[willnorris]

Could you expand on this a bit? We've tried to be very transparent with how we approach and think about open source by publishing all of our internal documentation at https://opensource.google.com/docs/. Is there something that's missing from that? Or are you thinking about certain specific projects being opaque in terms of how their managed?

[forgottenpass]

The default google approach to open source is unidirectional source dumps after all the work is done. On some products you do a bit better, but still keep your cards incredibly close to the vest, and maintain very tight control. Even when you're trying not to, you can't break from that mold.

I've got this comment saved on my reddit account because it was so funny:

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/53gb56/why_lea...

[willnorris]

> The default google approach to open source is unidirectional source dumps after all the work is done.

I can definitely say that is not our default approach to open source; in fact it's a very small minority of projects that actually operate in that fashion. However, I can understand that it could feel that way to some people.

We've long said and continue to believe that there is no one way to do open source. That's true of nearly every aspect of a project including licensing, governance, community management, etc. Project are released for different reasons, with different motivations and goals, and so the way they are managed often differs.

One area I know we could do better is to set better expectations for projects around many of these topics. How is the project managed, how are decisions made, how committed to this are we (ie. are we using it in production), etc? If those aspects of a given project were clearer, would that address some of your concern (with the understanding that some projects may be be held closer to the vest than others) ? Or are you objecting to the tighter control in general?