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The limits of Google’s openness

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Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#171

Post by davorak »

HelloMcFly wrote: post #105
mratzloff wrote: post #60

Some background for people who may not have followed this: In May, Microsoft released a YouTube app for Windows Phone that didn't show ads and allowed users to download videos. Google said no. Microsoft removed the download capability but didn't restore the ads . Google said no. Then the PR comes out that Microsoft and Google are working together on a new app. I'm guessing that was PR from Microsoft's side. Now Micro…

Microsoft could not restore the ads because Google provided no API access to them. They weren't being contrary, they were making due with what they had.

I thought they were able, but only in they used an embedded webview like some IOS apps. So possible just not 100% native code like microsoft wanted.

Is there no equivalent to embedded webivew for native windows phones?

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#172

Post by jlgreco »

prostoalex wrote: post #125
asdasf wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also note how sencha then went and re-created the new facebook app in html, showing that facebook was full of shit.

For one, Sencha's app doesn't allow commenting. For two, it doesn't support notifications, so "re-created" is a generous verb there.

Ah yes, comments. One of the hardest things to get right in HTML5. I have never seen it done well, you absolutely need native for that.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#173

Post by Karunamon »

jlgreco wrote: post #163
Karunamon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sophistry. Users expect a Youtube experience on an average mobile device, and by dictating the language it must be written in (WHY? What possible legitimate reason does Google have to do this?), they are effectively forcing Microsoft's hand.

> WHY? Well, because apparently there isn't a soul at Microsoft who knows how to read a ToS... Why do you think Microsoft are resorting to a smear campaign? They don't have a leg to stand on.

Just because it's in a ToS doesn't mean it's reasonable or immune from complaint or criticism. I can require in my ToS that everyone who uses my Awesome(C) API to do a headstand on first access, that doesn't make it reasonable.

It's completely unreasonable, to the point of being WTF-worthy, to require the app which accesses the API to be in a certain language.

Seriously. I'm having trouble phrasing how dumb this is. As long as the app can generate the appropriate requests and serve the appropriate data, who cares? What possible legitimate reason does Google have to decide if the app is written in HTML5, Java, INTERCAL, brainfuck, or lolcode? Why provide an API at all if you're going to do platform restrictions?

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#174

Post by wslh »

mncolinlee wrote: post #123
wslh wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If users buy a Windows Phone expecting to have a YouTube app, when one is not legally available, it is their problem. The problem is when you extrapolate this reasoning: - Do you want support for nvidia cards on Linux? - Do you want to connect to a windows share from Linux or OSX? - Do you want to print to a windows share from Linux or OSX? And so on. I think Microsoft is more open than Google in a broader sense. M…

- Samba and Wine were both created using reverse engineering. Microsoft frequently made changes that broke both products. Don't get me started on Microsoft's PPTP and Kerberos. - Nvidia produced their own closed drivers on Linux. How does that involve Microsoft? Are you really making the argument that if your application doesn't encrypt its interfaces, then you're open?

Before answering your question my extended rant is here: http://blog.nektra.com/main/2012/06/01/reverse-engineering-a...

Samba and Wine were both created using reverse engineering. Microsoft frequently made changes that broke both products. Don't get me started on Microsoft's PPTP and Kerberos. - Nvidia produced their own closed drivers on Linux. How does that involve Microsoft?

You agree with me then! that was my point. You can't reverse engineer Google Search, you can't connect with it in an unlimited way (except using web scraping techniques or using the restricted local search API). With Microsoft you can reverse engineer it.

And I have an story to tell: my company started selling a full API for a Microsoft product without one. Not only we reverse engineered the product but we built a complete API on top. One day Microsoft QA call us if they can help to test the compatibility of our product in operating systems under development.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#175

Post by beagle3 »

asterix9 wrote: post #166
beagle3 wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then what does open mean? To me it means to provide an API on an equal footing among the various platforms. To most of the world, it means "you can interoperate with me as long as follow my terms and conditions", with those terms being considered reasonable. it does NOT mean "I must let everyone compete with me on equal footing".

Even granting your point which I think is a bit of a stretch for "open", I think there are some unreasonable requirements at place here. >"you can interoperate with me as long as follow my terms and conditions", with those terms being considered reasonable. I wonder if the HTML5 requirement can considered reasonable. Why does the server's web service API care if the client is HTML5 or not? Microsoft says this in thei…

> I wonder if the HTML5 requirement can considered reasonable. Why does the server's web service API care if the client is HTML5 or not?

Yes, it is very reasonable.

The server doesn't, but google does. The HTML5 requirement means that google can change everything about their service (e.g. they can switch the ads from being h264 videos today, to javascript games tomorrow, to 3d interactive items the next day when 3d screens become the norm on phones). If they had to expose an "ad inventory API", they couldn't change these things without breaking older clients.

An analogy: Microsoft relies on the TCP packets coming from YouTube being always 100 bytes or less (because they are). Google says "no, you must use a general TCP stack, because one day we might want to make our packets longer". Microsoft dedicates significant engineering resources to examine the possibility, and at the end of the day recognizes that even though they have a general purpose TCP stack, switching to it will result in some inconvenience to users. So they release an app that has a TCP stack that expects 100 bytes or less -- and google refuses to serve it.

This is exactly the same, except at a higher abstraction level. Google doesn't care to spell it out, because anyone who is capable of understanding that issue already does.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#176

Post by jorgecastillo »

asterix9 wrote: post #151
jorgecastillo wrote: post #119

You can down vote me all you want, but I feel zero sympathy for Microsoft. If their app is being blocked from YouTube is because they deserve it. Google has all the right to choose which third parties can access YouTube. Microsoft is in no positing to criticize the actions of other companies.

Agreed 100%, but my question is, can Google still [call itself]/[be considered] open and "not evil" ?

I'll take Google over Microsoft anytime. I believe there are no absolutes everything is relative, everything depends on the context, on our scale of values. Personally I don't care about such concepts as open or evil. If the actions of a company are illegal they should be punished. If they are not but they ought to be, you can try to build enough consensus to legislate on the matter.

I personally feel more wronged by Microsoft than by Google, I've never been forced to use Google products. The pervasive dominance that Microsoft still holds on the desktop is poisonous. Until I am free to choose or not to choose Microsoft products I will feel wronged by Microsoft.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#177

Post by tanzam75 »

rsynnott wrote: post #44
dhawalhs wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea what you meant by "it ain't done 'til Lotus won't run!", so I googled it. This is the first link that showed up: http://slashdot.org/story/05/08/02/2219208/the-dos-aint-done...

Whatever about this particular instance, there are documented incidents where Microsoft deliberately made things not work; in particular, the Java thing, and the DR-DOS Windows thing (where Windows would run on DR-DOS if it pretended to be MS DOS, but not otherwise).

> and the DR-DOS Windows thing (where Windows would run on DR-DOS if it pretended to be MS DOS, but not otherwise).

Only in a beta, not in a released version:

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/larryosterman/archive/2004/08/12/213...

Since it did not make it into a released version of Windows, it did not actually affect DR-DOS. Still, Novell eventually got an 8-digit settlement out of Microsoft.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#178

Post by caruana »

barista wrote: post #35
jmillikin wrote: post #23

It's my understanding that YouTube officially supports access via either a Flash applet or the HTML5 tag. Windows Phone doesn't support Flash[1], so the only option for writing a mobile app using the official API is to use HTML5. It's not obvious why using the HTML5 API is "impossible". Windows bundles a -capable browser; assuming IE's capable of playing either H.264 or WebM, it should be relatively easy to build a Y…

The experience you can provide with an HTML5 app are many times subpar as compared to a native app. Note how facebook abandoned their HTML5 app and went native.

LinkedIn also abandoned their HTML 5 mobile app experiences.

the biggest problem with HTML 5 video is that it does not support adaptive bitrate streaming. notice that the desktop experience of YouTube still uses a flash player instead of an HTML 5 video player. notice that apple used QuickTime as their default player on their site.

in short, HTML 5 video player is an absolute last resort player.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#179

Post by Fuzzwah »

munificent wrote: post #77

Disclosure: I am a Googler, though not working on anything remotely near YouTube. Obvious caveat: this is just my personal opinion. > With this backdrop, we temporarily took down our full-featured app when Google objected to it last May If I remember right, this full-featured app included features like: 1. Allowing users to download videos even when the content provider disallowed that. 2. Allowing users to not view…

Well the upside of all this drama is that I just found out about Cooking with Dog. Thank you.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#180

Post by jlgreco »

Karunamon wrote: post #173
jlgreco wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WHY? Well, because apparently there isn't a soul at Microsoft who knows how to read a ToS... Why do you think Microsoft are resorting to a smear campaign? They don't have a leg to stand on.

Just because it's in a ToS doesn't mean it's reasonable or immune from complaint or criticism. I can require in my ToS that everyone who uses my Awesome(C) API to do a headstand on first access, that doesn't make it reasonable. It's completely unreasonable, to the point of being WTF-worthy, to require the app which accesses the API to be in a certain language. Seriously. I'm having trouble phrasing how dumb this is.…

Microsoft are lucky Google isn't cutting them off entirely. If I were Google, that's what I would do.
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