"99% of people in IT have no idea what 'Distributed system' is..."hey, 99% of people in IT have no idea what anything fundamentally is in IT. This is why we can refer to Google and Wikipedia... just enjoy the irony of this statement in context of this story.
You know.. to add to my above statement, I would LOVE an alternative open AND distributed search system. The idea of Google being able to censor and restrict search results (which they have done many times before) has always left a bad taste in my mouth.It might not be as good perfect, or as fast, but it would certainly be a welcomed available option.
I don't care about replacing the search engine, but I'd love to install software on *my* server that's similar to all of google's online apps. That way Google wouldn't have all my data, but I could still have some fancy web apps.
I agree that if such an approach were taken, then you would need safe-guards in place to protect people from gaming the system, but I don't think that an open model inherently makes it easier. Yes the source code is public, so people can see how to popularise their sites, but achieving this would be much harder. You do not just have to fool one body (like google), you need to fool a distributed body, each with the potential to realise what you have done and report it.Monopolies are not a good thing, and Google has an effective monopoly. Just because they are yet to abuse it, does not mean that it is going to be forever run so responsibly. It is a bit like a good dictator can lead in a manner that causes freedom and prosperity, but dictators are not good in the long run. Just look at the compromises made to enter the lucritive Chinese market which in the not so distant future will be more profitable than the US and EU combined. In the long run, I don't think it is a healthy state of affairs when what I learn about a topic is largely sourced from the information indexed by a single company. Information should not be owned like that.
Why do you want to kill Google? For the first time one of the highest grossing companies is built on a fundamentally liberal model. Free access to consumers and free use for companies not charging the consumer, cooperation with open source community etc. It is a company that has an ethos of having a positive impact on society as well as making a profit. OK so they harvest a lot of user information but for the moment they only want to use it to display unintrusive adverts and improve their searches. I for one would rather texts links to things that are relevant to me than full page animated flash screens inviting me to spend my "bud bucks" on the Maxim party, or worse those bloody smilies saying "helooo". Something has to pay for the web and advertising pays for the bits that are not paid for directly by the consumer. Take your choice, either you have volume of advertising or you have targeted advertising which means someone knowing what links you are likely to click on. I'd rather that person with that data to be the one with "don't be evil" over their desk. Power may corrupt but cooperation not antagonism is the answer.The main reason Google search is so good is the famous Google-number backlink counting. Its patented. Tough. The Google servers are fast (gmail is so fast it makes me weep) distributed searches are not.
"I'd love to install software on *my* server that's similar to all of google's online apps. That way Google wouldn't have all my data, but I could still have some fancy web apps."Setup a Linux box at home and install Zimbra. That will get you part of the way there.
dead on. Google spends hundreds of millionsUSD to index less than 20% of the total Web;They can't afford to build a compute farm ofthe capacity to index the *entire* Web. The only thing big enough to handle that job - is the Web itself. -all 8.426M machines asof last count in 1999 ( www.isc.org/index.pl?/ops/ds/ ) Google's 450,000 servers as of 2006 ( forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=58518 )can't hold a candle to that. A P2P F/OSSGoogle@Home could implement all kinds ofrankings other than 'numbers of links to apage' which is only a popularity ranking, andonly one of many other possible metrics ofmerit. The only reason Schmidt & co. hasn'tmade the 'peristroika move' to abandon theircat-bird-seat as the nexus through which thevast resources of the Internet are actuallybrought into usable focus is ... revenue? Right. I think somebody out there is draininga few billion $US of our collective attention-seconds and pixel real estate for somethingwhich I'd be happy to pay my power bill andgive up a few stray CPU cycles for instead -to get *everything* on the Web indexed andfulltext-searchable.
nebukadnezzarMay 11, 2007
Isn't that what <a class="user" href="http://www.yacy.net/yacy/">http://www.yacy.net/yacy/</a> is trying to do right _now_?
1021May 11, 2007
"99% of people in IT have no idea what 'Distributed system' is..."hey, 99% of people in IT have no idea what anything fundamentally is in IT. This is why we can refer to Google and Wikipedia... just enjoy the irony of this statement in context of this story.
sniperxMay 11, 2007
You know.. to add to my above statement, I would LOVE an alternative open AND distributed search system. The idea of Google being able to censor and restrict search results (which they have done many times before) has always left a bad taste in my mouth.It might not be as good perfect, or as fast, but it would certainly be a welcomed available option.
zachariahMay 12, 2007
I don't care about replacing the search engine, but I'd love to install software on *my* server that's similar to all of google's online apps. That way Google wouldn't have all my data, but I could still have some fancy web apps.
grumpyrainMay 12, 2007
I agree that if such an approach were taken, then you would need safe-guards in place to protect people from gaming the system, but I don't think that an open model inherently makes it easier. Yes the source code is public, so people can see how to popularise their sites, but achieving this would be much harder. You do not just have to fool one body (like google), you need to fool a distributed body, each with the potential to realise what you have done and report it.Monopolies are not a good thing, and Google has an effective monopoly. Just because they are yet to abuse it, does not mean that it is going to be forever run so responsibly. It is a bit like a good dictator can lead in a manner that causes freedom and prosperity, but dictators are not good in the long run. Just look at the compromises made to enter the lucritive Chinese market which in the not so distant future will be more profitable than the US and EU combined. In the long run, I don't think it is a healthy state of affairs when what I learn about a topic is largely sourced from the information indexed by a single company. Information should not be owned like that.
maninaliftMay 12, 2007
Why do you want to kill Google? For the first time one of the highest grossing companies is built on a fundamentally liberal model. Free access to consumers and free use for companies not charging the consumer, cooperation with open source community etc. It is a company that has an ethos of having a positive impact on society as well as making a profit. OK so they harvest a lot of user information but for the moment they only want to use it to display unintrusive adverts and improve their searches. I for one would rather texts links to things that are relevant to me than full page animated flash screens inviting me to spend my "bud bucks" on the Maxim party, or worse those bloody smilies saying "helooo". Something has to pay for the web and advertising pays for the bits that are not paid for directly by the consumer. Take your choice, either you have volume of advertising or you have targeted advertising which means someone knowing what links you are likely to click on. I'd rather that person with that data to be the one with "don't be evil" over their desk. Power may corrupt but cooperation not antagonism is the answer.The main reason Google search is so good is the famous Google-number backlink counting. Its patented. Tough. The Google servers are fast (gmail is so fast it makes me weep) distributed searches are not.
maninaliftMay 12, 2007
Sorry I see my mistake... the last comment about speed of distributed search was irrelevant.
chrisutleyMay 12, 2007
"I'd love to install software on *my* server that's similar to all of google's online apps. That way Google wouldn't have all my data, but I could still have some fancy web apps."Setup a Linux box at home and install Zimbra. That will get you part of the way there.
san1tyMay 12, 2007
This doesn't explain how to do anything, its just the over-caffeinated ramblings of some no-skillz blogger, typical.
blipbertmonJul 12, 2007
dead on. Google spends hundreds of millionsUSD to index less than 20% of the total Web;They can't afford to build a compute farm ofthe capacity to index the *entire* Web. The only thing big enough to handle that job - is the Web itself. -all 8.426M machines asof last count in 1999 ( www.isc.org/index.pl?/ops/ds/ ) Google's 450,000 servers as of 2006 ( forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=58518 )can't hold a candle to that. A P2P F/OSSGoogle@Home could implement all kinds ofrankings other than 'numbers of links to apage' which is only a popularity ranking, andonly one of many other possible metrics ofmerit. The only reason Schmidt & co. hasn'tmade the 'peristroika move' to abandon theircat-bird-seat as the nexus through which thevast resources of the Internet are actuallybrought into usable focus is ... revenue? Right. I think somebody out there is draininga few billion $US of our collective attention-seconds and pixel real estate for somethingwhich I'd be happy to pay my power bill andgive up a few stray CPU cycles for instead -to get *everything* on the Web indexed andfulltext-searchable.