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Bidding farewell to Google Code

google-opensource.blogspot.com

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Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#351

Post by sytse »

kzhahou wrote: post #348
le_lenny_face wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotted the GitHub fanboy. GitLab is objectively better. They even list their reasons on the page. If you disagree you could, you know, refute those points instead of dismissing the whole thing in a petty manner.

Wow, way to miss my point. Gitlab might be better. But when the best location on the frontpage is a direct swipe at the leading competitor, to me that reads as very weak. You know who doesn't bother to take jabs at their competitors? Winners.

I've explained the reasoning in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192595

I don't think it is always bad to compare yourself, but it should always be based on facts. I think Wealthfront is a winner and they posted https://medium.com/@adamnash/broken-values-bottom-lines-3d55...

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#352

Post by DigitalSea »

I think we all saw this coming when Google started moving their projects over to Github away from Google Code. This is definitely the right move to make. However, I find it quite disturbing that Google is closing the service down entirely. Surely it would be more beneficial to keep the site in read only made for a good while longer given how deeply linked some parts of the web are to Google Code repositories. Perhaps somehow clean up the platform and hand over the reigns to the Internet Archive instead so it can be preserved and then 301 redirect any request to the archive.

Google really needs to get some kind of procedure in place for retiring their applications and services. Surely they realise that being the largest Internet company out there they have responsibilities to do the right thing by the millions that rely on their services daily? You can't just throw something away even if many moved on to Github and Bitbucket quite some time ago. Why not some kind of automated service that attempts to redirect to projects that have moved to Github and Bitbucket? Google has a trove of data, surely they can achieve something like that with pretty close accuracy and then use their manual approach for the projects that they could not automatically link.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#353

Post by Turing_Machine »

jamiesonbecker wrote: post #330
NeutronBoy wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the code is that valuable, then perhaps they should put some time into maintaining the code, moving it to another provider, or convincing somebody to pay for hosting.

It may not be valuable to the author . That does not mean it's not valuable to some future searcher.

Right.

Researchers would kill to have the balled-up scraps of paper that (e.g) Shakespeare threw in the trash.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#354

Post by NeutronBoy »

dchichkov wrote: post #332
NeutronBoy wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the code is that valuable, then perhaps they should put some time into maintaining the code, moving it to another provider, or convincing somebody to pay for hosting.

Example. A cancer researcher, publishes a paper in Nature Genetics. Like this one: http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v42/n3/abs/ng.522.html In that paper she publishes a link to a Google Code repository as supplement materials. For example, in the aforementioned paper there is a link to the following repository: http://code.google.com/p/glu-genetics/

Given she published the paper and link, she should either a) take responsibility for the general availability of the materials, and b) make sure that if people email her for the materials (after finding that they're not available on Google Code) she shares them.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for retaining the materials and knowledge, etc etc. I'm just having a hard time understanding why you expect Google to do the work and maintain it? What if she uploaded her materials to Megaupload, or any of the hundred other filesharing sites - would you hold them to the same standard? Why doesn't the journal that published the paper (which, has a revenue stream) host the material, given that it directly supports their work?

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#355

Post by joycey »

javajosh wrote: post #164
perakojotgenije wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not monoculture, there is also bitbucket which IMHO is much better product. Problem is that all the cool kids are now using github and if you want to look cool you also have to use github. Or you could just ignore the hype and use bitbucket.

I'm genuinely curious, what do you like better about bitbucket?

I use GitHub, but I concede Bitbucket has cooler features (free private repos, password protected repos, etc). It can't beat GitHub's UI/UX and community though.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#356

Post by bigiain »

krapp wrote: post #349
walterbell wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be ok for Google to delete Usenet archives? Or a library to burn down its own buildings? Or Google to delete all scans of old books? History matters, because citations to "old" research/code may become more valuable with new requirements and research. Surely a company that "organizes the world's information" needs no explanation of these topics.

>Would it be ok for Google to delete Usenet archives? If it's their archives, yes. And if those are the only archives of Usenet in existence, then it's not Google's fault no one else cared to back it up.

Somebody else did have a usenet archive - Google bought them, mashed up a bunch of other nn-usenet Google stuff into it, then let it bitrot until it was effectively useless, and then removed the only search features that worked...

(Admittedly, if I recall correctly, Dejanews had already gone broke trying to maintain that archive before Google bought it, so arguably Google didn't kill it, they just bought the dying corpse and kept it animated in a zombie-like state for a decade or so past it's natural death...)

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#357

Post by krapp »

bigiain wrote: post #356
krapp wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Would it be ok for Google to delete Usenet archives? If it's their archives, yes. And if those are the only archives of Usenet in existence, then it's not Google's fault no one else cared to back it up.

Somebody else did have a usenet archive - Google bought them, mashed up a bunch of other nn-usenet Google stuff into it, then let it bitrot until it was effectively useless, and then removed the only search features that worked... (Admittedly, if I recall correctly, Dejanews had already gone broke trying to maintain that archive before Google bought it, so arguably Google didn't kill it, they just bought the dying co…

And in the intervening years, no one running a news server thought to back theirs up, no one crawled Google and made torrents?

This is software, not ancient manuscripts written by scribes on now crumbling vellum - there is no excuse for there to be one canonical copy of anything. Every pornographic movie ever made has multiple redundant backups on decentralized peer to peer networks and darknets.

I understand the importance of maintaining references, but realistically, expecting URLS to be permanent is shortsighted at best, unless you own that domain and the server it's on and expect to have the money to keep the rights to it in perpetuity. You can't expect a third party host to be willing to keep the servers on forever.

But as far as the historical record and the data itself - Google's given warning, people can move their data or lose it. Fork and move on.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#358

Post by wiseleo »

cdibona wrote: post #150
shubhamjain wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

We are planing on taking the majority of these legitimate, open source, 'abandonded' projects and putting them up in cold storage in a git repo on googlesource.com

Will it keep existing deep links published in books and research papers from breaking? What prevents Google from setting the whole site into read-only mode as-is? Keep it working as it does now and disable changes.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#359

Post by markcerqueira »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #274
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In actuality, I've found most HN users seem to love Google. To the extent that almost any criticism of Google gets downvoted to death.

Case in point, this comment just dropped three points. ;)

Don't sweat it. Don't let imaginary internet points make you feel bad... or good.

Re: Bidding farewell to Google Code

#360

Post by comex »

jpatokal wrote: post #312
comex wrote: post #171

Ugh. No, not that Google Code is shutting down, per se. The alternatives are better and for active projects there is plenty of time to migrate. What I object to is that the site will only be preserved in read-only mode for 5 months, despite its popularity and the resulting large number of deep links into it on the Web. Why not forever? git, hg, and I believe svn can all provide read-only access (with some bandwidth o…

Chris diBona says Google will be keeping a public copy of all unmigrated repos: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192554

That's good to hear, although I'm not sure based on the comment whether:

(a) a project's issues and wiki will be preserved in some form, in addition to the repo(s) themselves;

(b) code.google.com links will be redirected to this googlesource archive (for projects which have not opted in to the custom redirect thing).

If the answer is yes on both, then I'm a happy camper.

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