Simon Willison’s Weblog

Remember back when Guido had just started with Google, and they were having him work on some web app project, and he was casting about for input on templating engines? And all the hubub when he ended up choosing/endorsing Django?

I've got a feeling that was all the prologue for GAE.

Mike Pirnat - 11th April 2008 05:21 - #

And there was ticket #6147...

arien - 11th April 2008 06:58 - #

Yes, i do remember a video that Guido talking about Django's template system. It's quite good to use Django on GAE if i could get a trial account...

Sean - 13th April 2008 02:55 - #

@Mike Primat

That's exactly what my first thought was when I read about GAE.

Interestingly, BDFL wrote "My new project [...] is an internal tool for Google developers. It will never be used outside Google."

Isn't it the whole point of GAE that - indeed - it never allows people to use their service independently from Google's proprietary paradigm.

By deploying GAE, Google is extending its position as the web's biggest cuckoo. Seemingly benevolent in nature, it has planted a web service into the nest of open source development.

We collectively breed Google's egg, only to find out that, in the long run, the young develops into a proprietary species whose instinct and properties run counter to the very notion of open source development.

Once bred, the species sets out to further consolidate its true master's unscrupulously commercial battle plan, under the false pretence of not being "evil".

Personally, I no longer attach any value to Google's so-called benevolent attitude, which has merely proved to be of instrumental value in bolstering increasingly oligopolistic market structures. In this sense, GAE only reconfirms Google's tendency to misappropriate open source technologies (including Django), adopting it exclusively within the confines of its proprietary web domination framework.

Google, don't be cuckoo! :)

Az

aznach - 13th April 2008 13:58 - #