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-   -   Google code shutting down! (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/general-10/google-code-shutting-down-4175536666/)

273 03-14-2015 02:06 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by T3RM1NVT0R (Post 5332143)
As far as open source is concerned:

I love opensource and feel that it is the right way to do software. Here you get the people who work for it with no strings attached. They do it on their own will and enjoy what they do.

I may have gone bit off the topic but the bottom line is that you can't blame them, that is the way it is!
I felt I had to quote this as I agree absolutely.
I agree with the rest of the post also but I feel I expressed similar, if less cogent, things myself.

T3RM1NVT0R 03-14-2015 02:12 PM
@ 273,

I totally agree with you as well. :-)

Actually I thought of quoting your comment but then got a bit confused with the following line: "However, I also have a vague understanding of how much it costs to run a data centre and I know it's not nothing."

No worries we are on the same boat :-)

273 03-14-2015 02:14 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by T3RM1NVT0R (Post 5332150)
@ 273,

I totally agree with you as well. :-)

Actually I thought of quoting your comment but then got a bit confused with the following line: "However, I also have a vague understanding of how much it costs to run a data centre and I know it's not nothing."

No worries we are on the same boat :-)
I was a little rude in my previous posting and for that I apologise. I do stand by my points though and I'm glad to see somebody agrees.
The "However, I also have a vague understanding of how much it costs to run a data centre and I know it's not nothing." comment was a little ill thought out but I meant that I know that data centres are not free of cost.

T3RM1NVT0R 03-14-2015 02:23 PM
It's ok and as far as agreement on your thoughts is concerned I would say we are on the same team.

I do agree that data centres are not free of cost but the problem which I think is that companies are more interested in investing in technology (don't get me wrong, what I mean is you should invest in technology but why not in open source technology) rather than investing in people who manages the technology. Will not write too much about that here as it will be off topic but we can definitely take that discussion up sometime in a separate thread.

smeezekitty 03-14-2015 02:33 PM
And what about when paid services go bad?
It doesn't even have to be shut down to go bad. It can simply get too borked to be usable.
Paid VS free makes a lot less difference than you are making it out to be.

273 03-14-2015 02:40 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by smeezekitty (Post 5332164)
And what about when paid services go bad?
It doesn't even have to be shut down to go bad. It can simply get too borked to be usable.
Paid VS free makes a lot less difference than you are making it out to be.
Then you have legal recourse. That could mean, as a home user, that you go to your local trading standards (as we have in England) or similar or go to the local paper or moan on a site like this -- all of which you have a legal right to do. For a free service you have none of those rights. If you're hosting anything important, in other words business critical data, then the very fact you have no contract makes you liable and could mean the loss of your job or even your home.
So, yes, as a casual user there's not an awful lot of difference between paid for and free services.
However, I think I also mentioned this is Google the advertising company who have been quite open about selling user data and trying to make a profit from it for decades -- does something about that not ring alarm bells with anyone? If not, I'm a charming property called the Eifel Tower I'd like to sell you...

smeezekitty 03-14-2015 02:49 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by 273 (Post 5332168)
Then you have legal recourse. That could mean, as a home user, that you go to your local trading standards (as we have in England) or similar or go to the local paper or moan on a site like this -- all of which you have a legal right to do. For a free service you have none of those rights.
You are not correct. You may not be able to complain to something like the BBB for a free service. But it is still completely within your rights
to complain on any site you want. Or complain to the newspaper. That doesn't necessarily mean anyone cares. And it very likely won't do any good.
But freedom of speech laws make it completely within one's rights to complain.
Quote:

If you're hosting anything important, in other words business critical data, then the very fact you have no contract makes you liable and could mean the loss of your job or even your home.
I wouldn't expect anyone in their right mind would host critical data without a contract (and of course big $$$)

Quote:
However, I think I also mentioned this is Google the advertising company who have been quite open about selling user data and trying to make a profit from it for decades -- does something about that not ring alarm bells with anyone? If not, I'm a charming property called the Eifel Tower I'd like to sell you...
That isn't surprising in the least. That is a good reason to minimize use of Google services.

273 03-14-2015 03:00 PM
I'm not sure how free speech works in every country but I think in most there is an issue of "libel" so yes, you can complain about the cessation of a free service but you cannot, as you could with a paid for service, make a suggestion that the company was in any way wrong in what they did because to do so would libel them and you could be sued.
Sorry, yes, I am being a little too serious about this but as I mentioned before it gets very tiring reading people posting to moan about things that are their own fault. You're not 2 years old and believing everything an adult tells you. So, really, stop complaining when a US Corporation (which, almost by definition are psychopaths [just a fun fact]) you didn't pay does something you don't like and start using services you either pay for, if it's business critical, or can enter into a debate with the owners (like this very site) if it's not.

smeezekitty 03-14-2015 03:24 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by 273 (Post 5332172)
I'm not sure how free speech works in every country but I think in most there is an issue of "libel" so yes, you can complain about the cessation of a free service but you cannot, as you could with a paid for service, make a suggestion that the company was in any way wrong in what they did because to do so would libel them and you could be sued.
With all due respect. I think this incorrect. I am not a lawyer btw
But you can state an opinion that what the said company is doing is wrong. Opinions are generally protect by the First amendment in the USA.
In America atleast, libel generally comes into play when dealing with false statements. Which means you cannot make up facts to criticize an entity.
It should be ok to say that "I feel that what xyz is doing is wrong because it will cause hundreds of users to lose data"
what could be consider libel is more like "xyz is a bad company because they stole my money" or something like that. Unless you can prove they actually
did that, it would be libel. Keep in mind, unless what you say is publicized to a wide enough extent to affect their reputation, they are not going bother suing.
Complaining in a forum = they won't give a crap.
If a national news writer spreads libel THEN they are risking a lawsuit.
Quote:
Sorry, yes, I am being a little too serious about this but as I mentioned before it gets very tiring reading people posting to moan about things that are their own fault. You're not 2 years old and believing everything an adult tells you. So, really, stop complaining when a US Corporation (which, almost by definition are psychopaths [just a fun fact]) you didn't pay does something you don't like and start using services you either pay for, if it's business critical, or can enter into a debate with the owners (like this very site) if it's not.
I am personally tired to the argument of "it's free so who cares" or "its your own fault" or "if you paid for the service, it wouldn't happen"
Paid services go to crap too! I have seen it many times. Even though you are "technically" in a better position. In reality, unless you are paying
huge amounts of money, you are on no better ground. Sorry but I completely believe that paying for a service doesn't really make you in much better
position to change it unless the service is tailored to you. If they are serving thousands of paying customers, they won't care about one. Think about it.

ReaperX7 03-14-2015 03:41 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by dugan (Post 5332106)
He's using svn because he likes the GUI clients. That's a valid reason.

Still, I hope he'll join the rest of the world in switching to version control systems (possibly Mercurial, which tries to be the middle ground between svn and git and which is almost as good as git) that are superior to svn in every other way.
I use what makes uploading less painful. For me, I don't mind command line tools, but when I need to upload to a specific directory, and don't want to reclone things time and time again back and forth, SVN works wonders. It's older but it's simpler. It's basically FTP with a timestamp logger by my POV.

273 03-14-2015 05:34 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by smeezekitty (Post 5332180)
With all due respect. I think this incorrect. I am not a lawyer btw
But you can state an opinion that what the said company is doing is wrong. Opinions are generally protect by the First amendment in the USA.
In America atleast, libel generally comes into play when dealing with false statements. Which means you cannot make up facts to criticize an entity.
It should be ok to say that "I feel that what xyz is doing is wrong because it will cause hundreds of users to lose data"
what could be consider libel is more like "xyz is a bad company because they stole my money" or something like that. Unless you can prove they actually
did that, it would be libel. Keep in mind, unless what you say is publicized to a wide enough extent to affect their reputation, they are not going bother suing.
Complaining in a forum = they won't give a crap.
If a national news writer spreads libel THEN they are risking a lawsuit.


I am personally tired to the argument of "it's free so who cares" or "its your own fault" or "if you paid for the service, it wouldn't happen"
Paid services go to crap too! I have seen it many times. Even though you are "technically" in a better position. In reality, unless you are paying
huge amounts of money, you are on no better ground. Sorry but I completely believe that paying for a service doesn't really make you in much better
position to change it unless the service is tailored to you. If they are serving thousands of paying customers, they won't care about one. Think about it.
Yes, I know that free speech goes a little further in some places but you cannot say "Google lied to me" or "I lost a contract because Google took away Google Code" because they're simply not true. If you paid for a service you could, quite rightly, say "service X lied to me" or "I lost a contract because service x stopped doing what I paid them for". If you work for a corporation you would also not be legally responsible for a supplier breaching contract.
Again, as private individual you make of it what you can.
Yes, I'm being awkward and corporate but I point back to my earlier comments about Google.

vharishankar 03-14-2015 09:46 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by 273 (Post 5332119)
As I posted previously -- the price paid for Google Code was that Google Code stopped working. I'm not sure how much clearer I can make that statement?
As I also posted: Of coursea, commercial services can and do let us down but, then, there and legal recourses and, also, there's a legitimate complaint to post on such fora as this.
Google, the advertising company famous for spying on its subjects for decades, dropping a service it provided on condition that it could spy on it and stop it when Google felt like it is something only the feeble of mind find surprising or confounding.
I take it you've also given Ngobo Nwheybey from Nigeria your bank details so that you can help move his uncle's money out of the country?
Complaining is not the issue here. THe issue here is one of trust.

My point is you cannot trust either free providers or paid providers.

Let me put it this way. Even if a paid provider stopped their service tomorrow, there is nothing I can do about it pracically even though there is a theoritical legal right.

Do you even read contracts? The part that talks about "territorial jurisdiction in the event of a dispute"? This makes it very hard for even legit customers to fight for their rights. Especially when living thousands of miles away from the place of business of the company in question as it happens with most online businesses. Even assuming my country's laws allowed me to sue that company despite the contract terms, what can I hope to enforce against them if they don't have a local office? I cannot get a summon to be issued against them.

So in such a case where the cost of the remedy is higher than the cost of the service and you cannot practically hope to sue the party who infringes your rights, it's wiser to choose the free service and hope for the best.

I am a lawyer (in India) and I know all about enforcement of legal rights. A lot of times the cost of enforcing the right in terms of time, money and effort may not be worth the fight.

vharishankar 03-14-2015 10:12 PM
273, my point is that you should not give a false hope to people to believe that paid services are in any way inherently better than free services, especially when you, the customer, is not in a position to challenge the company in a lawsuit which can cost time and money because you as the individual do not have the resources to pursue the remedy which can lie in a territorial jurisdiction that is hard for you to reach physically or financially.

Trust is the issue here. You ultimately go with the provider you trust, irrespective of whether it's paid or free. Ultimately, google were trusted not to do something like this, but they did. So a lot of people are getting mad at google. Your kind of post, while it may reflect reality, simply pours oil on fire.

Randicus Draco Albus 03-14-2015 10:25 PM
The OP's complaints are based on two flawed premises.

First, the belief that he/she is entitled to keep using a free service. Believe it or not, a company is not obligated to continue a free service after starting it. Being foolish enough to use any of Google's offerings does not entitle the user to anything, except being exploited by Google.

Second is the belief that it is wrong for a company to stop a service, because continuing to provide a free service is the right thing to do. Google is not an altruistic company. It is an avaricious and dishonest company that makes money by collecting and stealing every bit of information they can get hold of and selling it. Mentioning Google and philanthropy in the same sentence is ridiculous.

vharishankar 03-14-2015 10:28 PM
There is nothing foolish in choosing a free service, when you know that a paid service can vanish equally quickly and you do not have the resources for a legal fight. For all practical purposes, you are left with no service but with the paid one, you are left with a theoritical legal right and you've also spent your money on the service.

I wonder how many of you have actually sued a paid service when they didn't live up to the promises. I'm not talking about business contracts which are at a different level altogether. I'm talking about regular services to end-point retail consumers.

Read my post above.

You internet lawyers really crack me up.


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