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The limits of Google’s openness

blogs.technet.com

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Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#291

Post by interpol_p »

enneff wrote: post #252
interpol_p wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if Google are claiming their platforms are open, then as long as Microsoft can comply with content providers (showing ads, etc), Google should not have a problem with them hooking into their platform? Google is not interested in "openness" except where it benefits them. They are just as controlling as Apple when it comes to their viable properties (and rightly so, but they should stop using "open" to describe th…

Where is the claim that YouTube is some big open ecosystem? Google provides APIs for working with YouTube, which to me seems the only sane way to protect its content providers. MS refuses to use those APIs. What is hard to digest about this situation?

My understanding of the article is that Microsoft IS using the APIs to their fullest extent. Google does not provide a public API that can allow Microsoft to serve the "correct" ads before a video.

Google often talks about the broader web and services in ways that encourage openness and standards. Yet here they are making it difficult for someone who wants to hook into their data while respecting the content owners' rights.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#292

Post by Sven7 »

jorgecastillo wrote: post #213
Sven7 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Amazon should do the same thing. Since they host all these sites on their cloud. The only browser that should be allowed to access it should be Amazon's.

This is completely different, YouTube is a free service, Google has no obligations to third parties. AFAIK Amazon Web Services are not free, if Amazon imposed this sort of restrictions on their customers, I am sure they would show Amazon the door.

You are right. Google owns all that content. Kim Dotcom should learn from the masters.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#293

Post by Sven7 »

beagle3 wrote: post #231
Sven7 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. Amazon should do the same thing. Since they host all these sites on their cloud. The only browser that should be allowed to access it should be Amazon's.

.... and be in breach of their own contract with those sites, who pay amazon for the privilege - for which they would lose in court if sued. If microsoft had a signed contract with google, (which would probably entail payment to google) they would have a case. As it stands, they don't.

They are asking Google for open access to content Google doesn't own just as Google is telling Facebook the same thing.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#294

Post by beagle3 »

kbaker wrote: post #275
beagle3 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think Google's response is very civil and restrained. A much more suitable response would be to serve movies, but e.g. prefix every video by a 30 second "informercial" saying "You are using an unlicensed application. Please contact your OS vendor Microsoft, and inquire why they are not complying with the YouTube terms of service. Alternatively, you can use your Web Browser app to view YouTube. Incidentally…

Except, Google might not be able to show that prefix video using the API MS is/was using, but they would be able to do it if MS supported the standard HTML5 iframe API...

Even if it's a problem for them to prefix it, surely they can deliver it INSTEAD of the requested video.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#295

Post by mjolk »

sbuk wrote: post #276
mjolk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it spiteful to the 7 people who own Windows phones? This is Google saying "because of their behaviors, we don't want to allow them to consume our services." Microsoft is trying to weasel this into good PR for themselves, but the fact is this: Google has no obligation to people that are not making them money. It is not their responsibility to keep people buying Microsoft phones.

> "How is it spiteful to the 7 people who own Windows phones?" That is a snide comment that reveals much. > 'This is Google saying "because of their behaviors, we don't want to allow them to consume our services."' That right there. That is spiteful. It's not Microsoft that they are restricting, it's Google users; the very people that use YouTube. It's certainly not the behaviour of the company that Google projects i…

>That is a snide comment that reveals much.

How so? It's not that popular a device.[0] If you work at Microsoft or have a significant interest in them not failing, you might want to divulge your bias here.

>That right there. That is spiteful. It's not Microsoft that they are restricting, it's Google users; the very people that use YouTube.

You're treating YouTube as if it's water. It's a business.

>A good check is to switch the protagonists around and ask yourself how you would react then.

If Microsoft cut off access to Bing from Android Phones (and if, for this example, if Bing was as ubiquitous and useful as Google Search) due to Google flagrantly violating ToS, I'd understand and be mad at Google for selling me a device and then fucking me over by locking me away from a good service through their posturing.

Microsoft is becoming less relevant, but they're still trying to act like the big bully of yesteryear.

[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_operating_system#Market_...

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#296

Post by Dylan16807 »

beagle3 wrote: post #289
Dylan16807 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. 'open source' and 'open' are not the same thing. Look at android being open source but with closed development. 2. The property of being 'open source' applies to specific copies of software. All that 'closed' stuff you were talking about is applied to non-public copies so it has no relevance to the discussion of the open source copies.

> Look at android being open source but with closed development. But it's still an "open" system by everyone's definition of the word - the source is open, the API is open, everyone is welcome to use it and make changes. It's just that Google is not obligated to accept them into the official tree. Who cares how the development process looks like? Android is open, and claiming otherwise is foolish. e.g. Amazon's Kindl…

>That does not make the open GPL versions any less "open source" or "open" in general.

We agree then on that, I think, but it has nothing to do with the API openness so I'm not going to pursue it.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#297

Post by Dylan16807 »

beagle3 wrote: post #288
Dylan16807 wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about openness of an API, not open business ownership or whatever the hell you're describing there. An open API gives consumers an equal footing in terms of the API. It doesn't affect any other part of the business. Don't be willfully dense.

> An open API gives consumers an equal footing in terms of the API. It doesn't affect any other part of the business. When you get to define terms, that may be. Here on earth, you're just making no sense whatsoever.

I'm not trying to define anything. I'm trying to narrow the use of the term so it doesn't lead to ridiculous contradictions.

When people say talk about something being open, they mean in a specific context. They don't mean that literally the entire business is open and you could wander into their meetings, etc.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#298

Post by Dylan16807 »

beagle3 wrote: post #287
Dylan16807 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The HTML5 requirement stops YouTube apps from having any control over the experience. They barely even deserve the name 'YouTube app' any more. They're closer to 'YouTube embed containers'. Google isn't forcing Microsoft to write better code. They're trying to force Microsoft to write no code at all, and instead execute whatever javascript comes from the Google servers, sight unseen. Google is refusing to provide a r…

> The HTML5 requirement stops YouTube apps from having any control over the experience That's demonstrably false. Have a look at the "Jasmine" app for iOS - it's way, way better than the official iOS client, despite using the same HTML5 API. It does NOT, in any way, provide a degraded experience compared to the official app using. > and instead execute whatever javascript comes from the Google servers, sight unseen.…

> It does NOT, in any way, provide a degraded experience compared to the official app using.

It doesn't? Because one of the other posts in this thread says that it is degraded.

> Well, Microsoft is refusing to let me sell Windows Premium addition DVDs for $10, even though I'm willing to pay them the $0.50 that a DVD costs, and displaying their logo and whatever it is they do themselves when they sell a Windows equipped computer on the Microsoft store.

Okay, I can work with this analogy. First off, Microsoft would be giving Microsoft-made DVD printers to the other major stores and letting them do the exact same thing you want to do, on official Microsoft hardware. And you've worked hard to make your hardware be up to spec to theirs, but they don't want you to be in business so they only let you use the method that gives them more control: buying full Windows boxes for $0.50 and packing them with the computer. But they won't let you actually take the disc out of the box and install Windows yourself, leading to a degraded experience.

It seems like a reasonable request to me now, though Microsoft can refuse if they want. But they can't call themselves 'open' at the same time.

> They're accessible on Windows Phone, and they're happy to have Microsoft play according to the same rules they set for everyone else. I understand Microsoft is really not use to playing by the rules, granted - but that's hardly Google's fault.

Google is the one explicitly providing an app that doesn't follow the rules. I'm sure Microsoft would be thrilled to not have to write their own app, but they've only tried to write an app that follows the same rules as the official apps. If they can't, then it really sounds like it's not open. Half-open, maybe.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#299

Post by sbuk »

mjolk wrote: post #295
sbuk wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "How is it spiteful to the 7 people who own Windows phones?" That is a snide comment that reveals much. > 'This is Google saying "because of their behaviors, we don't want to allow them to consume our services."' That right there. That is spiteful. It's not Microsoft that they are restricting, it's Google users; the very people that use YouTube. It's certainly not the behaviour of the company that Google projects i…

>That is a snide comment that reveals much. How so? It's not that popular a device.[0] If you work at Microsoft or have a significant interest in them not failing, you might want to divulge your bias here. >That right there. That is spiteful. It's not Microsoft that they are restricting, it's Google users; the very people that use YouTube. You're treating YouTube as if it's water. It's a business. >A good check is to…

> How so?

If you can't see it, there is no point explaining. There are significantly more than 7 users.

> You're treating YouTube as if it's water. It's a business.

You are semantically correct. 2 issues though. If it's business, surely developing a version for the device is worth the ad revenue. Also doesn't this directly contradict the benevolent and altruistic business image that Google like to project. Microsoft are trying to provide access to a popular service. Google are blocking it on frankly extremely spurious grounds and refusing to develop an app of their own (that I don't take issue with). For the final time; it's about users.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#300

Post by kllrnohj »

AaronFriel wrote: post #192
kllrnohj wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube's API only requires the video player itself to be in HTML5, the rest of the app can be native or whatever the hell you want. The engineering work here is youtube hands you an HTML snippet (specifically an ), and you plop that into a UIWebView where you want the inline video to be and you're done. https://developers.google.com/youtube/iframe_api_reference

The issue then is that Google will complain that the rest of the app doesn't adhere to all of Google's terms of services regarding displaying of ads, which are difficult to implement without their blessing.

There is no such ToS. Nor is there any "app must be HTML5" requirement.
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