How Google uses Linux

A great article on how Google uses Linux - http://lwn.net/Articles/357658/

An interesting read for the technical minded friends!!

On licensing issues, the below comments found at the site is very interesting. Have quoted here for quick read!!

====Some Comments to article quoted below=====

What a waste of resources...Google could just work tied with the kernel community. Come on Google what are you waiting for? Besides this fact, if linux kernel code is GPLv2 why don't they release their code and respect GPLv2 license terms?

===>> Reply==>>

KS2009: How Google uses Linux

Posted Oct 21, 2009 14:36 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333)

I don't know if you noticed or not, but the GPL licensing terms only kick in
during distribution. Seeing how a corporation is a independent legal person I
don't think that moving software and hardware around internally really counts
as distribution. And I don't think that Google has any plans on selling its
systems to other people.

So the GPL is pretty irrelevant.

So it is just a business case of whether working with the kernel community is
going to be more profitable or not. And so far they decided that taking care
of stuff internally is a better approach. Maybe that will change.

===>> Reply ==>>

GPL doesn't require, but maintenance kills you

Posted Oct 21, 2009 15:00 UTC (Wed) by dwheeler (subscriber, #1216)
Correct, the GPL doesn't require the release of this internal source code. However, the GPL does have an effect (by intent): Google cannot take the GPL'ed program, modify it, and sell the result as a proprietary program. Thus, what Google is doing is almost certainly wasting its own resources, by trying to do its own parallel maintenance. They could probably save a lot of money and time by working with the kernel developers; it's a short-term cost for long-term gain. And as a side-effect, doing so would help all other kernel users.
There's probably some stuff that will stay Google-only, but if they worked to halve it, they'd probably save far more than half their money. Google can do this, in spite of its long-term inefficiencies, because they have a lot of money... but that doesn't mean it's the best choice for them or anyone else.