Code submission question

Gemini API Developer Competition
1

I’ve been working on a fairly large project for several months using a different LLM provider, but my partner and I were thinking about switching to Gemini due to this competition and the new models being on par with our current provider now.

However, due to the project being pretty large with a lot of unique complexities and custom artwork, we wouldn’t be interested if the entire codebase needs to be publicly passed to Google on Dropbox.

Is this code submission ONLY for the parts that are closely tied to the Gemini API calls, or is it mandatory that an entire project’s code has to be public?

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Hey there and welcome to the forum!

The entire code must be submitted. If the code submission is incomplete, you risk voiding your eligibility.

Now, other people have also asked whether or not the repo needs to be public, but in fact, you can submit the codebase privately via a .zip file.

The bigger problem I foresee here though, is that they seem pretty explicit about developing a new project, and while I’m not sure what exactly your own project looks like and what you would do, I think it would be wise to start from scratch and not submit something you’re already working on.

This section in their rules is pretty important when considering submissions, especially like this one:

As a condition of receiving the Prize, each Confirmed Winner grants Google, its parent, affiliates, agents, and partner companies, a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to use, translate, dub, broadcast, exploit, reproduce, adapt, modify, rearrange, add to, delete from, copy, publish, distribute, publicly perform, create a derivative work from and publicly display, in whole or in part, Your Submission, app code, and any other materials or other recordings that may be made of or by You…

Which is legalese for “You forego all rights to your project as being something separate from Google”.

If you step into this competition understanding this from the get-go, you can build accordingly. That is a choice only you can make, but hopefully this helps you make the appropriate decision for you and your project.

2 Likes
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Hey, thanks for the welcome!

The bigger problem I foresee here though, is that they seem pretty explicit about developing a new project, and while I’m not sure what exactly your own project looks like and what you would do, I think it would be wise to start from scratch and not submit something you’re already working on.

Actually a Google rep answered with the following response on another thread:

It can be a new or existing project! It does not need to be from scratch. It just needs to integrate the Gemini API

Where you note this part:

Which is legalese for “You forego all rights to your project as being something separate from Google”.

Yeah, that’s what it sounds like, but if “the code” refers only to the part of one’s submission directly relevant to the Gemini API, that would be okay. That’s why I was looking for a bit more clarity, specifically about whether “the code” means the entire app code, even parts that aren’t really specific to the API integration.

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Yeah, someone else asked this in an earlier post, and I struggled finding a definitive answer.

There’s no specific clause about this precise method of submitting code, but if I try to put my legal hat on (I am not a lawyer; just a linguist), I say you probably can’t do this because of this clause:

Submissions are accepted at any time during the Promotion Period; but must be received by no later than 11:59 pm Greenwich Mean Time on August 12, 2024. Submissions are void if they are, in whole or in part, late, illegible, incomplete, altered, counterfeit, infringing on third party rights (including copyright), damaged, obtained through fraud, submitted through use of any automated means such as script, macro, bot, submitted by fraudulent means or by any means that subvert the Submission process, in Sponsor’s sole discretion.

It’s that “incomplete” word in there that leads me to this conclusion. It’s a technicality, but if any disputes happen, this would be where somebody could argue (or leave to interpretation) that only submitting a part of the code would be incomplete, and therefore void the submission.

Perhaps a workaround could be modularity? If you can make the other parts distinct from the Gemini part, and make the Gemini part stand on it’s own in some way, you could get away with it? That’s my only idea atm :sweat_smile:

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