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Bidding farewell to Google Code

google-opensource.blogspot.com

31–40 of 428 posts

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#31
Does this mean Chromium is also moving away from Google Code? I'm curious how Google plans to migrate almost 500,000 bug reports.

I'm expecting Google to purchase GitHub next in order to improve its deficiencies. In particular code search, which is really poor. Google Code search is good, so Google can then apply its search expertise "in-house".

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch

Maybe it's just habitual, but I prefer the issue tracker on Google Code as well.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#32
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of Google's open source code is already on GitHub and has been for quite a while: https://github.com/google

If you ever read any of my comments and down votes from Hacker News it was always this. The code on GitHub is a mirror and not an actual GIT repo that is accepting merges and being worked on.

This is not accurate. From a strict numbers perspective, ~95% are git repos accepting merges and being worked on. ~5% are mirrors.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#33
post #24

GitHub's success is due, in no small part, to their excellent interface. Google Code was, by contrast, always ugly, hard to navigate, and hard to understand. (This, of course, ignores the many features that GitHub offers, which Google Code doesn't.) I know of many companies that learned about GitHub via open-source projects, which GitHub hosts for free, and decided that it was so good that they should pay money. Host…

> Google Code was, by contrast, always ugly, hard to navigate, and hard to understand.

Er, do you remember 2006? Google Code was a breath of fresh air, and a huge huge improvement over what was available at Sourceforge. This isn't damning with faint praise either, it really was clean and fast and easy to use as a developer and user. It didn't do everything you wanted it to, but it did what it did so much better than basically anything else at the time.

The problem was that its interface was never given any attention, and the web is a very different place than it was in 2006, and then things you wished it did back then you still wish it would do now. Its not surprising at all that it now feels clunky and slow. Online interfaces for code hosting is not a solved problem yet, so while it would have guaranteed nothing, it's certainly necessary for a code hosting site's continued success that someone is actually continually working on improving it.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#34
post #9
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how do you (google) get away with being such asses? i know a bunch of developers will come to your defense, and say things like it is a free service, but it's not really, because for google, users are the product, and you guys have developed a rep for constantly shutting those users down. switching costs are very real, and people just don't trust you anymore. i don't care about google code in particular, but i hate g…

Edit: The parent comment was flagkilled, but he was ranting about how Google should be expected to keep Google Code (and their other failed services) on life support indefinitely out of the kindness of their heart, because negative public perception. This is pretty ridiculous. It is a free service, sustained only by how long corporate wants to foot the bill. This is why it's so important to keep in mind how sustainab…

Honestly, I think he was right. Google has a really bad image problem right now where lots of people don't want to get involved with their projects because Google will most likely kill the project just like Reader and Glass.

See my couple of wasted Google Glass devices that will never see an Android update again. Do you think I'll ever buy a Google Android product after they wasted $3k of mine? Do you think I'll buy any more of their tech device blunders like cars or thermostats or other devices? Likely not. It's well established they'll just drop them soon after release anyway.

They are getting the same reputation for software services. There are lots of startups that would have been happy with Reader's usage numbers besides, so they aren't even making decisions everyone would agree are good kills.

With my Android apps, any time someone sends me a bug report or a complaint, I refund them immediately and thank them for the feedback. Does this make me the most money? Hell no. But I have a lot of friendly users who email me constantly with improvements and who aren't mad I'm ripping them off or screwing them over. That's worth a lot too. Google is saving money to screw over users with this Google Code decision and it's definitely not one I agree with.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#35
post #23
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although you are correct, it's more a matter of perception / PR image. If we are looking at Google that shuts down pretty popular projects (Reader, Code, and now G+ seems to be shifting) or pretty innovative projects (Wave, Glass) then how should we feel about becoming dependant on/involved in Google products? What if Gmail switches to paid-only model? What if the next-big-Google-thing will be closed down after a yea…

> Although you are correct, it's more a matter of perception / PR image. If we are looking at Google that shuts down pretty popular projects (Reader, Code, and now G+ seems to be shifting) or pretty innovative projects (Wave, Glass) then how should we feel about becoming dependant on/involved in Google products? You just listed a bunch of projects that failed to get traction or lost mindshare battles. I expect an inn…

> I expect an innovator to move on from failures

That's great if you are an investor or employee, but if you are a user it kind of sucks.

Google just needs to be up front about it (and maybe they are): We make no commitment to supporting this application or maintaining it as is. We might make radical changes, we might shut it down. If we do shut it down, we'll warn you at least 9 months ahead of time.

I'm not going to invest much in those applications, but others might.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#36
post #30

That's unfortunate. I still regularly come across things on Google Code that are useful, usually just there because they were written before GitHub. There's very little chance the authors will bother moving after all this time and the resources will just disappear. Heck, I even have several projects on there like a virtual pet one that's a good demo of how to color game sprites dynamically in Android and another that…

I wouldn't be surprised if The Archive Team stepped in to backup everything that's left standing. That's sort of their MO.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#37
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although you are correct, it's more a matter of perception / PR image. If we are looking at Google that shuts down pretty popular projects (Reader, Code, and now G+ seems to be shifting) or pretty innovative projects (Wave, Glass) then how should we feel about becoming dependant on/involved in Google products? You just listed a bunch of projects that failed to get traction or lost mindshare battles. I expect an inn…

> I expect an innovator to move on from failures That's great if you are an investor or employee, but if you are a user it kind of sucks. Google just needs to be up front about it (and maybe they are): We make no commitment to supporting this application or maintaining it as is. We might make radical changes, we might shut it down. If we do shut it down, we'll warn you at least 9 months ahead of time. I'm not going t…

I gotta be frank here: If you expect anyone in the tech world, Google or otherwise, to support a non-paid product past the point it's obviously declining in user base (IE obvious to not just internal users, but to external ones), for more than a few years, you are just not going to use anyone's products ;)

Google code is mostly irrelevant to this calculus, because it was not ever meant to make money for anyone, but i think you are a little harsh here.

Don't get me wrong, as a user, I would love to have the stuff i want to use supported forever. But it's unrealistic.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#38
post #2

Hi everyone. I wanted to let you know (and I know this isn't a huge surprise) that we will be shutting down the Google Code project hosting system over the next year. Wired did a nice story about Github that touches on the shutdown: http://www.wired.com/2015/03/github-conquered-google-microso... I'll be hanging around answering questions, but the short form of 'why' is that it just isn't used much anymore, ourselves…

While true that no one uses Google Code. Every now and then, I bump into some obscure but a little useful project being hosted on Google Code. Maybe, makers of those projects have grown out of them and don't wish to put any more effort but still, there is a bit of value, I am able to derive from them.

What will happen, if those projects are not migrated because their developers have simply forgotten about them?

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#39
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although you are correct, it's more a matter of perception / PR image. If we are looking at Google that shuts down pretty popular projects (Reader, Code, and now G+ seems to be shifting) or pretty innovative projects (Wave, Glass) then how should we feel about becoming dependant on/involved in Google products? You just listed a bunch of projects that failed to get traction or lost mindshare battles. I expect an inn…

> I expect an innovator to move on from failures That's great if you are an investor or employee, but if you are a user it kind of sucks. Google just needs to be up front about it (and maybe they are): We make no commitment to supporting this application or maintaining it as is. We might make radical changes, we might shut it down. If we do shut it down, we'll warn you at least 9 months ahead of time. I'm not going t…

> Google just needs to be up front about it (and maybe they are)

Nobody launches a new product and guarantees "If this doesn't work out, we'll keep it around indefinitely on life support". You don't start a new effort expecting failure. If it doesn't end up working out, it'll be closed down. Google's failures are just a lot more public than whatever side business many of us may take a stab at.

This isn't unique to Google. Failures need to be learned from and culled. We as a small business/startup oriented crowd should understand that more than most. I've had to kill off more projects than I'd like to admit because I didn't want to spend the time/money on what I perceived to be failures.

Not that failure is bad. Like Google, I've learned a ton from my unsuccessful projects.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#40
post #31

Does this mean Chromium is also moving away from Google Code? I'm curious how Google plans to migrate almost 500,000 bug reports. I'm expecting Google to purchase GitHub next in order to improve its deficiencies. In particular code search, which is really poor. Google Code search is good, so Google can then apply its search expertise "in-house". https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch Maybe it's just habitual,…

Chromium is already on Github. https://github.com/chromium
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