[willnorris]

Could you expand on this a bit? We've tried to be very transparent with how we approach and think about open source by publishing all of our internal documentation at https://opensource.google.com/docs/. Is there something that's missing from that? Or are you thinking about certain specific projects being opaque in terms of how their managed?

[forgottenpass]

The default google approach to open source is unidirectional source dumps after all the work is done. On some products you do a bit better, but still keep your cards incredibly close to the vest, and maintain very tight control. Even when you're trying not to, you can't break from that mold.

I've got this comment saved on my reddit account because it was so funny:

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/53gb56/why_lea...

[willnorris]

> The default google approach to open source is unidirectional source dumps after all the work is done.

I can definitely say that is not our default approach to open source; in fact it's a very small minority of projects that actually operate in that fashion. However, I can understand that it could feel that way to some people.

We've long said and continue to believe that there is no one way to do open source. That's true of nearly every aspect of a project including licensing, governance, community management, etc. Project are released for different reasons, with different motivations and goals, and so the way they are managed often differs.

One area I know we could do better is to set better expectations for projects around many of these topics. How is the project managed, how are decisions made, how committed to this are we (ie. are we using it in production), etc? If those aspects of a given project were clearer, would that address some of your concern (with the understanding that some projects may be be held closer to the vest than others) ? Or are you objecting to the tighter control in general?

[forgottenpass]

I jumped into this thread just to answer your question, I don't have a personal objection to how Google approaches open source. You can be as private as you want or have whatever project governance you want.

I posted because I find it alternatingly funny and frustrating that Googlers don't understand (or can't publicly admit) what Google is to the outside. I'm willing to believe that your comment is your own words. The problem is that you might as well have copy/pasted it from a social media playbook.

It's Google's prerogative to run the business however they want. But you pretend not to be a black hole. All companies are black holes, and that's fine. It's the dishonesty in external posturing that gets to me. Sometimes it's acting like a given opensource development process is more externally accessible or transparent than it is. Other times it's pretending like the youtube appeals process isn't a fake website to con the dumb people. Everyone knows the real appeals process is to work your professional contacts until you find someone who can reach out to a real human in google to check if they should over-ride the automated system (and/or the hourly drones that DGAF about doing their jobs well). -- That was weird tangent, but it's the thing least tied to software development process I could think of.

I know you can't admit it outloud on Hacker News, but I hope you would have had a different response if we had this conversation at a bar rather than in front of everyone like this. As long as you can admit that to yourself, privately, you're alright with me.

[ocdtrekkie]

I would advise first and foremost: Communication on what governance and community management looks like needs to be clearly disclosed and publicly broadcast.

When a few of us tried to find out what was up with AMP 4 Email, despite Malte Ubl repeating the phrase "well lit" like his life depended on it, we managed to suss out the reality that while AMP 4 Email was a mere "proposal" in the AMP project, that Gmail team was doing it the way they wanted internally with no community feedback whatsoever, and that they were committed to making this proprietary format of email without anyone else's input.

It was suggested that AMP was "open" and "well lit", but it was actually an entirely internal project to an entire different team at Google, and no outside feedback was wanted or accepted. And it took repeatedly asking the question to get a clear answer on it.

Questions like governance (in AMP's case, "benevolent" dictator for life) were hard to get answers to and sometimes came with subtle threats to "enforce the CoC" if they didn't like the topic of conversation, despite it being respectfully inquired.