Google Gives Reason Why it is Built on Linux

Rob writes "A common reason why more governments and enterprises around the world are moving to open source software is unhappiness, it was revealed during a panel discussion at the LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco yesterday. Google Inc open source programs manager Chris DiBona said the search giant has stuck with Linux throughout the company's life, in part, because it was unhappy with the terms of another software company. Which borgware company is he referring to?"

Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

He was refering to Microsoft!

Not so sure

[einhverfr]

He was refering to Microsoft!

The article seems to imply that. But on closer reading, it indicates that Microsoft was just used as an example. The same would have been equally true of Sun, SGI, IBM, etc. And when you really look at what they were doing with Google, I think that Sun is actually more likely to have been the target than Microsoft.

Re:Not so sure

[chrisd]

In fact, I'm not even sure I said Microsoft at all during my few minutes up there. I was trying to say that one of thde truly cool things about Linux is that you don't have to talk to anyone outside the company or whatever if you want to mess with it.

I may have said 'Microsoft, or any other commercial os'. I mean, hate to say it, but the Microsoft XP Kernel isn't terrible, I just don't want all the stuff around it (windowing systems, etc..).

Chris

Re:Not so sure

[Gob Gob]

C'Mon Garth

We are not worthy, we are not worthy! :-)

Re:Not so sure

[erroneous]

Please don't allow your inconvenient alleged "facts" and "first-hand knowledge" and the fact that the story is about "you" get in the way of a good old-fashioned slashdot Microsoft bash.

Re:Not so sure

[jiushao]

Sun would be a bit of an odd target since Google has (maybe still do?) run some systems on Sun/Solaris machines (the web crawlers used to be the example I believe). Also there are many references to Google working to keep their internal systems portable between Linux and Solaris.

More importantly Sun is the only classic commercial vendor for which "if Google used Windows, or any other non-open source software program, to make changes to that system he would be required to essentially ask permission from that vendor" no longer is true, with the OpenSolaris project [opensolaris.org]. I know that a lot of people have ideological and political problems with Sun's approach, but it quite clearly offers the same practical business advantages as other OSS while also playing off Sun's classic strengths a bit.

In addition Solaris 10 does run quite well on commodity x86 machines, not as wide hardware support as Linux sure, but if you are buying the machines for the purpose you have no trouble.

This is not to say that Google should use Sun (or that anyone should), but Sun really has positioned themselves in a place where this type of complaints don't really hold. Which is apparently the right place to be in the current climate.

Re:Let me tell you why

[oldwolf13]

I agree... 100% Google has a huge database of user info.

The thing is, this is one time were I AGREE to it. Their services are good, and make me lower my walls a bit. I am generally very anal about companies collecting information, but this is one time were I am a hypocrite.

Google is just another company to me and their "Do no evil" policy is meaningless (I mean do other companies actually sit around in high backed chairs and think of how to "do evil"?) Unfortunately the provide great services, and their "spying" has little impact on me... so if they need to do it to survive and provide good things, then they can have it.

This once... period... you other fuckers be warned :)

Re:Let me tell you why

[zootm]

I believe that it's different because they're not trying to hide what they collect, and why, from anyone.

Re:Let me tell you why

[WillWare]

I mean do other companies actually sit around in high backed chairs and think of how to "do evil"?

We have found that regular chairs work fine for this.

Re:Let me tell you why

[shmlco]

gmail, and every other google service forces you to accept cookies from google.com if you want to use said service...

First, do you have some magic method you want to share for automatically logging into, and staying logged onto, an account-based service w/o cookies?

...the same cookies that store the IP and info of every single search that is done on google.

Wow! The 1K max size cookie on my computer stores the IP and info of every single search that is done on google?

Forget search revenues, they need to patent and sell that compression algorithm!

Re:Let me tell you why

[log2.0]

People *think* that when you type in a search and the previous search history comes up is a cookie. We know better of course :) I had a mate who I convinced to use firefox and he complained that these "cookies" were staying there even when he told FF to remove them! Heh, the public have no idea sometimes :)

Re:Let me tell you why

[thirdrock]

The history of your searches are not in the cookie. The cookie is a key to some data structure in a hash table or tree that resides in the server, which stores further information about you.

And this key works even though I set Firefox to delete cookies at the end of each session and I regularly obtain a new IP from the DHCP server?

Re:Let me tell you why

[pixr99]

What is this "logging on" of which you speak? I have never "logged on" to Google. Is this for g-mail or some other service? Can you log on for additional search engine features?

http://www.google.com/ig [google.com]
I wouldn't say a world of search features but it's definitely handy.

Re:Let me tell you why

[tassii]

Simply store the one TRUE cookie in the login context and use that cookie to 'bind' them all or to replace as necessary.

One Cookie to Rule Them All
One Cookie to find them
One Cookie to bring them all
and in the OS bind them.

Re:Let me tell you why

[shmlco]

And yet it keeps cookies. This stores my language preferences...

And content rating preferences and so on. Or would you rather reset them each time? But unless you signed up for an actual account (e.g. gmail), Google had no idea who you were dispite the cookie. All it knew was that someone, somewhere, kept looking for free porn.

And I know how cookies and servers work. It's my job. But read the sentence, "...the same cookies [sic] that store the IP and info of every single search that is done on google."

Re:Let me tell you why

[Winkhorst]

What is this gmail system? You mean you don't have your own email system on your own website? What, has Slashdot been taken over by a herd of little old ladies in flower hats?

Re:Let me tell you why

[Bimo_Dude]

Holy Shit!

Are you telling me that a webserver actually logs a requesting IP address? Does this apply to all websites?

Man, I'm trading in my computer for an abacus.

BTW, what does a webserver logging IP addresses have to do with the CEO's personal information?

Re:Microsoft

[gbulmash]

TFA is slashdotted, so I'll have to speculate. Could have been Oracle. It's one of the world's best known database vendors.

With all the talk about mult-core processors, there has often been mention of Oracle's per-core licensing fees. And remember the whole debacle with the state of California's Oracle contract [internet.com].

- Greg

Re:Microsoft

[RoadkillBunny]

Nah, I think he was refering to SCO.

Which borgware company is he referring to?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which borgware company is he referring to?

It's Apple.

Surprise.

Re:Which borgware company is he referring to?

[mattjb0010]

Apple Surprise

A camping recipe from Patty. This recipe can be made in quantity for as many as you want to serve in the campground.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 - 4 apples
• shelled walnuts
• butter or maple syrup

PREPARATION:

Cut apples into slices and take out core. Place apples on aluminum foil. Add walnuts and butter or maple syrup. Fold foil leaving an opening for ventilation. Place on campfire and cook at least 45 minutes, or until apples are soft, not mushy.

Servings: 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes

Obviously....

[ultraslacker]

SCO OpenServer!

Apple?

[stoolpigeon]

Seriously-- yeah it is MS, but the problem exists with any proprietary technology. The company doesn't need to be borg-like, just closed.
 
I've had plenty of jobs where we got locked in on the O.S. or on applications and it sucks. It is a rotten feeling when you want something changed but it is either impossible or it will cost you an arm and a leg. (Then you have to wait on their timing too)
 
I know throwing apple out there is a bit inflammatory around here but it proves the point. There are plenty of bad options out there without even pointing out Microsoft.

Re:Apple?

[liangzai]

Apple was an extremely bad example of yours. Ever heard of Darwin? It is open source, runs on PPC and Intel. You can tweak it as much as you want (like Google wants), and if you are a government employee (like in the remainder of the article) you can just boot up the full Mac OS X to get a usability that linux will never come close to.

But for what Google does it is enough

[SuperKendall]

It's a little more thana kernel really. Only the OSX GUI is really closed.

But Google would not need that part for a million headless boxes in a rack. Being able to modify Darwin would let them do as much customizing as they have done with Linix.

However of course when you have a million boxes any licencing fee is too much, so they are really better off with Linux anyway as it's been hammered on a lot more, even though they could have just grabbed Darwin and gone with it.

OSS Advantages

[Mandrel]

I'm amazed at how increasingly irrelevant Microsoft products are becoming to my use of computers, both privately and as a developer. With OSS, the fact that I can fix it myself trumps any modest disparity in features, maturity, or price.

And the price of OSS is not its main draw. I chose to develop a number of projects with Java rather than Visual Studio because VS was expensive to buy, while Java cost nothing. But then I was frustrated by my dependence on Sun to fix problems in the closed VM and class libraries. So I'm now developing on an OSS language and framework.

Re:Apple?

[fermion]

The issue is competative pressure to produce an increasingly compelling product at lower costs thus increasing value to the customer. Clearly, most IT firms feel such pressure and attempt to meet changing technology and consumer demand head on. To take your example Apple has done this by providing a five user site license for the complete OS X for less than MS charges for a single full license of XP. Combine this with the fact that XP builds on an outdated OS that was scheduled to be retired by now, and OS X is a state of the art OS that MS is still a year away from matching.

This is the same for MS Office. MS has not really provided compelling value. MS Office is aging technology, and the base price should really be $100 for everyone. The full bloat version can still be $300. We have not seen a real update in 5 years, which, for a flagship product, really indicates the indifference MS has to the market.

I am not really defending or attacking anyone, simply stating that MS is a unique postiona and therefore has unique issues. In the timeframe that we are talking, Apple would not have been a contender. If it had, Google could have just taken darwin, as it did not need the gui. The point has not been proven because the licensing issues with MS stems from a monopoly status, in the same way that IBM once effectively was. Other IT firms, like Sun and SGI were the best in a field, and if one needed it, the price was not too much. Most of the time one was looking to solve a problem, and the licensing was often not the overiding issue. If google specifically needded transparency of source, the Linux is the clear winner as no one else can solve that problem as cheaply.

Re:Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

no it's not.

my employer wouldn't be considered a "bleeding edge tech" company, but we've had to modify the linux kernel source in order for it to work properly in the networking environment it was placed. I've also had to modify getty and a couple other packages to get the system to work with the oddball hardware we use and to satisfy a user requirement. The patches went back to RedHat and whether they used them for a future product is up to them.

I'm no Alan Cox and my changes weren't monumental, but I

Re:Apple?

[Tony-A]

Parent illustrates WHY OSS is so valuable.
That level of support is available with a lot of money and a lot of clout. I doubt that either alone is sufficient.
The skill required is not that great. It is entirely reasonable to fix one bug you care about and cause 10 bugs you do not know or care about. The patches go back to RedHat who has the non-trivial task of figuring out if they are worthwhile in general. (If accepted, it's much easier the next time;)

Unsurprising!

[Tiberius_Fel]

Google does a lot of things differently than most OSes are meant for. It's only logical that they'd choose one that they can customize to their needs...

And don't forget...

[iendedi]

Besides being customizable, Google uses oodles of servers. At $300 / seat for something proprietary, they are saving ungodly amounts of money.

In the end though, it is always about control.

Convenience, too.

[lheal]

In my 50-node-and-smaller networks, it's just so much nicer to be able to install the OS on the machines and not have to mess with licensing. I think that goodness would be that much sweeter on a 500-node network.

They could have used *BSD, but that would have been like Harvard boys using Yale locks. A bunch of Stanford grads use Berkeley-derived stuff? Get real :-).

"Seat" is a misnomer here

[cduffy]

Remember, they're running a cluster made of hordes of cheap, little machines -- vastly more machines than they have employees.

Also remember that they didn't always have that market cap, or any.

Re:"Seat" is a misnomer here

[temojen]

Furthermore, Market Cap != Liquid Assets. Market Capitalization is the sum of the current value of all outstanding shares, not what they sold the shares to the brokers for.

Imagine a small company that sells 50000 shares to the IPO brokers at $10. Due to buzz, rumours, or manipulation, the shares go up to $1000 per share. The company's market capitalization is now 50 million, but the company only has 1/2 million in the bank.

Re:Cost per seat probably isn't a factor...

[Gumber]

I don't think "$300 / seat for something proprietary" really matters that much. Even if they re-bought that license every single year, it is less than $1/day to match whatever they are paying the butt that sits in the seat.

I think you are missing a couple of things. First off, Google wasn't always a multibillion dollar company. They were a startup first, and when you are a startup with no revenue, capital is damn scarce. In that environment, avoiding the cost of software licenses is an obvious way to economize.

Fast forward to the day you start earning some revenue, and maybe even an operating profit. You have lots of demands for reinvesting the money for further growth. You could put some of it into software licenses for a commercial OS, and the costs of converting your infrastructure and porting your code, or you could put it into more hardware (for the cost of OS licenses, google could probably have bought 20-30% more capacity), to handle more customers, and more engineers, to improve your product, and marketing/sales to keep stoking your growth.

The biggest reason to go with a commercial vendor is that you can take advantage of the investment they are amortizing over a large sales volume. This can be a good thing if you have rather ordinary problems you are trying to solve, but someone like google (or amazon, etc) doesn't have ordinary problems, so they are forced to create their own solutions (which also gives them a competitive advantage). Overtime, the rest of the world might catch up to the point that commercial vendors now offer solutions, but again, the value you gain from replacing your existing solutions has to be weighed against the other things you could do with the money.

Re:Cost per seat probably isn't a factor...

[Eivind]

There are *noone* sitting in the "seat" infront of 99% of Googles machines. That's the point you're missing.

Re:Cost per seat probably isn't a factor...

[d99-sbr]

We had a Google rep. come visit us at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in April or so, to round up fresh engineers.

As far as I remember it, they are now on version three of their cluster design, and today it is simply rack mounted machines like you find in any cluster, but up until and including version two it was simply motherboards stacked on top of each other. And like the grand parent said, they were never replaced simply because you couldn't get them out of the stack. So the dead ones were just sitting there.

He showed us a few photos of it, it looked worse than any geek closet I have ever seen.

Re:Unsurprising!

[brilinux]

They had a talk here at CMU by a Kernel hacker at Google ... he was talking about how they were able to add code to the kernel to get an incredibly close view at exactly what was going on in the kernel so that they could pinpoint problems and bottlenecks - something that they could not do with a proprietary system. (The speaker, BTW, was Richard Sites, who also helped design the Alpha architecture).

Re:Unsurprising!

[Karzz1]

That, and OpenSolaris is only what, about 8 years late?

Why

[HoodCrowd]

Why can't I run the really cool stuff like Google Earth on my Debian machine

Re:Why

[meowsqueak]

Because Google Earth wasn't written by Google - it was written by Keyhole which was subsequently acquired by Google. There's no reason to presume there will never be a Linux version (but there's also no reason to presume there will be, either).

Slackware

[cbelle13013]

I had a circuits professor who had either done some contract work or worked at Google back in 2000. He told me and a couple other students that they used Salckware and ran the entire site from RAM, OS and all. Before that talk I never new you could run entire systems directly from RAM. Wild.

Re:Slackware

[darkonc]

I never new you could run entire systems directly from RAM.

You boot off of the net. Most PCs these days have support for it. Linux works real well that way. I've run classrooms off of one knoppix [knopper.net] CD, using the Knoppix Terminal Server (penguin menu -> services -> Start KNOPPIX Terminal Server). Takes all of a couple of minutes to start up. No need even for disk drives (although swap space is sometimes nice).

When Microsoft tries to FUD about 'difficult installs for Linux', they're obviously doing their damndest not to look at things like Knoppix -- The hardest thing is setting the BIOS to boot off of the NIC.

Re:Slackware

[aussersterne]

Ahh, the knowledge that has been lost.

When I was a CS student in the late '80s and early '90s, we had entire labs full of Sun and HP machines that had no hard drives. They booted off the net and ran entirely in RAM.

Years before that, when I was a kid with a PC, there were RAMdisks in most operating systems at the time that were easy to use, and if you had a fancy schmanzy expansion card with some godawful amount of RAM on it (like 512MB ;-) you could run your BBS entirely from an RAMdisk and it was FAST.

Linux still has RAMdisk drivers in it somewhere that lead to something like /dev/r0 or /dev/ram0 or similar, which you can format and mount and use like a hard drive. Or at least, it used to. I haven't checked in a few years, and I never actually built it into my kernel, but OSes like Slack did use it for their boot/root floppies, etc.

In any case, getting back to diskless workstations netbooting... this is a MAJOR win when you have rooms full of hardware. There's no reason each of them needs their own hard drive if every single one of those hard drives will just have the same data and enough RAM to run w/o excessive paging/swapping is cheap. You save on initial cost. You save on power. You save on failures of other hardware due to heat. You save on failures of all those freaking drives. You save on the labor it would take to re-image and replace them. And you save on complexity, since all systems then become essentially interchangeable--just plug it into a network port and go, no need to worry about whether it's been "configured" right or whats on its hard drive (or isn't on its hard drive, as the case may be).

OOPS, I mean 512KB ;-)

[aussersterne]

The past is receding on me, too, it would seem. I meant 512KB, not 512MB. And it would take 64 DRAM chips!

Re:Slackware

[dubl-u]

Before that talk I never new you could run entire systems directly from RAM. Wild.

Yes, it's very cool. Done right, response times are dumbfounding. And if you take an approach like Prevayler [prevayler.org] you can still have reliability and transactional integrity.

giving back

[mattfite]

if they've relied on it so much, it would be nice if some of their apps would run on linux.

Re:giving back

[Fjornir]

Ignoring, for instance, the Summer of Code (and all of the other grants they've made) Google has made one contribution to Linux users everywhere: google.com.

To start with, Google is the most well-known poster-child of Linux success. If you don't think that adds value to every other opensource project, well... *shrug*

As a more tangible and direct benefit I can say that google.com is an immense resource as far as answering any Linux question which comes my way. Between the web search and usenet search features they provide to everyone free it makes using Linux a lot easier. Stop in on any Linux IRC channel and you'll see what I mean. I volunteer off and on doing Linux support and I can tell you that without Google there would be a lot of questions that I would be unable to answer.

Just a thought...

Re:giving back

[zerocool^]

http://www.google.com/linux [google.com]

Re:giving back

[Tim C]

To start with, Google is the most well-known poster-child of Linux success.

But does anyone outside of the Linux/slashdot/techy community *know* that google uses Linux?

Re:giving back

[Omnifarious]

I agree. The new keyhole thing doesn't run on Linux, and they have no plans to port it. They aren't going to make any of their desktop stuff run on Linux. It's kinda disappointing.

I'm not saying that google hasn't given back. They've given a lot. They're no Amazon [amazon.com] in that regard.

But really, the thing that would really make sure Microsoft's monopoly died the true death would be a good Open Source desktop alternative. If google really wants to help Linux, they'll start making sure any end-user apps ru

Re:giving back

[pauljlucas]

You can never force a company to release its source code. It's not going to happen. You will, however, force one of two alternate things:

1. You'll force the company to use some other solution (e.g., FreeBSD).
2. You'll force the company to make changes to the code just as they're doing now, but keep it quiet and thus violate the license terms. It will be very hard to prove they're in violation.

Of course, Linux is more free market

[argoff]

When you look at copyrights like a government regulation that controlls how people use information, rather than some kind of "property" right. Then it becomes clear that Linux is truely more accountable to free market paradigms, and in the information age - as information becomes commoditized, that will be even more so - as the companies that treat unrestricted copying over the internet like a threat will loose, and those that treat it like an advantage will win.

Re:Of course, Linux is more free market

[RealityProphet]

When you look at copyrights like a government regulation that controlls how people use information, rather than some kind of "property" right. Then it becomes clear that Linux is truely more accountable to free market paradigms, and in the information age - as information becomes commoditized, that will be even more so - as the companies that treat unrestricted copying over the internet like a threat will loose, and those that treat it like an advantage will win.

This is wrong on so many levels. Google uses linux because they don't give a shit about having to give back modifications to the OS. They aren't in the OS business. They are in the search business. And if you cannot understand this in the context of your "information is free" paradigm, just ask Google to kindly explain to you the details of their search algorithms. I'm sure they'll be eager to oblige you.

Re:Of course, Linux is more free market

[ScentCone]

as the companies that treat unrestricted copying over the internet like a threat will loose, and those that treat it like an advantage will win.

People who create information for a living do not benefit when they cannot be paid for their work. And if the people who produce professsional quality information (novelists, musicians, film makers, and so on) have to, say, flip burgers because everyone except them get the "advantage" of their work being unpaid for, then we'll have a society where the best brains

Re:Of course, Linux is more free market

[argoff]

People who create information for a living do not benefit when they cannot be paid for their work...

You don't get the information age. If your information is wanted, you create far more opportunity for yourself by putting it out in the world freely with your name on it. For example, a small artist is far better off doing every thing possible to have his music creations distributed freely to make a name for himself than suing the crap out of anyone who coppies hopeing that he gets some kind of million d

Re:Of course, Linux is more free market

[servognome]

Then it becomes clear that Linux is truely more accountable to free market paradigms, and in the information age - as information becomes commoditized, that will be even more so

The problem is that information reproduction has been commoditized, not creation. It still takes some kind of investment to create new information. Open source is not more or less free market than closed source, there are many advanatages and disadvantages for each.
Google and IBM use Linux because its license offers them technical

Finally...

[darthgnu]

It's good to see some company finally step up to the plate and publicly admits that free/open source software provides independence and freedom. IBM, Novell, HP always put out the "cheaper" argument which is seen as "less value".

OT: Traffic impact by Google Personalized Homepage

[vinlud]

This is offtopic, but because it didn't survive the submission I did I thought it would be best to post it attached to another Google story.

A few days ago I noticed several websites which are linked by default in the Google Personalized Homepage [google.com] show staggering increases in web traffic and page views. According to Alexa.com [alexa.com] Wired [wired.com] more than doubled [alexa.com] and also Slashdot [alexa.com] , the NY Times [alexa.com] and the Washington Post [alexa.com] show remarkable growth at the end of july.

Is this a redefinition of 'slashdotting' or is there something else going on?

Re:OT: Traffic impact by Google Personalized Homep

[generic-man]

When a popular web site links to another web site, the link target gets a lot of hits.

Slashdot is one example of this. Fark is another. SomethingAwful's Awful Links of the Day are another. Netscape's "What's Cool" is one of the first. I don't see what the big deal is. Google could start soliciting payments to link more sites -- oh wait, as a company that makes nearly all its money from advertising, that's what Google always does!

Re:OT: Traffic impact by Google Personalized Homep

[stefanlasiewski]

there something else going on?

Google has a very different model then the traditional news sites.

Remember how the News companies work: Traditional news websites & TV stations, like CNN, MSNBC have news editors who pick their news tidbits as they see fit, either subconsciously or purposely, regardless of what the viewers find interesting. They pick the stories based on how much ad revenue the story will bring. This can be a very flawed analysis-- Sometimes they are right on, other times they are way off the mark. Do you ever watch the news and wonder why they spent 30 seconds on an important news story while discussing Star Wars for 3 minutes?

There is a disconnect between what the viewers find interesting, and what the news editors believes that the viewers will find interesting. It's a somewhat flawed model.

News.google.com and the Google Personalized Homepage works differently--there is no news editors. The top news stories make it to the top of the list because people find the stories more interesting, and click on those links more often. Google analyzes the viewer's behavior to determine which headlines should be at the top of the page. Everything is done programmatically, and some people claim it's more democratic.

For instance, the morning of the Spanish Train Bombings the Spanish Government first blamed the bombings on the Basque separatists. As such, the news was not very interesting to the news editors at CNN, MSNBC, Good Morning America, etc. The big news stations and news websites were mostly discussing results of American Idol and the Laci Peterson Murder Trial. Later, when Al Qaida entered the picture, the news stations started covering the Train Bombings nonstop. All of a

On the other hand, News.google.com always had the headlines in the correct order-- as the visitors selected the news-- Spanish Train Bombings were top topics, Laci Peterson & American Idol were way at the bottom of the list. Google's model works pretty well.

I remember this pretty clearly-- I could not find any news on the Train Bombings for an hour, except for one line of scrolling text at the bottom of the screen.

Licensing restrictions = per-CPU licensing

[tyates]

Google can't pay $90 a CPU for Windows XP Professional Global Oppression Server or whatever. (I'm a Mac guy so I don't know exactly what Windows is calling itself now.) I bet both Microsoft and Sun are kicking themselves for not cutting Google a deal. Imagine the PR Sun could have gotten by using Google as a reference customer.

Re:Licensing restrictions = per-CPU licensing

[darkonc]

RTFA. Paying for an entire OS when you're essentially using it as a boot loader wasn't the biggest thing to stick in Google's craw. Having to go ask for permission to be able to stick your nose deep into the kernel and pull out, tweak or seriously crank parts of the OS is what really irked them -- and now that Bill considers Google to be their competition, I can easily see Microsoft yanking them around on a chain at every opportunity.

Imagine being a Professional Nascar team, and having to ask Gates Motors (GM) for permission every time they re-tune their machine ... then finding out that the President of GM has gotten into Nascar racing. ... Then they start asking you to provide full details of your tuning methods "to ensure that our cars don't get a bad safety reputation".
It's all downhill from there.

Re:Licensing restrictions = per-CPU licensing

[ciroknight]

So, this begs the question: Why didn't they use a BSD?

Just being able to tune the kernel while it was running probably wasn't the entire concern. The number of eyes on the source probably influenced the decision as well. More eyes are on the Linux kernel than any other Open Source kernel, including all of the BSDs, and I'd hazard to say "combined".

Hell, Redhat and IBM practically run their businesses (well, IBM's software business) on tweaking and prodding and fixing bugs within the Linux kernel. All of this is free money to Google, as they never pay a cent to fix those bugs or get those tweaks, and yet at the same time they get an extremely fast, flexible, and effecient operating system.

Linux is best suited for the server room, and Google has leveraged this to a tee.

goooogle

[gadzook33]

Even if he is referring to MS, it's not as if google can be considered impartial. They must have known they'd be competing with redmond on one level or another. How would it sound if someone said to them, yeah but doesn't your search technology run on Windows? Not horrible but not great either. Especially if the competition becomes even more heated.

Business guys still haven't quite figured it out..

[GGardner]

I love this quote:
IDC predicts Linux revenues at $35bn worldwide within the next three years.

I wonder how much "Linux revenues" google has contributed to? How many Linux licenses have they purchased for their 100k machine farm?

Borgware, hmm... let me guess...

[Junior J. Junior III]

Amiga?

No, no wait... DEC. Yeah! Google is so fast because it does NOT run on a PDP-10.

Server room

[Trogre]

While showing a slide show of Google's hardware evolution, which began humbly with an odds-and-ends collection of "spare computers that were lying around Stanford" (hobbled together, literally, with pieces of Lego and duct tape) and ended with a present-day photo of Google's current server room (darkened to the point of being indistinguishable, for competitive reasons), DiBona said Google has used Linux all the way.

Forget software licensing, I just want to see the slide with their server room!

Any links?

Re:Server room

[Frogg]

i don't speak hebrew, but i believe this pic shows the early google setup at stanford, complete with lego and duct tape.
http://tidno1.exteen.com/20050222/server-google [exteen.com]

i'm sure i've seen a pic showing racks of beige-boxed pcs, before google went for the rack mount kit - but i can't seem to find it now.

but nowadays, google's data centres are just like any one elses
http://www.prweaver.com/blog/2004/09/03/8-google-d ata-centers [prweaver.com]
http://www.mrx.no/San-Francisco/A_cluster_of_cooln ess_Google_History.html [www.mrx.no]

hth?

Love that ASP!

[Stalin]

This was at the bottom of the article when I read it:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80040e31'

Timeout expired /CBRincludes/related_news.asp, line 137

Microsoft Cluster Server?

[Bananatree3]

Why not just move the entire Google code base to Microsoft Cluster Server? I know it would mean a complete rewrite from the bottom up, and would require a whole new training program. You would also have to worry about serious security issues in the OS because you can't inspect the code. You would have to rely on a competitor to patch up problems. You would have to wait during "patch turnround time" which could be months (or never if Microsoft thinks its not really a big deal). You would have to be forced in to doing things the way Microsoft wants you to do things, and use their own "Super Secure" programs. And thats just the OS. You would have to pay through the nose on those pesky Site licences. To upgrade, theres another several hundred thousand (or millions) of dollars. And when they release Version 2.0, you have to go around and upgrade all the machines the way Microsoft wants you too.

But! You would have the comfort of knowing that you are running a Certified Microsoft(R) Product!

MIRROR

[firepacket]

Article mirror:
http://firepacket.net/mirror/unhappy.html [firepacket.net]

Which borgware company is he referring to?

[samdu]

Erm... ALL of it?

Really ?

[abhinavmodi]

Is this why Google Earth, Google Desktop Bar, Google Web Accelerator all support Windoze only ? Google might be harnessing the power of Linux behind the scenes, but all of its innovations for desktop users are on M$ only. Granted, that they are Beta/Preview versions .. but Linux could be a great candidate too !

Re:Really ?

[10Ghz]

Is this why Google Earth

Made by a third-party, only recently acquired by Google

Google Desktop Bar

Linux-users had no need for it because browsers on Linux are clearly superior to IE.

Google Web Accelerator

Which is not even available anymore.

Re:Really ?

[pe1chl]

this has not stopped a lot of popular software from being presented to the users in a distro-agnostic manner

But I think it has prevented even more software from being released for Linux!
Sure you can work around it, but let's face it: for Windows you buy one of those packaging tools that handle installation on 98/2000/XP for you and you only have to supply your files and where they have to go.
On Linux, it could potentially have been simpler, because the packaging tools are delivered with the OS. No need

Netcraft Results

[potpie]

I went Netcrafting some popular sites. Here are my findings:

Ebay
http://www.ebay.com/
Uptime Summary Time in Days
Plotted Value No. samples Max Latest
Windows 2000 109 155.82 155.82
Windows Server 2003 55 172.18 7.19
90-day Moving average 431 61.25 61.17

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/
Up time Summary Time in Days
Plotted Value No. samples Max Latest
Linux 1276 463.28 150.07
90-day Moving average 1719 156.60 105.02

Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com/
Uptime Summary Time in Days
Plotted Value No. samples Max Latest
FreeBSD 788 414.05 315.62
90-day Moving average 1231 219.01 216.84

Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/
U ptime Summary Time in Days
Plotted Value No. samples Max Latest
Windows Server 2003 223 110.83 6.72
90-day Moving average 617 44.35 31.47

Slashdot
http://slashdot.org/
Uptime Summary Time in Days
Plotted Value No. samples Max Latest
Linux 345 397.67 397.67
90-day Moving average 674 168.98 68.77

The Best Page in the Universe
http://maddox.xmission.com/
uses linux - uptimes unknown

Google
http://www.google.com/
uses linux - uptimes unknown

The formatting is screwed up, but it would take too long to fix it. All the information is there. You can see that Microsoft's own site won't stay up as long as the sites listed running Linux (those with known uptimes). There could be a lot of reasons for that, however; I'm sure Microsoft has some extra troubles just because it's so huge. Also note that not all Linux-run sites stay up much longer than Microsoft-run sites, but on average they seem to win hands down.

Re:Netcraft Results

[pe1chl]

Remember that Microsoft sites have to reboot at least once every month after installing patches.

Linux sites often can avoid this (at least as far as Netcraft is concerned; restarting Apache does not cut the uptime), however there have been so many kernel updates last year that a Linux system with a year of uptime is a bit questionable as well.

(of course most kernel updates are for local exploits only; one could decide a properly firewalled system does not need them)

Must stop using slashdot vocabulary

[Hydraulix]

I almost got my ass kicked for using the word "borgware" today.

BSA AUDIT

[erroneus]

Prior to my getting hired by the company I presently work for, there was a painful BSA audit. I can say with 100$ certainty that the BSA is the main reason for our migration to Linux.

Yay for unhappiness!

[Avumede]

For bringing more people to Linux, I saw Hooray for unhappiness. here's how I think the whole process works:

Step 1 - Cluelessness - Buy Windows 95
Step 2 - Anger - Buy Windows NT
Step 3- Unhappiness - move to Linux
Step 4 - Confusion - move to Macintosh
Step 5 - Bankruptcy - move to Tibet and become a Buddhist monk.

You heard it hear first, folks. move to Tibet now before the rush comes in!

I can't wait for the day...

[gosand]

I really can't wait for the day when you don't have to justify why you use anything other than Microsoft's products.

Re:Open source is broken

[cyberfunk2]

Broken assumption: You assume everyone wants to profit from OSS... they dont. I've seen plenty of OSSoftware written for the mac that's free, usable and easy to work with.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Open source is broken

[RoadWarriorX]

Wow, that sounded a lot like an employer that I had. For instance, there was an issue where a COM+ server was throwing access violations. After taking some time and using literally basic debugging tools, I found the problem in the disassembly and traced it back to something in COM+ constructor strings. My company still needed to open a ticket to Microsoft because "they were the experts". Low and behold, they found the same thing... five days later. The moral of the story is that no matter how many talented, well-qualified geeks we have, the business people still want the assurance of their vendor. Google, having engineered their solution on their own without a vendor, took the risks and was rewarded handsomely.

Re:Open source is broken

[walt-sjc]

Open source can never be very easy to use and easy to run

Ever hear of a product called Tivo? Runs Linux. Or maybe a linksys router...
I guess those products are beyond your ability to use or run...

Re:Open source is broken

[Joe U]

A few points:

Tivo is not open source. It runs Linux and you can get your very own version of Linux from the source code, but you do not have a Tivo when you are done, because that code is not open.

Linksys routers are an appliance, and not completely open as well. e.g. Broadcomm drivers are closed.

Re:Free

[aaza]

In this case, the freedom to use the bits you need, not everything that's bundled with it.

Also, the freedom to change the bits that you need changed. Don't like that particular piece of software? Change it. Don't ask any other company - just do it.

You can't do that with most commercial products. All you can do is put in a feature request, and hope that it is implemented before the sun goes cold. (Yes, I know that some companies do, but some do not.)

Linux success b/c of Google

[bach37]

Linux is successful many say because of Google- Google being the free 24/7 searchable customer support for your Linux problem. Somewhat ironic that Google's success is in part from using Linux.

Funny thought

[SuperKendall]

Perhaps the whole reason Google was created in the first place was someone sick of trying to find how to change resolutions in X-Windows for Linux using only AltaVista wanted a batter way.

I could see that being possible...

Re:GPL V3.....

[AuMatar]

Thats part of what the GPL 3 is supposed to address- if you use modified GPL code to supply a web service to the outside, you'll have to release the modifications. The web service and patent holes are why they're writing version 3.

Re:borgware?

[oGMo]

Hint: this isn't about you. No one cares about you. This is about Google, and why they chose Linux. They've grown from a few servers to a hugely successful do-no-evil public company. They made a big decision along the way to use Linux. This is what we're interested in.

Who the hell are you?

Re:borgware?

[NullProg]

What an annoying poke at Microsoft, but I suppose I shouldn't expect anything less from the ass-puppets at Slashdot. It must be nice to have all your worlds problems boiled down to one fucking target... a FUCKING HUGE target.

Chill, we would still be bitching about OS/2 or DrDos if they were around. But they are not. I bitch at the KDE/Gnome teams as much as I want too.

Linux works fine, but it doesn't allow me to be productive. I leave Linux to do its job where it really shines: Office labor, Servers, etc.

Re:borgware?

[dotlin]

the ass-puppets at Slashdot.

Like whoever moderated your comment as Insightful?

If you take away your flamebait tone and your off-topic remarks about graphic and media software support which are not relevant for Google's server farm it sounds like the point you're making is to "use the right tool for the job". From this article for Google it looks like the right tool for their purposes is an OS that lets them make their own customizations.

If that is an annoying poke at Microsoft and other proprietary vendors then so be it. For this particular job they aren't the right tool.

Re:its all lies...

[varmittang]

Well, when I was in college, 2000-04, you could only get one license of all MS software, and could only install it on ONE computer. Not get the software, and load up 4, 5, 10 computers. Only the administration or the IT staff could load up multiple computers since the school had a license to do so, but the students were not on the same license. And every school is different, I asked for another copy of Visual Studio for a second computer and I got a flat out NO, only one install. And for the first install, I had to return the install disks after a week or so, or would have been given fine I believe. Of course I made copies, but we were not suppose to have copies either. And this was Penn State. Then, how are you suppose to go from students on a students MS license to an actual company. All that costs to get the correct licenses. You think MS would have let them get away without getting the correct licenses.

"communist nazis"?

[Stalin]

That one tripped me up. A communist nazi would be a very conflicted person indeed.

Let me help you out with some terms:

Communism -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism [wikipedia.org]
Fascism -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism [wikipedia.org]
Nazism -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism [wikipedia.org]
Stalinism -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism [wikipedia.org]

All very similar but not all the same thing.

Re:BSD would have fit better?

[theendlessnow]

Fine... your belligerent post has provoked response.

For some strange and unknown reason, you believe that the value is in your code and NOT in you. I suppose you are happy with the idea of being out sourced since under your definition of "cool" and not being a "nazi/communist" you have placed ALL of the value in the code. If this is what BSD is... then you can have it!

GPL protects ideas and people. Unlike BSD and other licenses which ONLY serve to support patent protected software farms. Rather than

Re:BSD would have fit better?

[sean23007]

If you look, most BSD's have a "lite" version, and a pro version, and you get the lite for free, and the pro version requires money.

What. Mind pointing out evidence of that? Because I've used FreeBSD and OpenBSD and there's absolutely no mention of free and pro versions of it. Well, I've heard of a free version, and a pro version, but since they're the same thing, I don't think you can really call them versions. You want a BSD? You go download it. You want to support the developers? Buy the CDs, but reme

Re:Borgware

[A beautiful mind]

Assimilate ('Assimilation, from Latin assimilatio meaning "to render similar"') != copy.

Microsoft finds something, then assimilates it: makes a "standard" similar to the original, but different in details, making it impossible to use both properly. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

F/OSS on the other hand like the Ferengi (partly) without money: a huge market of ideas.

Re:I find what ISN'T said to be more interesting

[l3v1]

And many of those people would be Linux zealots.

And many of them would just be professionals with their feet on the ground. As surely as many Windows defenders are nothing but ignorant zealots. So what's your point ?

The "zealot" argument for dismissing some mass opinion doesn't hold ground for long now.

Their ingenuity lies both in being able to pick the right OS to go with and in being able to turn it to really suit their needs. Choosing Linux (or almost any free OS of that thime) let them have the r