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So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
Member since:
2006-01-24
Later in your comment you misunderstood my position. It isnt that Google doesn't contribute more to open source, it's that you use that to excuse Google's harm to open source.
I don't excuse Google's 'harm', although I'd like to know what 'harm' it is that they have done to open source, dropping XMPP harmed open standards, Google's XMPP open source code contribution (libjingle IIRC) is still available.
That doesn't take away all that they give back to open source, and again, compared to their service competitors their contributions to open source are outstanding.
As for their 'harm' done to open standards, again I think it sucked that they dropped XMPP for their own proprietary format, but they are certainly no worse than their competitors in this area, and again their open source contributions are still so much better.
And this is what I've been saying from the first post to the last (and let's hope this is the last, as we are getting nowhere):
If I were to choose between using rivaling services, I will go with the one which best benefit my interests (open source), this doesn't mean that I think they are without fault (if that was a prerequisite I couldn't use a single service at all), or that I think they're the 'bees knees'.
Since I advocate open source, and Google is the service provider which by far benefits open source the most, I will use Google.
Again, if some other service provider shows up and offers adequate services while doing a better job at benefiting open source, I will not hesitate to jump ship, as my interest in using Google (as opposed to something else) is directly tied to them being benefactors of open source.
Lol, so you say that Google's lock in is 'clear to anyone', while denying that Microsoft has a culture of lock in?
I've never claimed that Google isn't trying to lock users to their services, and of course they use their services as leverage to draw/keep users to their platforms.
Just as Microsoft and Apple does, but the latter is something you are trying to dispute, which makes you look like 'super shill'.
Microsoft 'wrote the book' on user lock-in, and in terms of open source they have a very bad track record.
Furthermore, despite your unsubstantiated claims that Google 'harms' open source, Microsoft actually has a long history of doing what they can to harm open source, you don't have to go further than to read the Halloween documents to have confirmation of that.
I never claimed Microsoft is using Azure as a lock-in venture, as they simply can't.
This is a market segment where if they want customers they must support the systems customers want to run on the 'cloud', as such they can't afford not supporting other systems, particularly extremely popular VM workhorse systems like Linux.
And the reason they enter this market segment is not because they want to 'open up'. They enter this market segment because they can't prevent the increased transition towards the 'cloud', and as such they have to play along in order to have a piece of the increasing pie.
And since this is actually a truly competitive field they have to offer what their competitors are offering, hence interoperability, 'sdk's' and 'support for technology x'.
Describe these rammifications then, h264 as a de facto standard (as it is now) have the exact same rammifications except they also come with licence costs, and end users sure as hell pay them as there isn't some 'licence fairy' which covers the royalties which MPEGLA members demand.
Let's just say that I will believe it when I see it. I would be glad to as I advocate open standards along with open source.
Well I can't judge them on things they might do, only what they've done and what they currently do.
Currently they do contribute a lot (source, funding) to open source, far more so than their competitors.