The Age reports that Google is preparing to publicly release some of its underlying software code only months before it undertakes a multibillion-dollar stock-exchange float.
Wayne Rosing, the company’s vice-president of engineering, told students while on a recruiting drive in Melbourne last week. “There have been a lot of conversations in the company in the past two months about (how) . . . it’s time for us to give something back. So our technical director, Craig Silverstein, has started a project to look at all the Google code and start figuring out what parts of it we want to give back.”
Rosing added “I’m not saying we’re going to open-source Google, because that would be a little dumb when we have these Microsoft guys making noise,” he said, referring to the practice of giving away the raw computer instructions to a software program.
The Age further reports
Google is making a policy decision to be more open, said Craig Nevill-Manning, director of engineering at the New York office, the other Google visitor.
“We’re encouraging the software engineers to submit papers where it makes sense, particularly where it is landmark work and it is really important that other people know,” Nevill-Manning said.
Rosing and Nevill-Manning were on a whirlwind recruitment drive, canvassing postgraduate students from RMIT and Melbourne University on Thursday night before presenting a seminar on Friday. Google was in town to “assess the local talent”, Rosing told the Thursday night gathering. “We could consider opening and looking for sites here. We’re looking for a critical mass of talented people.”
