Google lurking in Ubuntu?!

[orawax]

At least Ekiga, Evolution, Totem and Gnome Volume manager seem to depend on some strange Google Data libraries (libgdata, libgdata-google, python-gdata). While many good citizens might not have any issue with Google Inc., I'm still wondering what the **** is it doing in Ubuntu by default?! For the time being I have uninstalled these software.

"This package is a client library for accessing google POA through SOAP interface." -- What are google POA and SOAP interface?

"The GData (Google data) APIs provide a simple protocol for reading and writing data on the web." -- What does this have to do with a volume manager, multimedia software or a softphone?

If someone knows more about this, I'd like to hear. At least the volume manager would come in handy...

[Xzallion]

Since evolution is an email client, I suspect those are to allow it to interface better with Gmail since that is one of the many POP3 / IMAP email services that its users might want.

Ekiga might be using some things to work with google talks VOIP service.

Also, Google's libraries are not all geared toward searching/datamining. They contribute code the the OSS community, so maybe thats just some libraries that work really well that don't have anything to do with Google other then they were written by them. While it is worth looking into out of curiosities sake, I don't think theres a reason for getting so worked up over it right off the bat. I think we will find that any privacy concerns are for nought here.

[MondoTofu]

Google deprecated SOAP (http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/google_depreciates_SOAP_API.html). No more keys are being issued.

Caveat emptor. Google is as Google does!

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/google_depreciates_SOAP_API.html

[jespdj]

Google has a whole list of very nice APIs, more info on them can be found on http://code.google.com

[mrgnash]

Good. I love Google.

[mess110]

so if you don't use evolution just remove them. if you get some dependency problems install them again

[joshmuffin]

I don't really care to be honest. Google has done a lot for Linux compared to most other large software companies.
It does though creep me out how they are seemingly taking over the cyber world and soon the world as a whole :P

Maybe a bit of an exaggeration.

[John Bean]

It does though creep me out how [Google] are seemingly taking over the cyber world

I have deja vu. Replace "Google" with "Microsoft" and move back a decade or so...

The nice thing about the Internet is its resistance to control - by design of course - making the threat of "take-overs" zero for all practical purposes.

The funny thing is though... I get the same feeling as you even though I know it's just paranoia :-(

[SoFl W]

Google can't be evil, they said they are not evil!
I agree with John Bean, I don't understand why people complain about one company but not another. I guess it is how you associate yourself with it. I don't use Microsoft so everything they do is bad. I use google so they must be good because I use them.

[loell]

y'all necromancers..:twisted: