Open API's VS. Open Source....

WARNING THE LINKED TO ARTICLE IS A DIFFICULT READ!!!  The concepts are good but there is almost no conclusion and a really hard path to follow.  The reason we are pointing to it is to try and help form a conclusion.  The bulk of the article talks about what the author sees as a sift from open source to open API's.  Will companies sift away from Open Source?  The problem with the question is that it's not a zero sum gain.  Take Google for instance, they offer both Open Source software they develope and Open API's for developers to use.  As does both Amazon and E-Bay.  There are serious problems when you build an applicaiton or business on open API's as opposed to Open Source.  With Open Source the software is yours to use and while you may be never get another update to the code you at least have the code and could hire a developer to fix/update to meet your needs.  With an Open API if the company shuts off the API you are out of luck.  The most recent example of this is the changes over at Twitter.  Twitter wanted to make money and changed how things worked to make it happen.  Unfortunately if you wrote an app that relied on something they removed from the API you are out of luck and get to re-write your app.  So what do we want to make you aware of?  Remember when you write your application that you need to control where your data is and comes from.  If you don't have data you really probably don't have an application.  So if all of your data comes from an Open API what will you do if that API goes away?  What if the companies who's API your using goes under or starts competing with you.

Google Motorola Merger has been approved by the EU...

Google and Motorola finally have approval from EU Regulators to go ahead with their merger.  This is good news on teh patent wars front for both Google and Android.  We also want to see them do some more stuff with GoogleTV.  It's good news but they still have to get approval for a half dozen or so other countries.

Ever want to know a secert....

How about one about a secert corporate data center.  How about how they designed the Google datacenters?  Well check out this article and the book it is promoting called "The DataCenter as a Computer" which sarts to answer the questions around how and why Google did what it did with those resources.  All in all the article over at wired  online magazine is pretty cool.

Google buys more patents to protect Android....

Google bought @1023 patents from IBM.  The patent wars don't seem to be ending anytime soon.  So Google is trying to shore up it's defenses.  None of the articles we could find could tell us exactly what was in the patent grab.  Neither was anyone sure what was paid for them.  What we do know is that Patents seem to be going for about $400,000/patent on average.  So it goes without saying that they spent a lot. 

Google's Chris D talks about Android, Chrome, Linux and More...

The folks over at derstandard.at posted an interview with Chris D, Open Source Manager, and got him talking about All things Open Source and Google.  It's a really cool interview and Chris's comments are easy to follow and still informative.  He does a great job explaining how and what Google is using Open Source for and reminds us all that Google has opened up over 1300 packages to the world in the last 5 years.  Go check it out and let us know what you think.