Why I hate Google, or some thoughts about “open” technologies

I am living in Crimea. Maybe you know where it is, and the events of the last year, may be not, but this post is not about it. It is not about politics, it's about technology.

Due to the sunctions of the usa government - usa companies must to stop import and export of tech products and services with Crimea. Blocked Apple app store, blocked Google play market, blocked Odesk - it hurts, but I was ok with it.

But google has really pissed me.

Google has blocked: Android documentation - www.android-developers.com - 403. Golang - https://golang.org/ - 403. Angular.js - Web page is not available. But works while I am using Tor. Google app engine - 403, now I can't use Udacity, and other services that uses GAE. Maybe some companies do not even know that their users cant get to websites. Chromium - 403, Google Code with documentation and all the projects unrelated to Google - 403. And so on.

Yes, I know how to use Tor and i2p. But I don't see any reason to use google powered technologies and invest my time, as developer, in them any more.

So, I have a question - why do we need such an OPEN technologies, that can be BLOCKED tomorrow? Today - it's me, but who knows what will happen tomorrow, and which countries or companies will decide to block their, so called open, tools that you use.

I'm sorry that this is happening and I really believe that the Internet and technology should be above politics. At least technologies, which are presented as open. I made a conclusion for myself about corporations, technologies and tools I will choose to learn and work with tomorrow. I hope my message will cause someone else to think about it.

Thank you.

I think that it probably is about a technology company acting because of politics.

The Android documentation has always been a point of consternation for me. As far as I'm aware, it is not open source. It might be licensed as such, but I haven't been able to find a repo to clone that has all of the docs in it, or more importantly a place to submit back patches. You an open issues against the docs on AOSP, but it would be nice if they would just take gerritt changes for it. That would help everyone, and then in your case you could just clone it and have a local copy.

Majority of people do not want any sanctions, no matter what side they are on. It's the government and politicians that want it, not the people.