<p>Open source may not be important enough for Google to release the code of many of its own applications and platforms. But the company nonetheless places a premium on supporting open source development by third parties, as it showed late last week when it donated $20,000 to support the Eclipse IDE project. Here are the details, and the insights they reveal about Google and the open source channel.</p><p>A mere $20,000, of course, is chump change to Google. But for an open source project like Eclipse, which develops a Java based software programming environment that supports a number of languages popular among open source programmers, the donation is an important resource that will help the project acquire new hardware for testing, according to the announcement of the award.</p><p>Moreover, throwing money at a project like Eclipse, one of the most popular open source development environments, ensures that Google's support will trickle down throughout the open source channel. A lot of developers beyond those involved directly with Eclipse will be feeling the love.Google's Open Source Strategy</p><p>As a company that often keeps its own technological secrets under close guard, Google isn't the most obvious supporter of open source development. True, the company likes to talk about how much it supports the lofty ideological tenets of open source programmers, whose visions often align with Google's own proclaimed commitment to "do no evil." It also offers important material resources to the open source community through its Open Source Programs Office (which is, by the way, the division of the company responsible for doling out the recent cash gift to Eclipse).</p><p><a href="http://www.thevarguy.com/2012/09/11/google-donates-to-open-source-eclipse-project/">Keep reading...</a></p>