Google is already synonymous with search. Now they want to help the next generation create a better product? or do they? or more exactly, who do they want to have the students create that better product with?

The time has come for Google to "give something back", Wayne Rosing, the company's vice-president of engineering, told students while on a recruiting drive in Melbourne last week.

"There have been a lot of conversations in the company in the past two months about (how) . . . it's time for us to give something back. So our technical director, Craig Silverstein, has started a project to look at all the Google code and start figuring out what parts of it we want to give back," Rosing said. - TheAge

Many people consider MicroSoft evil based on their business savy and their crush competition attitude. Google is smart enough in their marketing strategy that they can look like the good guy while crushing the competition.

Nutch is an open source search engine which companies like Yahoo! are helping to fund. It is easy to squash an open source movement before it picks up steam. If Google can squash that idea while looking like a good guy then that is a real good deal for Google.

The reason Google wants to give back part of their code are:

• it can make Google seem somewhat open source and hopefully at least divide any open source movement in the search arena (before it grows big).

• Google gets a bunch of possitive press for giving away something that costs them next nothing and will give them a ton of return.
• how cheap is it to recruit people who have already been using your stuff? If Google search technology becomes part of the core ciriculum at many colleges then it is much easy for Google to hoard the next generation of search engine engineers.

I would say that Google is getting a bunch more than they are giving.