I'm surprised by this comment. Google is still very supportive of open source, I don't think there is any comparison with other big tech companies. It's not just the still growing Google Summer of Code and Code-in programs[1], but the scope and number of open source projects that they publish and maintain: Android, Chrome OS, Chromium, V8, Go, Dart, Angle, Angular, PDFium, Guava, GWT, WebM...
By the way, I think the impact of Android (the open source project) is underestimated. There is a huge number of research and industry projects that are based on the open platform, not just phone and tablet apps but all kind of hardware projects.[2]
So when I read a casual dismissal of these efforts (by knowledgeable people like you) I feel bad for the engineers and managers that work to promote open source inside the company.
On the other hand, Google is the biggest force behind the shift to the Cloud, and that shift means more and more users using closed-source web apps like Google Docs instead of open source applications like LibreOffice, so there is that...
I was being a bit stronger to make a point about corporations and their relationship with open source.
There was a time I was one of such engineers that you mention, but eventually came to realize how company boards see open source and how little we could get in return.
By the way, I think the impact of Android (the open source project) is underestimated. There is a huge number of research and industry projects that are based on the open platform, not just phone and tablet apps but all kind of hardware projects.[2]
So when I read a casual dismissal of these efforts (by knowledgeable people like you) I feel bad for the engineers and managers that work to promote open source inside the company.
On the other hand, Google is the biggest force behind the shift to the Cloud, and that shift means more and more users using closed-source web apps like Google Docs instead of open source applications like LibreOffice, so there is that...
[1] https://code.google.com/p/google-summer-of-code/wiki/Program...
[2] As a random example see http://www.citlprojects.com/android_list.html