You Wave "Good-bye" and I Wave "Hello"

Paw Prints: Writings of the maddog
A new blog posting from Google points to the fact that the highly touted “Wave” project has been terminated, and the general philosophy around this seems to be that “Wave” was a failure.
I was one of the people who looked at Wave and tried to figure out how it fit into my daily life. I tried using it from time to time, but in my life I am “off the net” so frequently that the real-time and high-bandwidth aspects of Wave left me cold and feeling like a fish washed up on shore.
The fact that Wave was not integrated into any other thing that Google was working on also made Wave painful for me, and created the decision point of whether I met up with people on email, some chat protocol, or Wave? What if that person or people did not “do” Wave? I (and my collegues) were left with indecision.
Google, not seeing the “adoption” that they had hoped, has decided not to continue developing Wave as a stand-alone tool.
With all of that, I do not feel that “Wave” was a failure. In a lot of ways Google was demonstrating what a lot of FOSS projects do, “release early and often”, just on a larger and more visible scale. Since Google had been successful in a lot of other projects like Wave, others just climbed on the bandwagon, ignoring for a bit the concepts of “Alpha” and “Beta” code.
Google has said that the most innovative parts of Wave (the drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing) is Open Source and they may try to integrate these into other products. Even if they do not, the fact the code is Open Source would allow others to integrate the code independent of what Google does.
I spent sixteen years of my life working for Digital Equipment Corporation. While that company is now gone, some of its innovations and technologies live on in Intel and ARM processors, and in various parts of different operating systems. If this was not true, I would be very depressed. However, even more technologies (both hardware and software) could have survived if those technologies had been “Open”, and that is what Google is doing.
So I, for one, encourage Google to keep innovating, and putting those innovations out as FOSS. While some may not become products immediately, many more will be available for discussion and use in other ways that even the Google engineers may not have envisioned.
Carpe Diem!
comments powered by DisqusIssue 245/2021
Buy this issue as a PDF
News
-
Mageia 8 is Now Available with Linux 5.10 LTS
The latest release of Mageia includes improved graphics support for both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs.
-
GNOME 40 Beta has been Released
Anyone looking to test the beta for the upcoming GNOME 40 release can now do so.
-
OpenMandriva Lx 4.2 has Arrived
The latest stable version of OpenMandriva has been released and offers the newest KDE desktop and ARM support.
-
Thunderbird 78 is being ported to Ubuntu 20.04
The Ubuntu developers have made the decision to port the latest release of Thunderbird to the LTS version of the platform.
-
Elementary OS is Bringing Multi-Touch Gestures to the OS
User-friendly Linux distribution, elementary OS, is working to make using the fan-favorite platform even better for laptops.
-
Decade-Old Sudo Flaw Discovered
A vulnerability has been discovered in the Linux sudo command that’s been hiding in plain sight.
-
Another New Linux Laptop has Arrived
Slimbook has released a monster of a Linux gaming laptop.
-
Mozilla VPN Now Available for Linux
The promised subscription-based VPN service from Mozilla is now available for the Linux platform.
-
Wayland and New App Menu Coming to KDE
The 2021 roadmap for the KDE desktop environment includes some exciting features and improvements.
-
Deepin 20.1 has Arrived
Debian-based Deepin 20.1 has been released with some interesting new features.