There is no end of non-code related work to be done in most prominent open source projects.

Chris DiBona is the open source program manager at Google. This job includes running the Summer of Code program, and managing projects on Google Code. Prior to joining Google he was an editor at Slashdot, and co-founded Damage Studios. He also co-edited Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution and Open Sources 2.0

Nate Ritter: It has long been known (through other interviews you've given) that Google is largely an open source factory - built on it, producing more of it, etc. How is Google working with or innovating on the concept of open source today?

Chris DiBona: "Working with" is the easy one. Google is a big user of open source software in the form of Linux, the different languages like C++ and Python and a great number of libraries. If you think of things like OpenSSL and how useful and used they are by Google and you get a good idea of how important open source software is to us.

Innovating on the concept of open source is a little trickier. Early in my tenure at Google we identified certain things we found troubling about open source software. We decided that as a company we would make a concerted effort to change these areas where we found problems. They included the problem of open source license proliferation, and in response to that we require that developers using our hosting system, code.gooogle.com, use one of a very small number of very popular and useful open source licenses. Also, we noticed that the number of open source software developers was stagnant, and so we made the creation of new open source developers a key part of the summer of code.

Additionally, we've just tried to be an example of a good open source citizen, releasing technology when possible, taking part in patent sharing organizations like the open invention network and donating to open source causes and organizations that matter and are doing good work, like the Apache foundation, the Oregon open source lab and others.

NR: Does Google have any plans to open any of their current proprietary software like GMail, Bigtable, etc?

CD: Only partially. When you use a Google product you are using a variety of back end technologies that include backend storage systems like bigtable, the Google web server, our servlet engine and so many more systems. This means that to release Google Mail you'd have to release a stack of software that is both in a constant, changing state and would only be useful to the people who have data centers like Google's.

We have people working on releasing some of these sub components, and releasing different parts of our products that you don't immediately connect to gmail or reader. But some parts of the technology running in Gmail is released under an apache license today and is available on code.google.com.

We'd always like to release more, of course, but we are already the companie's biggest consumer of engineer 20% time. We've found that engaged engineers on existing teams represent the fastest way to get software and libraries released, as opposed to hiring an open source software release team that would have to be experts on every released technology.

In the meantime, we try to release significant details of our unreleased work via publications, like we did in papers centered on the Google file system, pagerank, bigtable and other topics.

NR: Using the ideals behind open source, the Google Summer of Code was created. You've been the Manager from the beginning. How has this helped Google, the participants, applicants and other stakeholders?

CD: The Summer of Code brings substantial benefit to Google in a number of ways. We've created over 2 million new lines of open source code last year alone and some of that code makes its way back into Google. The summer of code creates open source developers, open source code and helps open source projects thrive. The value of that to a fair and free internet cannot be emphasized enough. It is not a coincidence that the rise of the internet mirrors that of open source and vice versa.

There is a oft repeated phrase here at work "What's good for the internet is good for Google." And what's good for the internet? Open Source Software.

NR: Google has this ideal that they simply don't want to be evil, but still want to make a massive impact on benefiting the world. How has open source made the world a better place?

CD: While I don't speak for Planet Earth, I would say that the ability of the worlds developers to start from an established base of terrific, reliable and tested code is a net win for the planet and its inhabitants. Remember, if you can draw upon the world of open source as a base for your software, you can ostensibly work on new problems, instead of worrying about writing yet another ssl layer, for instance, or a compiler.

This is a funny thing for me to say because we've written so many of our own versions of common open source tools. For instance, we have our own web sever that we wrote from scratch. But even then we use open source libraries like OpenSSL and others.

NR: Is there a way for the non-geek (say, a small non-profit organization) to contribute in some way to the open source movement?

CD: Sure. There is no end of non-code related work to be done in most prominent open source projects. The harder question is if there is a role for the truly non-technical to help. If you look at our high school program, there were a number of non-coding jobs, but even those were technical in that they often required a deep understanding of the project in question.

For those with more generous intentions and the bank balance to match, direct monetary donations are always helpful. I'd look to organizations like the Free Software Foundation, the Software Freedom Law Center or to the Free Software Foundation Europe.

NR: Back in 2005 you were receiving about 4000 applications to the Google Summer of Code. How many applications do you receive now? How many are finally approved?

CD: Last year we topped 6000, of which some 900 were approved. This year we anticipate approving even more.

NR: So, you're also on the advisory board of Imeem, a San Francisco, Ca. based social networking company. How does that mix with your extremely technical background?

CD: First off, I'm hardly the most technical person in the world. Working at Google is a deeply humbling experience from a technical perspective. It's been some time since I coded for a living, and seeing the work of some of my colleagues, I wonder how good I ever was at software development.

I started advising at Imeem a few months before starting at Google, and when they asked me to do it, I was intrigued because it presented to me the opportunity to be exposed to some very different things than I had dealt with in the past.

Imeem is a largely C# shop and deals directly with the music industry in a way that is both subtle and facile. It is my understanding that Dalton Caldwell (imeem's ceo) was largely attracted to my open source background and my experience with my last company (Damage Studios, a game company which augered in) so maybe he could learn from my mistakes.

Imeem is going great guns right now, and it's been terrific to watch and take part in , in a small way (advisor isn't a huge role in a company). Dalton is a terrific leader and an example of what sober, intelligent, technical leadership can create.

NR: Your personal blog ( http://egofood.blogspot.com ) has Adsense advertisements on it. Obviously you're a smart guy, employed by an awesome company. Do you really need the $3/day, or are you just "eating your own dog food" so to speak?

CD: As you say, It's not the money, and I really don't make real money from it at all, since most people experience my blog through its feed. I like blogging, mind you, but the site is also place for me to experiment with Google products and APIs. I've got Adsense, the news API, Feedburner ads and feeds, Picasa images, and more. I'm also hosting my static content on Google Sites and my domain's mail and such goes through Google apps for your domain.

I do this not just to eat my own dogfood, but because I genuinely hate administering servers. Seriously, I can't tell you how many times in the last 12 years I've hopped on a plane to go somewhere and -poof- some server stops responding or some hard drive fails. Let Google do it, I say and I love gmail. It's so handy.

NR: Thank you so much for your time, Chris. I know the entire NetSquared thanks you, as well as Google, for everything you've put into our hands to work with.