Raphael, Those numbers aren't usually published as a PR move, they're usually published to reassure customers that certain parts of projects don't hinge on one guy who could be out ill when something needs fixing.
There is also the issue of people looking for explanations about why some concerns are taking so long to fix. If, for example, there are 5 engineers working on Android it would explain why some of the bigger problems (such as apps from SD cards) are showing slow progress, but if there are 50 then it would indicate the problem is more with management sign-offs and organisational issues than a lack of manpower to actually do the job. Publishing figures goes two ways, if they're too low people worry about not having proper QA checks in place and "backup" developers to cover when people out ill, too high and people start wondering about the quality of each developer and problems about information distribution amongst the team (e.g. Module W uses algorithm X for reason Y so talk to Z or their backup before changing it). When all development is driven out of the open source repo this will become less of a problem with Android because all of the latest code will have been crawled over by several non-Google developers, and as we're moving that way I think the figures will be interesting to many as an example of the size of team needed to work on a project like this and the results that should be expected from that size of team. Al. --- * Written an Android App? - List it at http://andappstore.com/ * ====== Funky Android Limited is registered in England & Wales with the company number 6741909. The registered head office is Kemp House, 152-160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, UK. The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or it's subsidiaries. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raphael Sent: 17 May 2009 22:19 To: [email protected] Subject: [android-discuss] Re: How many Google engineers working on Android? On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 9:21 AM, Al <[email protected]> wrote: > > I doubt you'll get an answer. I asked someone from the dev team the > same question in irc, he said they aren't allowed to say *shrug* And they were right, see second FAQ entry: http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/joininggoogle/faqs.html Such numbers are irrelevant anyway. Corporations that actually publish such numbers do it as PR move, which make the numbers even more irrelevant. YMMV. The real question though is how many SDK developers does it takes to change a light bulb? R/ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
