Google is the canonical example of a company that found commercial success through the use of open-source software. It's undertaken more than 2,000 open source projects over its 18-year history, and in turn has released millions of lines of code to the public.
But such a sprawling array of open-source efforts can be difficult for interested third parties to navigate. To this end, Google has launched a new portal that ties together all of its open-source projects while also providing a window into its internal practices around open source. Here are the details from a blog post by Will Norris of Google's Open Source Program Office:
This new site showcases the breadth and depth of our love for open source. It will contain the expected things: our programs, organizations we support, and a comprehensive list of open source projects we've released. But it also contains something unexpected: a look under the hood at how we "do" open source.
Inspired by many discussions we've had over the years, today we are publishing our internal documentation for how we do open source at Google.
These docs explain the process we follow for releasing new open source projects, submitting patches to others' projects, and how we manage the open source code that we bring into the company and use ourselves. But in addition to the how, it outlines why we do things the way we do, such as why we only use code under certain licenses orwhy we require contributor license agreements for all patches we receive.
Making it easier for companies to get a big-picture view of what Google is doing in open source makes plenty of sense, says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Holger Mueller. Next steps could see Google do more with regard to unification of project documentation as well as the development of synergies across different projects, he adds.
Norris cautions that in Google's view, the documentation doesn't constitute a "how-to" guide for an open source software strategy, as Google's approach has been informed by its own experiences. That being said, an enterprise struggling with how to develop an open source framework could do worse than to follow Google's lead—far worse.
Google is involved with an industry group, TODO, that counts Red Hat, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, Netflix and many other prominent tech companies as members. TODO members work together to develop best practices and common tooling around open source; Google's new open source portal urges visitors to check out TODO's work, but the value of the documentation Google has released shouldn't be downplayed, despite Norris's caveat.
24/7 Access to Constellation Insights
Subscribe today for unrestricted access to expert analyst views on breaking news.
