
Google releases some Glass source code - coloneltcb
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/04/google-releases-glass-source-code-declares-platform-open-to-hackers/
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doe88
It's not as if they were making us a gift... As soon as they sold their first
device it was required by the Linux kernel GPL2 license to release the kernel
source code.

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DannyBee
Technically, Google would only be required to make a written offer, and we
could ship physical medium copies to folks who wrote them.

~~~
shadowmint
I dont care if I get down-voted for making a comment unrelated directly to
this; Thank you.

You are my personal hero for today DannyBee, for speaking calmly and making
sense on HN.

~~~
tptacek
You should follow all his comments. He's like this all the time. It's a little
freaky.

~~~
dpcx
You can follow comments? I'd like to be able to just follow a user, and have
their comments/submissions brought to my attention.

~~~
tptacek
In the sense that you can bookmark the "comments" link off someone's profile,
yes.

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wmf
Misleading headline; they released the boring code and none of the interesting
code.

~~~
suyash
It's not misleading headline, it's just a problem with tech blogs, they
probably read this news on HN and stole it and tried to make it sensational to
get some cheap traffic. The don't understand the code or it's implications for
that matter. What is released is kernel source code (which hardly any one
cares about) vs source code for google glass framework (which would be more
interesting).

~~~
redthrowaway
>It's not misleading headline, it's just a problem with tech blogs, they
probably read this news on HN and stole it and tried to make it sensational to
get some cheap traffic.

While that's generally how these outfits tend to work, Ars has built a pretty
solid reputation for in-depth analysis and not having link-baity headlines.

~~~
adamisen
I like Ars, but today's Ars is less Anandtech and more Verge. Which is to say,
they indulge in their fair share of link-baity gadget-blog-type posts. They're
not beyond redemption by any means, but the sad truth is that Ars doesn't
always do the kind of in-depth analysis that they once did.

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cdibona
As an FYI, the git repo is here:

[https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/omap/+/glass-omap-
xr...](https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/omap/+/glass-omap-xrr02)

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benatkin
Surprised it took me this long to realize that Ars doesn't have much better
quality control than VentureBeat et al, but it's crystal clear now. Tim Bray's
twitter is obviously unofficial, and the headline uses broadness and
extrapolation to make it misleading in a way that makes it seem more
interesting.

Farewell, Ars Technica of old...

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Did you see the "A-Z of Ubuntu" gallery recently? It was literally a few
screenshots of Ubuntu variants and less than a paragraph under each.

~~~
benatkin
Nope, missed that.

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yitchelle
Hey Google, disrupt the industry and open source the hardware as well.

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thechut
Not sure why you are being downvoted. Google open sourcing Glass could bring
on lots of manufacturers in very quickly and also create lots of derivative
works. Google would theoretically have its core Glass software running on
every device.

It's essentially taking their model with Android, which IMHO has been
enormously successful, one step further. In two years time ZTE could be making
'The Reflector' a $100 version of Glass that has been been created from Glass'
open designs. Of course their will be software modification as well, but
theoretically just like Android, Google will remain at it's core.

I can see why Google will probably make more money by selling them for $1,500
a pop. But I think they could also make money by shear volume of increased
search, maps, play store, etc. This seems to be inline with what they try to
do now.

I hope that Google does not pull a Facebook and start forcing advertisements
into everything. If that is the case it could be at the expense of the entire
Glass platform which I think will be very cool.

~~~
jfoster
I think it's being downvoted because it's got very little information. It's a
seemingly naive random thought about Google's go-to-market strategy for Glass
and considers nothing about Google's businesses or the opportunity cost of
taking that action. Your post is probably the elaboration that it needed to
avoid being downvoted. (I didn't downvote - just trying to explain why someone
might)

~~~
yitchelle
Your right. My comment stemmed from my frustration as the many close sourced
hardware being pushed by the OEMs and ODMs. I should have elaborated my
comment further. Lesson learned.

~~~
jfoster
I hear you. I'd love for Google to fully open up Glass. Might not be as
appealing an idea from their perspective, though.

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rpearl
Just throwing code over the wall is such a poor imitation of open source.

Develop in the open--reviews, patches, bugs, design discussions--everything
should be visible. Let's not pretend that this is really what "open source" is
about--it's about everyone making contributions, visibly, as they happen.

Anyone who takes this kernel and actually adds features is risking duplicating
work or breaking future compatibility if Google ever decides to implement the
same or otherwise conflicting features in different ways. This happens
frequently with Android. Everyone is still stuck waiting on releases, and the
fact that there is code involved is basically an afterthought.

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brador
Why not open source all the code? What does Google have to gain from closed
sourcing even part of Google glass?

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betterunix
There are three possibilities:

    
    
      1. Google wants to monetize the novel features of Glass
      2. Google is bound by licenses for the technology, and is unable to open source certain bits
      3. They will open source everything eventually, but decided to rush this bit for publicity reasons

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jacquesm
There are lots more possibilities, but the one that I think makes the most
chance is:

    
    
      4. Google is required to release the kernel code under the GPL
    

No such requirement exists for the other code.

The big pay-off for google is that to use glass you need to use google. If the
devices were 'open' then you would not need google to use glass and they'd be
in a cue-cat situation.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
I sadly agree with this. I love Google and their open web attitude, however
you cannot look at Apple's success over the past 5 years and not go green with
envy. I fear that Google is going to want to try to copy Apple's business
model. Of course it's the obvious thing to do but it's sad from a consumer's
standpoint.

~~~
soperj
Or they're trying to not help the amazon's of the world that just fork their
product and remove the monetizing bits of it, and replace it with their own
monetizing bits.

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new299
I'm still betting it'll be largely impossible to run a standard Linux distro
on the device without a massive amount of hacking.

The kernel will no doubt require binary blobs for OpenGL drivers (IIRC it's an
OMAP CPU so this is likely) and because they decided they don't like glibc the
OpenGL drivers on the device will be a pain to link against. I always find
this annoying while hacking on Android devices.

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venomsnake
So they only released the Linux ... and now we can have Ubuntu for google
glass.

On I side note - it is a sad world when the fact that device is unlocked is
news instead of the norm.

~~~
pyre
We've been living in that 'sad world' to a while.

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tapsboy
For completeness of the headline (specifically 'declares platform open'),
Google needs to also make the Mirror API available to those, who are not part
of Explorer Program, may be via a simulator.

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cromwellian
Judging by the threads, no good deed goes unpunished.

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kybernetyk
So it's open now but you're still not allowed to make money with applications?
That's a strange definition of open to me.

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wilfra
Hey Saurik - don't take the hating so personally man. Google gave you Glass
precisely because they knew you'd rock the boat and piss a bunch of people off
(and get people talking about Glass in the process). You're doing a wonderful
job of that. Be proud.

In reference to:
[https://plus.google.com/118343182830485155505/posts/ERUJ8e1y...](https://plus.google.com/118343182830485155505/posts/ERUJ8e1yKRd)

~~~
felipe
As a side note, that's a good example of my biggest problem with Glass as a
product. Not even Google knows what to do with it, and they are expecting
hackers to "show me something cool" -- Wait, what?? No, YOU TELL ME FIRST what
Glass is supposed to do, then I might think about devoting some of my unpaid
time to hack some "shit" for you.

Unless Google also open sources the Glass hardware, any "contributions" to
their source code will be benefiting only Google and not the open source
community.

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Toshio
That's nice.

Can we have the source code for Google Reader too, while we're at it?

~~~
jmillikin
Why? It would be useless to you; the effort required to write a web-based RSS
client is as nothing compared to re-implementing all the internal
infrastructure that Reader depends on.

If you want to run your own RSS client, starting with NewsBlur[1] or Tiny Tiny
RSS[2] would get you much further than being able to see the Reader source.

[1] <https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur>

[2] <http://tt-rss.org/>

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LekkoscPiwa
This reminds me of Steve Jobs iPhone first presentation and hackers jumping
onto the platform. However, Jobs had vision and charisma to follow. This
doesn't make me as excited.

