[geeks] Google announces Google Chrome OS

[Shannon Hendrix]

On Jul 8, 2009, at 12:16 , gsm at mendelson.com wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 08, 2009 at 11:28:10AM -0400, nate at portents.com wrote:
>>> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html
>>
>> Interesting analysis here:
>>
>> http://www.47hats.com/?p=1303
>

> I think it will be "the end" of Linux. In a few years Linux will be a
> component of Google/OS not something that people think of on its own.
> Look at MacOS, BSD is a component of it (I don't want to start a  
> debate
> of how much of a part, thank you), but people don't think of MacOS as
> being either UNIX or BSD.

Actually, I hear people all the time, even fairly green newbs, talk  
about Mac OS being UNIX and how that's a benefit.  I've also heard  
Apple Store personnel talking it up to customers quite a bit.

But otherwise, yes, I see what you mean here.  Apple is classic for  
claiming things it didn't really do, or exaggerating what it did, and  
quietly removing "bad" information from the public mindset.

Google's announcement just barely acknowledges Linux, and leads the  
reader to believe Google is creating a new OS.

Microsoft buys one company after another, and erases all traces of  
information about them so it becomes a Microsoft product.

On a technical note, it sounds like they are promoting this a lot like  
Palm is with the Pre: write WWW apps for use as local applications,  
not just remote apps.

I'll never quite understand how it has turned out that people are  
driving toward that horrible WWW software stack as a development  
platform, but that seems to be the direction.  I think it's not just a  
bad idea, but I hate it as both user and developer.

If we are going to run apps remotely, there are far more efficient  
"terminals" than a web browser that we have or could create.

I know some people who work in companies where they are moving all  
their apps to that stack.  In some ways, it can be really easy coding,  
but when thing go wrong you have a gigantic, fragile, and buggy stack  
of code to go through to find out what is wrong.  The users almost  
universally hate it compared to their native apps.

Besides... I thought Java offered all of that.  I don't like Java, but  
it's better than the WWW stack for applications that run locally.  For  
remote apps... I think pretty much all of those suck so I couldn't  
call the winner there.

Of course, we all know that new things are pushed primarily to  
generate revenue, not because they are good or needed.

About the only applications that truly need new technology and faster  
hardware are games.

Every other common problem yielded to computational power many years  
ago, we just keep bloating things and make it look look like the  
problems are hard.

> My expectation is that most of the people contributing to the current
> distros will just shift over to Google because that is where the money
> and glory will be.

That's very possible.

Look at what happened with Gnome: tons of developer hours wasted on  
chasing Mono/dotNet because it was the latest thing from Microsoft and  
now ran on "Linux".




-- 
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."