> |
> | The company won't discuss these estimates; it considers such numbers to be
> | a competitive advantage. In fact, one of the things Google likes about
> | open source software is that it facilitates secrecy. "If we had to go and
> | buy software licenses, or code licenses, based on seats, people would
> | absolutely know what the Google infrastructure looks like," DiBona says.
> | "The use of open source software, that's one more way we can control our
> | destiny."
> |
> | Google organizes its machines, which run Linux, into "cells," which
> | DiBona describes as a kind of disk drive for Internet services. (Not to
> | be confused with Gdrive, the long-rumored Google hosted storage service.
> | "There is no Gdrive," a spokeswoman insists.) Software programs reside
> | on racks of inexpensive computers, and programmers decide how much
> | redundancy to give them. The cells take the place of commercial storage
> | equipment; DiBona says Google's cells are cheaper to create and maintain,
> | and he hints they can handle more data, too.
> `----
>
> http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=192300292
If they had used Windows, every time they added a server (250,000
times, that is) they'd have to sign a EULA, make payments to Microsoft,
submit to BSA search and seizure, run WGA piracy scans, and reboot a
few times. Any wonder they chose open source software?
I guess Google's operation is an example of the Linux slopware that
I've been hearing so much about from the Wintrolls. Also been hearing
a lot about how you can't make money with Linux.
Now Microsoft is trying to compete with Google (actually, I think
Ballmer's words were a little stronger than that). Of course they
don't have to sign EULAs to themselves and they do get to look at the
source code...but from all indications, the source code is a mess:
http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/archive/06jan/bigb_microsoft.htm
And as for the quality of the code base, the Wintrolls have been
telling us recently that open source projects get started by someone,
then abandoned, and that's why the code is such poor quality...in the
Apache project, for example:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/index.php?p=311
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/browse_frm/thread/ecaefa9065ac3c90/ed98111f091f80a6?lnk=st&q=&rnum=1&hl=en#ed98111f091f80a6
|
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