The Mozilla Public License (MPL) is the latest casualty of Google's decision to remove open-source licenses from its popular code hosting service. The search giant has said Google Code is no longer accepting projects licensed under MPL, although existing MPL-licensed code is allowed to stay. The move comes two years after …

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Saturday 26th July 2008 08:50 GMT Tom Ince

Sourceforge >>>>>>>>> Google Code

I tested out moving 1 of my Sourceforge projects over to Google Code. I lasted about 2 weeks.

Licensing has been a problem from the start on Google Code. The setup is terrible, (changes to the Wiki are tracked through the Subversion server, so to have a "public" Wiki, you need to give Subversion access to users you want to update the wiki!).

The import ability for projects is completely broken and requires manual steps by the admin team. To get them to do this, you need to post a message to the mailing list, askin them to reset your project to Revision 0. Once that's done (took them 2 days to do so for me), you may start doing the import.

I could go on and on, but no need. Google Code is terrible, they should just close it down.

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Saturday 26th July 2008 08:52 GMT Pierre

"It’s Kafkaesque in its simplicity."

This is the most meaningless reference I've been given to read in the past 10 years, so I'll assume it's irony. Let's try to beat it. "It's Shakespearian in its shallowness". "it's Nabokovian in it's communistness". "It's Celinesque in its sionism" "It's microsoftian in its stability". "It's GWBushian in its cleverness". Nope, yours is still better. But, after reading the article (plus other related elements), I might propose "It's Googlesque in its do-no-evility". We may have a winner with this one.

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Saturday 26th July 2008 08:52 GMT Cyfaill

proliferation is weakness

Perhaps Google is preparing to cross the T with Microsoft's armada, who has of late seems to be in desperation to have a war quickly, because time is not on Microsoft's side... Google may see a tactical edge in a unified front.

Less is more.

It takes a great deal of effort to do what they are doing and if expediency is king in such matters then the effort is being done to prepare for something they see ahead.

Microsoft desperation with search engine technology (even from Yahoo) may be a clue that even they can now see that their war with open source is lost and Microsoft may take even more desperate action to save their tower from falling so fast that they can not save anything. Google may well sense this... they do have the best knowledge base... and Microsoft is very desperate now that vista is finished with anyone who has a choice in such matters.

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Sunday 27th July 2008 15:24 GMT Heff

Dear Codemonkeys, Reality calling.

Google is battening down the hatches, and probably doesnt feel like going to court over a lawsuit on someones cooked-at-home Free-license agreement, it desires the stability of a open-source agreement that could be regarded as an industry standard; I dont see anything particularly shocking about this; websites have ever demanded popular formats for submissions;

1. .jpgs and .gifs only. no .png, .cpt, .tif etc etc.

2. Use ur English.

3. Your Browser.

Im surprised the coding community finds itself marked out for a need to conform to standards. after all, dont they commonly use industry-wide recognised standards for programming languages? Or is this just me vainly looking for logic? Are we all just making shit up as we go along now?

"well, it works fine in my python... well, I changed a few bits, obviously..."

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Sunday 27th July 2008 15:24 GMT amanfromMars

Registered Rant to accompany BDSM Analytical Probe*

"I might propose "It's Googlesque in its do-no-evility". We may have a winner with this one."

Now that doing no evil would be a Profound Kafkaesque Vanity and Business InSanity when Searching to Overthrow the Microsoft Moles, with their Smash and Grab Windows System which Relies on purchasing rival systems and applications which Windows communicating, reveals. They don't actually develop anything themselves and never have done, being just an Arm of the Banking System which thinks to Make ITs Money from Nothing with ITs Chicks and Nested Eggs for Free.

IT don't work that Way, any more, me young buckarooos. And if Business and Banking think that things will remain the same, with the same Intellectually Challenged Gnomes being in Effective, Ineffective Control at the Helm, then is the Intellectually Challenged Tag Proven. After All, look at the Fine Global Mess they have gotten themselves into.

They do say that keeping things in the family/incestuous relations is bad for social development and what do Bankers and Business know of Virtual Matters and what Virtualisation with Windows into urLife and ITs Second Lives can do? And Diddly Squat springs immediately to Mind...... which leaves them as Vulnerable as a Naive Innocent Child to Grooming.... although in the case of a Nest of Reprobates, Grooming would be AI Gruelling Re-Education with a Punishing Regime for Return to Fitness with Revised Purpose.

* http://tinyurl.com/5zznbv ..... Hard Core Oily Porn in Faster Lanes.

And the Flame to burn down Houses of Cards and Paper Tigers ..... leaving Piddling Power with ITs Arrogant Deceit 4All2View.

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Monday 28th July 2008 09:12 GMT Syren Baran

Someone actually uses google code?

Geesh, i'll be staying at sourceforge.

Well, nice search engine guys, but

i wont use your site for code development,

i dont fancy learning new pseudo java apis for a cell phone.

While i appreciate having an alternative, that move is about as fruitless a MS spending megabucks to improve their online advertising buisiness.

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Monday 28th July 2008 09:12 GMT A J Stiles

Better Idea

If only it was written into the Law of the Land that every person without exception who supplies a copy of a computer program to another had to include the Source Code under penalty of fines or imprisonment, then we would only need one Open Source Licence.

Which country will be the first to bite that particular bullet?

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Monday 28th July 2008 09:41 GMT Anonymous Coward

@Pierre

How about "It's el-register-onian in it's IT-relevant-ness"?

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Tuesday 29th July 2008 08:07 GMT Ben Bonsall

re: Better Idea

You'd still need more than one license anyway, depending on what you were allowed to do with the source once you had it. Verify and run, modify for private use, modify and provide the modifications to the community, modify for commercial gain, extend but not modify, extend for commercial gain, each varient would require a different license, and would be governed by different laws. You'd also have to seriously rewrite copyright and patent law, not to mention trade secret protection law, which would require years, millions of pounds and international cooperation.

I'm trying to think of another thing that someone could buy and reasonably demand full access to the thousands of hours of work that went into it so they could make sure it worked, or make changes because it's not quite to their liking, and I can't think of one. Go to a resturant and insist on watching the food being cooked so you could change the seasoning if you think you can do better? Watch your car being built, so you can pick the nuts and bolts yourself? Buy a book and change the ending so it comes out the way you want? You could do all these things, but if you have the skills needed to do it well, you also have the skills to do it from scratch, exactly to your liking. It might take a while, but then it took the original developers a while as well.

Personally, I have never sold or supplied a single copy of any piece of software I have written. I sell access to my software, which runs on machines I own and control. My clients have no need to see, and would have no idea what to do with, the source to the applications they use. All they need it to know how the interface works, what the business logic is behind the application, and the data model that backs up the logic. This is why they hired me in the first place. And if they are interested, and were prepared to spend some more money, I might let them know the details of the API, so they could build their own interface.

This is the future. And also the past. It's only the present model that's flawed, where users think they own the software they paid to use.

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Friday 8th August 2008 09:03 GMT Nick Bauman

Bonsall's got it wrong

"I'm trying to think of another thing that someone could buy and reasonably demand full access to the thousands of hours of work that went into it so they could make sure it worked"

You think this is what open source is about? That's not what it's about. Without open source what we have now is this: If a software product were a coffeemaker, it's maker is, say, Braun, and I buy one, and I don't like how it makes coffee, so I modify it, Braun would sue me. If I put instructions on how my Braun Coffemaker Modification was implemented on the web so others could change their coffeemakers to work like mine, I would be thrown in jail. This is a set of laws written by pernicious people in the software biz who managed to wool people who have no idea what happens to anything once it has electricity running through it (i.e. Lawyers). It's a sick joke.

The model for the future you describe (that of an Application Service Provider) works great until data portability becomes an issue. Then everyone realizes that the last thing they want is to have a mission critical app hosted at an ASP. ASPs aren't all bad, but ASPs are not "the future". It's just one way to solve a problem that will not replace other ways.

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