This is something of a sequel to the previous post about Google and MySQL. It was prompted by an interview with Chris DiBona, Google’s Open Source Program Manager. (The interview, by Sean Ammirati, appeared at Read/Write Web.)
Although Chris couldn’t comment on how many open source projects Google uses, he did identify “two projects that we’d miss more than any others. The first is the Linux kernel and the second is MySQL. Both are in heavy use at the company.”
Neither could Chris comment on Google’s relationship with Mozilla, other than to state that he was happy to have Mozilla involved with the 2007 Summer of Code. By the way, this didn’t come up in the interview, WordPress is also involved.
Sean remarked that:
There is little doubt that if any company could attempt to recreate applications like MySQL and Linux it is Google. However, they have instead chosen to embrace and support the various open source communities and leverage their existing application tools.
The use of open source rather than free to describe software like MySQL comes from the interview at RWW and from Chris’ job title at Google. I seem to be posting less about open source than I did at previous blogs, to the extent that it doesn’t have its own category in this blog.