Google sponsors open source software through the Google Summer of Code.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code

Some projects that benefit include:

  • Open Street Map

  • Organic Maps

  • VLC

  • LibreOffice

  • Gimp

  • Debian

Why do they do that? Google is one of the world’s largest corporations.

Isn’t this… very suspicious… ? Is their goal simply to fuck with Adobe and Microsoft executives?

  • stoy@lemmy.zipEnglish
    53·
    2 days ago

    Several reasons:

    1. Reduce claims of them being a monopoly, Google can point to OSM and OM as an alternative to Google Maps, meaning they will face less risk of sanctions toward them for monopolizing the market for maps.
    2. PR, Supporting FOSS projects is great PR, brings a friendlier face to them.
    3. General interest from management, Google is a tech company, they have management with technical skils and interests, there are probably a few of them who are interested in the future of a project due to personal usage.
    • Dave@lemmy.nz
      2·
      2 days ago

      I’ve also seen claims that Google uses OSM to validate their map.

      They don’t want to use it directly because they would have to give attribution, but they can use it in automated internal processes to identify where it differs from Google Maps (including which data source is more recent) and where there are significant differences they can get their team to look into it.