[geeks] Google announces Google Chrome OS

[gsm at mendelson.com]

On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 09:09:21AM -0500, Michael Parson wrote:
> However, this could be the inroads for 'Linux on the Desktop' that
> people talk about all the time.  The debates about its readiness or
> suitability, discussions on the availability of needed applications,
> etc.  Reading the articles about ChromeOS, it sounds like the OS is
> really going to be irrelevant, they're really focusing on developing
> more cloud *cough* web-based *cough* apps, that will run in any
> standards-compliant browser.  Their 'OS' will be just enough Linux to
> launch their Browser as the UI, to access their apps, that exist in the
> Google cloud.

The problem I see with that is, the "Linux on the Desktop" as it were, was
the original idea behind Red Hat and it has never taken off to the point
that enough people actually run Linux on their desktop computers that anyone
says it's a serious contender against Windows. 

Since it will be a small part of ChromeOS, it won't be spoken about as Linux.
People won't say "my computer runs Linux", but they will say if asked, that
it runs ChromeOS. If they are asked isn't that Linux, most of them will say
"what's Linux"?

In the end, Linux will be on a lot of desktops, but no one will know or care.

One also has to wonder if Google will decide that the GPL is too restrictive
as Apple did. Apple had a Mach Kernel Linux for the older PPC Macs, and
abandoned it for BSD. I don't have a source to quote, but I remember 
it was because of the GPL, they wanted to keep parts of it "secret".

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm at mendelson.com  N3OWJ/4X1GM