushing for this. Maybe that had no effect, but certainly it seems like this man might be a bit responsible.

The man with basically no voting shares can scream into the wind all he wants, it does not impact Google leadership one way or the other.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#39

Post by micimize »

buildbot wrote: post #20

TCI / Chris Hon are only doing this because his fund is mainly invested in Microsoft and Alphabet[1]. Guess what, his fund recently lost a bit of money for the first time: TCI[2] Its ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING that MS and Alphabet are being pushed into laying off collectively over 20K people so this billionaire can recover a bit. Like, could this not be a national security issue? This man is able to have Google trash thei…

I really wouldn't assume Chris Hon has this much pull or that these decisions are due to investor pressure. Maybe a flimsy rationale but if he did have that kind of influence I kinda doubt he'd be speaking publicly – seems more like a personal branding effort.

Re: What is Google doing with its open source teams?

#40

Post by bbor »

dboreham wrote: post #33

Google no longer paying developers of code that we all use for free is obviously not good (for us or those developers), but this article is otherwise really quite bogus because it suggests that "open source developer" is a thing, when it...isn't. The article implies that Google is cutting off its own nose because the prime OSS devs they fired could just as well be writing OSS AI code. That's not how this stuff works.

I’m not sure I understand your point. Isn’t it true that someone experienced + respected in the OSS community would be the very best kind of person to transfer to e.g. the TensorFlow team?
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