> Lots of contributions to Open Source, Summer of Code etc.
Which is funny because these things were a smoke screen from day 1. Google is a past master at doing things for themselves, but throwing in a token benefit for everybody else so they look like the good guys.
Summer of Code was primarily a recruiting tool for Google, not a contribution to open source. They spent 0.06% of profit on Summer of Code, and in exchange got access to some great developers and got a mostly-unpaid trial period to evaluate them. That's a HR recruiting gold mine.
Despite their entire operation running on Linux, most years they contributed so little back to the kernel that they didn't even show up on most rankings -- and adjusted for corp size they were barely a footnote. It's only recently that they have started to contribute anything substantial to Linux. One of their largest contribution to Linux is cloning all the GPL code into BSD code so it can be sold for profit.
Sure Google has done a few good things for Open Source, but far far less than one should expect.
I see this through the eyes of every other big company; Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Adobe. In those glasses Google is still the saint. Give an example of WHAT company you going to go to?
I hear this from so many people BUT explain to me a different scenario on how the largest Internet company can run things? I see the push back against the NSA, Open Sourced Android (Closed Google Apps), almost everything that came out better for the customers (Gmail 1GB storage, G+ (you decided in detail who can read your post) APIs that are extremely usable) Google Voice was/is amazing. My beloved Open Source products get millions of investment from Google.
The BAD in my eyes: Killing off of many products (I don't use new Google products normally)
IBM has always been one of the biggest contributors to Linux. But I think a major difference is that these companies haven't sold themselves as the open source, pro-internet "don't be evil" company. Google has.
Which is funny because these things were a smoke screen from day 1. Google is a past master at doing things for themselves, but throwing in a token benefit for everybody else so they look like the good guys.
Summer of Code was primarily a recruiting tool for Google, not a contribution to open source. They spent 0.06% of profit on Summer of Code, and in exchange got access to some great developers and got a mostly-unpaid trial period to evaluate them. That's a HR recruiting gold mine.
Despite their entire operation running on Linux, most years they contributed so little back to the kernel that they didn't even show up on most rankings -- and adjusted for corp size they were barely a footnote. It's only recently that they have started to contribute anything substantial to Linux. One of their largest contribution to Linux is cloning all the GPL code into BSD code so it can be sold for profit.
Sure Google has done a few good things for Open Source, but far far less than one should expect.