Google apparently likes open source that lets it "borrow" open-source software while giving comparatively little back, and always on Google's terms.

"We moved the code repository of Clipperz’s open source projects from Google Code to SourceForge, because Google doesn’t like AGPL and is kindly requesting all developers that opted for this license to leave..."

Google open source guru Chris DiBona says that the web giant continues to ban the lightning-rod AGPL open source license within the company because doing so "saves engineering time" and because most AGPL projects are of no use to the company.

As it strives to replace email, Google has open sourced two chunks of its new-age communications platform, Google Wave. Unveiled to a standing coder ovation at the Google I/O developer conference in late May, Google Wave is a (still-gestating) web platform that crossbreeds email with IM and document sharing, exhibiting a particular talent for near real-time interaction.

According to data presented by DiBona, Google's Open Source programs manager, the GPLv3 license now represents more than half of the GPL licensed code that Google hosts on its Google Code site. What DiBona's data shows is that developers are embracing GPLv3 and using it for their project in growing numbers.

Google has announced that its open source Google Code project hosting service now supports any Open Source Initiative (OSI) approved licence

Google’s Android code will assume its rightful place in the Linux kernel — in good time, the company’s top open source guru says. The Android code was stripped out of the last kernel release, version 2.6.33, after Google reportedly failed to provide necessary changes and subsystem code required by kernel.org.

Few people in the open source community have touched as many projects as Leslie Hawthorn, the now-former open source program manager for Google. As one of less than ten employees in Google's open source programs office, Hawthorn was at the center of the Google Summer of Code — a project that has worked with hundreds of projects and thousands of college students since its inception in 2005.

CNET's Stephen Shankland has already picked up on Google's decision to allow two popular open-source licenses back onto its Google Code open-source repository. Up until now, the Mozilla Public License (MPL) and Eclipse Public License (EPL) were both banned from the site.