Google Code Search Indexing Proprietary Code?

Thursday, October 5th, 2006 by Andy Beal

Google Code Search Indexing Proprietary Code?

CNET reports Google has launched a new web site, Google Code Search, which will allow programmers to search billions of lines of code.

The service, conceived by the Google Labs early technology group, will crawl publicly available code, most of which is made available through open-source projects. The search and indexing covers code on Web pages and code that resides in compressed files, said Tom Stocky, a product manager at Google.

Google hopes the service will be used only by students and serious programmers, looking for open source code. However, one of the quotes from Stocky, set off a small alarm bell in my head.

“Most of the code is open source so you can reuse it.”

“Most” of the code? Doesn’t that suggests coders could find copyrighted/patented code using Google Code Search? And if there’s a way, there’s a will.

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2 comments on “Google Code Search Indexing Proprietary Code?”

e.p.c. Says:

October 5th, 2006 at 10:24 am

It would not be unusual to find code posted in the 1990s with no license at all. There are also code-like files which are both proprietary but posted for public consumption (like files defining interfaces, header files, common macros).

Try a search on “ibm confidential restricted” oco for files which have both been released for public consumption, yet IBM (attempted to) retains all rights.
Paul Drago Says:

October 5th, 2006 at 4:01 pm

I can’t find it now- but there was a report (either very late last night or early this morning) that said people have already found the keycodes/key algos for a variety of products (such as WinZip, mIRC, and Adobe)

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