Open Source Software: A Digital Snail Darter
November 26, 2019
Years ago I worked on a project. The focus was the snail darter, a little fish. A commercial initiative intruded on the habitat of the creature. The bureaucratic process chugged forward. I lost track of the snail darter. Probably there are a few of the creatures around, but their future was impinged upon by the need and desire to covert streams and “undeveloped” land into a wonderland of EPA compliant effluent, asphalt, and industrial facilities.
Wikipedia’s image shows a paper clip next to a snail darter. This reminds me of my mobile phone next to an Amazon data center.
I thought about the snail darter when I read “Dining Preferences of the Cloud and Open Source: Who Eats Who?” Not surprisingly the write up does not mention the snail darter or its obstruction of “progress”. But the article describes how open source has found its digital manifestations threatened by large commercial firms.
There is a description of Amazon’s method which has disrupted to some degree the happiness of Elastic (developers and maintainers of Elasticsearch) and MongoDB (a DBaaS service). No, I don’t know what DBaaS is. It may be a way to make community supported software tough in a cloud eat cloud datasphere.
We noted this passage:
Most of the current debate focuses on Amazon and a few open source companies they have startled, like gazelles on the savannah, specifically Elastic and MongoDB. All while chronically prefacing their messaging with “customers tell us…”, AWS is offering its own services that are built on (Elastic) or are compatible with (MongoDB) popular open source projects, thereby competing with the relatively successful commercial open source companies associated with those projects. In the case of Elastic, AWS has generously created a new open source distribution of the features that Elastic had held back as proprietary software. The prey have responded with both pluckily defiant blog posts and a frenzy of license engineering to impede AWS’ ability to use their ostensibly open source software. Others, like Cockroach Labs and Redis Labs, have followed with their own new licenses. This has renewed an existential and philosophical debate about open source: is it about free speech or does it also include the right to a free moat for key project contributors? In the end, the high priests of open source do not seem to be endorsing the “open except for people who compete with us” approach.
The main point is that the business model is in place, working, and becoming more important to many developers and organizations.
But Amazon is not unique. Google and Microsoft are following the lead of AWS. Sheep do not appear to be at risk when they tag along, content to generate revenue by playing the me-too game.
The write up concludes on an upbeat; specifically:
Open source is here to stay as a development model. It is hard to imagine any kind of infrastructure or developer software that isn’t open source. But there is work to do on the accompanying business strategy. The next great open source endeavor may be to make multi-cloud a reality, at least for key workloads. But the new associated business models will have to embrace services as the primary delivery model and make a serious commitment to a level of integration that is the hallmark of cloud services.
Net net: There are still some snail darters.
Stephen E Arnold, November 26, 2019
Who Owns the Future? Leonardos That Is Who
November 25, 2019
I found “The Future Belongs to Polymaths” oddly disturbing. The message is that people who are really smart and have mastered many field will own the future. People like Leonardo Da Vinci were identified to me in grade school as really smart people. I think one of my teachers, maybe Miss Soapes introduced the concept of Renaissance man to me in the fourth grade. This was good because I had missed two or three years of regular grade school because my family lived in Brazil. My local school had no provisions for an English speaker beyond “Yankee, go home.” My Calvert Course teacher died from an insect bite with complication from some obscure disease. Renaissance anything I wasn’t.
But the write up states:
Still, it’s clear that whenever we have had giants like Aristotle, Galileo, and Da Vinci, the contributions they made even in specialized fields may not have been made in the same way if they hadn’t attacked a problem with a diverse inventory of mental knowledge and understanding. Polymaths see the world differently. They make connections that are otherwise ignored, and they have the advantage of a unique perspective.
I think Facebook, Google, and the other members of the FAANG hire polymaths.
What’s the result?
Perhaps the reality created by polymaths is not so good for the other 99.8 percent of the population?
Here are some reassuring thoughts:
Now, in a world where Artificial Narrow Intelligence systems are going to displace most routine, specialized work, it isn’t too much of stretch to assume that this skill of learning to learn across disciplines may just be the difference between those who reinvent themselves and those who don’t. In fact, chances are that our current distinctions between disciplines will start to fade away and new ones will arise. Many of them will likely reside between areas that aren’t currently covered by specialization.
And the point of the write up is?
Stephen E Arnold, November 25, 2019
Quite an Allegation: Google, Brute Force!
November 23, 2019
I have been around very bright, quite proficient technologists for more than 50 years. Out of college, I worked at Halliburton’s nuclear unit. Real wizards were running around: John Gray, Julian Steyn, Paul Goldstein, and others. I did a stint at Booz, Allen. Maybe not in the nuclear physicist quartile but pretty bright. I did some other work at places with lots of bright people too. No ewok hunts. No weapons.
I can’t recall any threatening behavior. The only intimidation I experienced was a result of my boss and his brain. Dr. Sommers could pose questions which made we vow to spend more time reading and studying.
But Dr. William P. Sommers was soft spoken. He asked good questions and nudged me forward in my career. Maybe questions are brutal? Yikes! Questions.
I cruised along fat, dumb, and happy. But now I learn that a wizard Disneyland is into brutal behavior; specifically, “Google Workers Accuse Tech Giant of Using Brute Force Intimidation Tactics to Silence Employees.”
The headline seems a bit energetic, tinged with some inner motivation to stimulate bad vibes toward everyone’s favorite online advertising vendor. Here’s what the write up says that a protest was planned for November 22, 2019. DarkCyber learned:
The protest, which will see full-time employees, temporary workers, vendors and contractors come together outside the Google building, comes following the company’s decision to fire an employee for allegedly leaking workers’ personal information to the media and place two other workers on leave over their alleged access of documents unrelated to their roles.
Now this quote:
“The company is claiming that it is for looking up calendars and documents, which is something we all do but we know that it is punishment for speaking up for themselves and others,” workers organizing at Google who requested that their names be withheld, said in a statement shared with Newsweek on Thursday.
Poor Google. Newsweek asserts:
Google has faced widespread scrutiny over its internal culture, particularly after thousands of workers around the world staged walkouts over claims of sexual harassment, racism and gender inequality within the company.
Yeah, brutality, intimidation? Okay, employees take money to do work for their employer. Employers create rules so work can be completed. Employees who run afoul of the rules can and will face some feedback.
But the headline evokes an image of a Google executive dressed like one of Darth Vader’s minions firing plasma weapons at hapless Ewoks.
As the professionals on sports programs say, “Come on, man.”
Stephen E Arnold, November 23, 2019
Google Management Method Called Interrogation by CNBC
November 21, 2019
DarkCyber, happily ensconced in rural Kentucky, does not know if the information in “Google Employees Protested the Interrogation of Two Colleagues by Company’s Investigations Team, Memo Says” is accurate.
But the headline alone is quite interesting. The news story states:
The memo said Berland’s [a Google employee objecting to certain Google projects] questioning lasted 2.5 hours and was conducted by Google’s global investigations team, which allegedly told the employees that they were “not decision-makers” but that they would relay the workers’ message “up the chain.”
The memo seems to have been written by Googlers unhappy with the interaction of some Google professionals and two employees who had voiced concerns about the company’s work for the US government.
Please, read the original CNBC story.
DarkCyber jotted down several observations while two of my team and I tried to figure out who was on first:
1. The meeting was described as an interrogation. That in itself is an interesting word. Maybe interrogation is the wrong word, but it is clear that the meeting was not the equivalent of what my mother called a “kaffeeklatsch.”
2. The meeting involved an investigations team. DarkCyber did not know that Google had such a team, but presumably CNBC is confident that the ever popular online advertising company does. Does the investigations team have a uniform or maybe a badge with the cheerful Google logo?
3. Two and a half hours. My goodness. That’s longer than many feature films. The length of time brings some images to the forefront of the DarkCyber team’s hive mind. Here’s one that one of the programmer analysts called up from his Apple iPhone. (The objectivity of the iPhone search function must be considered, if not investigated.)
A cheerful setting for an informal chat or not?
Net net: If the CNBC story is accurate, Google’s management methods are quite interesting. Not even the high school science club to which I belonged in 1958 considered interrogation of non science club members. Grilling a science club member was simply not on our club members’ radar.
How times have changed!
Stephen E Arnold, November 21, 2019
Google: The Emerging Cancel Culture
November 16, 2019
Google has terminated a number of products and services. My favorite is Web Accelerator, but you may have other candidates. The cancel phenomenon — whether practiced by Microsoft with its wonderful Zune product or Hewlett Packard’s fascinating Autonomy deal — means that big companies change their minds. Poof. Time, money, and maybe a customer are two are vaporized.
Cancelled. Some in government may use the phrase “with extreme prejudice” to signal this approach to an ill-advised decision, a wonky product, or a troublesome entity.
The Verge, a real news outfit, published “Google Is Scaling Back Its Weekly All-Hands Meetings after Leaks, Sundar Pichai Tells Staff.” The write up approach this cancel culture move as “scale back”, noting that the Verge stumbled upon an email from Google’s CEO to the Googlers. The Verge revealed:
In the note, Pichai begins by praising what Google has achieved through its large workforce. “But in other places — like TGIF — our scale is challenging us to evolve,” he writes. “TGIF has traditionally provided a place to come together, share progress, and ask questions, but it’s not working in its current form.” He writes that employees “come to TGIF with different expectations,” with some looking to hear about “product launches and business strategies” and others looking for “answers on other topics.” Only about 25 percent of the company watches the meeting each week, Pichai says. He also says that there has been “a coordinated effort to share our conversations outside of the company after every TGIF” and that those efforts have “affected our ability to use TGIF as a forum for candid conversations on important topics.”
“Google Will No Longer Hold Weekly All-Hands Meetings Amid Growing Workplace Tensions” explains:
Google is getting rid of one of its best-known workplace features: TGIF, its weekly all-hands meeting. The company confirmed to CNBC that it will instead hold monthly all-hands meetings that will be focused on business and strategy while holding separate town halls for “workplace issues.”
Yep, unfriended, terminated, modified, or cancelled. Mostly the same action spun in different ways.
Several observations:
- What’s the best way to avoid problematic staff? Avoid them? That’s one approach, and a path less fraught with legal hassles than firing the un-Googley.
- Google’s challenges span numerous legal hassles from US jurisdictions. Is it 50 for 50 now? Not even major leaguers can bat 1,000. Google can and is. How many strike outs await?
- The chest X-ray matter (please, see Fast Company’s story)
- The billion dollar dust up with Oracle is back in court, the Supreme Court no less. See the Silicon Angle story, please).
What’s up?
Google’s activities are increasingly interesting. My phrase for the firm’s approach to management is HSSCMM which is short hand for high school science club management method. What adds a handful of kokum to the digital stew served in the employees’ only cafeteria.
How many Googlers enjoy this rare and hard to find spice? Perhaps Googler’s analysts can quantify their data and provide some insight. A Google Trends diagram might show a curve like this one from Scientist Cindy?
Just cancel that. Unfriend!
Stephen E Arnold, November 16, 2019
Google: Chronicle Is Not a Sci Fi Disaster Film. It Just Seems Like It
November 12, 2019
“Google’s Cybersecurity Project ‘Chronicle’ Imploding” may not be true. If the information in the Economic Times is accurate, Google has created another business school case study about Silicon management methods, what DarkCyber describes with this acronym HSSCMM (high school science club management methods).
In 2018 Alphabet, the rejiggered “owner” of Google was created to be what the write called “an independent start up.”
Yeah, that sounds good.
The goal of Chronicle was modest: “Revolutionize cybersecurity.”
Yeah, that sounds even better.
Engadget reported in June 2019:
The cybersecurity company launched in January 2018, and it released its first commercial product, Backstory, in March. In a blog post, Chronicle CEO and co-founder Stephen Gillett said Google Cloud’s cybersecurity tools and Chronicle’s Backstory and VirusTotal are complementary and will be leveraged together.
The Economic times’ write up states:
Google’s cybersecurity project named “Chronicle” is imploding in trouble and some employees feel its management “abandoned and betrayed” the original vision, media reports said.
Staff, including the CEO, have looked for green pastures elsewhere. Chronicle was moved back to the Google mother ship. Salaries were a sore point. It seems Chronicle employees were paid less than other “real” Googlers.
Let’s assume that the information is maybe, sort of accurate. In this non sci-fi thought space, here are some observations:
- Thinking, assembling, announcing, and doing can be enhanced with management. No management, problems. Google seems beset with some non-linear challenges.
- The life span of this Google activity seems brief: January 2018 to November 2019. Is the time between launch and problems becoming more abbreviated?
- Google’s moon shot factory may be veering more and more into a boundary world: Big ideas fail due to the humans working on creating a reality.
To sum up: Chronicle may be another marker on the management superhighway. On the other hand, the Chronicle issue is real.
We’re back to Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinean writer, who observed:
Reality is not always probable, or likely.
My high school science club was unreal but real as well. Click here for the theme song to Chronicle. Sorry, I meant Twilight Zone.
Stephen E Arnold, November 11, 2019
Google Protest: An Insulting Anniversary
November 2, 2019
DarkCyber noted this write up in CNet, an online information service, which may not be capturing too many Google ads in 2020. Here’s the title and subtitle of the story:
The headline is Googley; that is, it is designed to make the story appear in a Google search results list. The jabber may work. But what may not be as efficacious is building bridges to the Google itself. For example, the write up states:
The Google protests [maybe about sexual matters, management decisions, money?] didn’t achieve everything their organizers were seeking. Several Google workers and former workers are dissatisfied with the company’s response. Organizers say the company has done the bare minimum to address concerns, and employees allege that it has retaliated against workers and sought to quash dissent. “They’ve been constantly paying lip service,” said one Google employee who was involved with the walkout. “It’s insulting to our intelligence,” said the person, who requested anonymity because of fear of retribution from the company.
Then the observation:
Google declined to make its senior leadership team, including co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, CEO Sundar Pichai and human resources chief Eileen Naughton, available for interviews. In a statement, Naughton touted changes Google has made over the past year, including streamlining the process for people to report abuse and other problems.
A few observations may be warranted:
- Google’s management methods may follow the pattern set in high school science clubs when those youthful wizards confront something unfamiliar
- A problem seems to exist within the GOOG
- Outfits like CNet are willing to explain what may be a Google shortcoming because Google is not longer untouchable.
Interesting? If paid employees won’t get along and go along, how will that translate into Google’s commitment to enterprise solutions? What if an employee inserts malicious code in a cloud service as a digital protest? What if… I don’t want to contemplate what annoyed smart people can do at 3 am with access credentials.
Yikes. Insulting.
Stephen E Arnold, November 2, 2019
Google: The World of Borges Is Real
October 27, 2019
“Google CEO: The Company Is Genuinely Struggling with Transparency, Employee Trust” is paradoxical. Google has become similar to one of the imaginary confections of Jorge Luis Borges’ Shadows and fantasy are difficult to distinguish, even more problematic to understand.
The write up channels Bloomberg:
In early October, Google employees reportedly discovered a previously unknown team within the company that is building a surveillance tool to “monitor workers’ attempts to organize protests and discuss labor rights.
How can a company which asserts “Google understands your search requests better after altering its algorithm.”
DarkCyber wonders if Google’s senior management relies on the company’s “machine learning fairness” methods.
As Borges noted:
It only takes two facing mirrors to build a labyrinth.
Poor Google.
Stephen E Arnold, October 27, 2019
Google: Managing Staff a Challenge
September 24, 2019
DarkCyber is not sure about the accuracy of “Exclusive: Google Insider Turns Over 950 Pages Of Docs And Laptop To DOJ.” The story appeared on Saraacarter.com (the second “a” is a middle initial). Ms. Carter’s about page states:
Sara A. Carter is a national and international award-winning investigative reporter whose stories have ranged from national security, terrorism, immigration and front line coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sara A. Carter is currently an investigative reporter and Fox News Contributor. Her stories can be found at saraacarter.com. She formerly worked as a senior national security correspondent for Circa News.
The write up asserts that:
A former Google insider claiming the company created algorithms to hide its political bias within artificial intelligence platforms – in effect targeting particular words, phrases and contexts to promote, alter, reference or manipulate perceptions of Internet content – delivered roughly 950 pages of documents to the Department of Justice’s Antitrust division Friday.
The story is dated August 13, 2019, and DarkCyber spotted the link on September 23, 2019. In August 2019, Project Veritas revealed that the alleged Google insider is / was Zachary Vorhies.
Project Veritas does have a Google Document Dump page. You can view the files and download them at this link. A representative document is “Algorithmic Discrimination from and Environmental Psychology Perspective: Str5ee-Inducing Differential Treatment.”
The write up is an academic review of findings which, upon reflection, are mostly common sense. Manipulation can be accomplished via stress causing and stress relieving.
What struck DarkCyber as interesting is that the cache of documents has not made much of a splash in the last few weeks.
Other observations include:
- Unlike the now long-offline Google research papers which I cited in my 2003 Google Legacy monograph, the documents in this cache are more touchy-feely.
- Google’s ability to control its confidential documents appears to have some gaps.
- The “insider” turned canary reveals that Google is not generating happy Xooglers.
Net net: The high school science club approach to management may need some upgrades.
Stephen E Arnold, September 24, 2019
Chef Cooks Up a Management Stew
September 24, 2019
What happens when a programmer deletes open source software? The answer is to cancel a contract with the US government.
Information about this interesting not-so-passive resistance moment surfaced on the Chef blog. Barry Crist allegedly wrote:
While I and others privately opposed this and various other related policies, we did not take a position despite the recommendation of many of our employees. I apologize for this. I had hoped that traditional political checks and balances would provide remedy and that our relationship with our various government customers could avoid getting intermingled with these policies. However, it is clear that checks and balances have not provided relief to the fundamental issues of the policies in question. Chef, as well as other companies, can take stronger positions against these policies that violate basic human rights. Over the past year, many of our employees have constructively advocated for a change in our position, and I want to thank them.
The fix?
Do not renew the US government contracts. Donate money to groups “that help vulnerable people impacted by the policy of family separation and detention.”
Vice describes the employee’s deleting code and the Chef decision to dump US government contracts this way:
a ballooning activism community within tech companies and the broader tech community.
DarkCyber finds the employee push back interesting for several reasons:
- The failure of management to manage is a characteristic of a number of technology-centric firms
- Employee activism can derail a company’s business processes
- The push back appears at this point in time a function associated with educated professionals.
Without a resolution, will US government agencies turn to non-US companies to provide needed software and systems?
Will employees demand a say in what a commercial enterprise does to generate revenue to pay those who work for the organization?
Will stakeholders tolerate intentional erosion of revenues because employees can destroy or possibly corrupt data, software, and systems because of a personal perception about rightness?
Will the digital Druckers at Gartner, Gerson Lehrman, and Booz Allen offer advice which solves this management puzzle?
Without organization and span of control, work at some firms may be difficult to complete in a satisfactory manner. Getting paid to do work was a contract. An employee does this task and gets paid. If the employee does not do the work or destroys that work, the contract is broken.
Then what?
Stephen E Arnold, September 24, 2019
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