Comments on: Google's Open Manifesto Tells It Like It Is

By: Open vs. Closed: What Does Open Really Mean? » Shai Perednik.com

Open vs. Closed: What Does Open Really Mean? » Shai Perednik.com — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:41:32 +0000

[...] platform? More than anything, this appears to be shaping up as a battle between Google (which published an “open manifesto” late last year) and Facebook over who can out-open the other. All we can hope is that users will [...]

By: Open vs. Closed: What Does Open Really Mean? - A Collection of Latest Happening in Technology Field

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:32:15 +0000

By: Open vs. Closed: What Does Open Really Mean?

Open vs. Closed: What Does Open Really Mean? — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:47:25 +0000

By: Penguin Pete

Penguin Pete — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:19:53 +0000

And there's a problem with this?

Free/Open Source Software is good for everybody, even the people who aren't aware that it exists. It is impossible to support open source without having it do you some good as well. That's the point.

Consider a row of shops: They all pay taxes so that the government can maintain a street in front of the shops so that customers can get there. They can't help themselves without helping their competitor too. Still, they all cooperate, because they all benefit from it. It's Game Theory all over again.

The Internet is the street that connects customers to online shops, and the Internet is built on Free/Open Source software - and there isn't even any other sane way to do it.

By: Mr. Open Web Goes to Google – GigaOM

Mr. Open Web Goes to Google – GigaOM — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:16:26 +0000

[...] on social products, recently announced a public commitment to “openness” that met mixed reviews, seeing as it still holds its search and advertising businesses close to the vest. However, the [...]

By: What Happened in Tech This Week – GigaOM

What Happened in Tech This Week – GigaOM — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 03:50:08 +0000

[...] Google released its Open manifesto. View [...]

By: Brett Glass

Brett Glass — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:46:19 +0000

"Open what I say, not what I do."

Sebastian: I realize that you've now joined a publication whose revenue mostly comes from Google, which (maybe for this reason) rarely says anything even the slightest bit negative about Google, and which has adopted most if not all of Google's corporate agendas (e.g. support of "network neutrality" regulation that would do great harm to the public so as to benefit Google). But I hope that you will steer it back toward a reasonable worldview. And I especially hope that you'll steer it away from its anti-ISP stance.

By: Ruben Schade

Ruben Schade — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:32:37 +0000

I think it's healthy for a business to have a guiding philosophy (for want of a better word), but I agree with you insofar that its easy to take it too far and sound a bit creepy and funny in the process.

By: Eideard

Eideard — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:12:21 +0000

Credo?

I still can't keep from chuckling over folks who treat business practices as if they're entering some kind of church.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:51:41 +0000

@Mark -- I very much agree with your assessment of Android and how its openness fuels commoditization while proprietary apps from Google sit on top of it. That's an open/closed one-two punch.

Sebastian

By: Mark Sigal

Mark Sigal — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 04:18:26 +0000

While the company deserves major kudos for even being willing to open up their proprietary core as much as they do (think how a company like Yelp avoided having to re-create the wheel or throw a sinkhole of costs to incorporate rich mapping functionality), I also have to roll the eyes a bit, as it all feels like selective adherence to the openness credo.

After all, it's not like crown jewels like the search index are white boxes for consumers to granularly control or repurpose, or for brands/publishers to do the same.

And of course, the company exercises fairly tight control over what data is shared and what is proprietary to Google. For example, all of these years later, nobody really knows what the arbitrage "open" Google makes in the AdSense/AdWord model, yet by contrast, "closed" Apple's 70/30 split is pretty transparent.

And while Android is open source - because it just makes sense - the Google apps that ride on top of it are not open source, which to me fits the old mantra of "be open where commoditization is the goal, be closed when proprietary differentiation is the goal."

The ends justify the means, with a touch of do no evil (or not too much). All that said, a great company relative to the rest.