Google Operating System Coming 2010

I know. I couldn't believe that article.

I could really only see Chrome OS as being a web development platform that coexists along with a normal OS rather than a complete OS replacement. At least, in the next five or so years.

 

I am a big fan of Wired and Chris Anderson. I read the article in Wired, but not the book. I think it was pure unadulterated BS, written by someone who appeared to have never had to build, market and sell a product. It had a few salient points, but for the most part it was, to me, ridiculous, only applicable to small very specific niches but of zero use as any sort of real economic model. (I still have to pay for my subscription to Wired. I think that is telling in relation to the article and his book. Don't you?)

But more to the point, the folks who actually wrote Linux, are not the folks who have the "support" companies that are actually making money on the backs of those who did create the code in the first place. It is not unlike a classic ponzi scheme. One day the coders will all wake up and see the "Redhats" and "Unbutus" of the world sitting fat and happy in their corner offices driving fancy cars and realize they (the coders) were taken in by all this talk of writing the code for "the community".

Gary

 

Not when you can dupe a legion of coders into doing it for free under the guise of "its for the betterment of the community".

Gary

 

Well, with all due respect, I'd say it's more a matter of self-duping than straight duping; after all, Google didn't actually lie about their intentions, they just used the appropriate rhetoric.

 

Quite true. And Google is not the first to take advantage of this free labor pool.

Gary

 

Even truer.

 

Delusions of grandeur or not, the hoopla over Chrome OS is undeniably stealing thunder from W7's launch. It would come as no surprise to learn GOOG spitefully announced an OS with the chief intentions of clouding W7's release.

--

OT: Did anyone catch PBS's report last night on Cloud computing?

 

Entirely possible; but then again, look whose attention they're mostly getting - the folks who don't believe in paying for something as simple as an OS in the first place; not exactly the sort who'll be first in line to buy Win7 when it goes retail.

 

Haha , I didn't even look at it that way. Nothing can steal 7s thunder right about now IMO, i'm married to it already and can't wait for it's final release.

 

Google is not really trying to steal thunder from Windows 7, Microsoft reportedly has some cloud computing announcement coming Monday. That is what Google is trying to steal thunder from.

 

I don't like this. Google is already a monopoly, and their OS will only get more info about you. I hope their OS fails.

 

More toys is good. Let Google "contributing" to the goods ;-) In the end users will decide if they hit a jackpot or not. It will be interesting how Google manages device drivers, how he can get co-operation with device manufacturers. Novelty OS is cool, but it will drop real quick on the wayside once users have to struggle to make it works. We see this enough with Windows versions

cheers ...

 

Yes, the most used OS in the world by end-users is somehow "on the wayside" ...

Words escape me.

 

I should have clarified that some Windows versions are "not readily accepted" by many users, with the perfect example is in Win ME, Vista (in many ways). Falling off the wayside for many users.

cheers ...

 

I think you should check the statistics with regards to Vista.

 

Don't need to check and don't need to change my statement. Any OS (version) that causes headache for users to use will be rejected, thrown off the wayside.

It was very good for MS to recover the faux-pas and coming back with good SPs for later Vista versions to win back critics and doubters.

cheers ...

 

I realise that you mean by the individual. But by doing so, all OS's are equal, be they W7, Vista, Me, XP, OS X, OS 9, and all sorts of Linux-flavours, rendering the jab at Vista utterly superfluous and ill-founded.

In any case, carry on.

 

Who is jabbing Vista (or any other OSes in general? I use it since the very first day as I was one of its alpha/beta tester and promoted it all along.

But Vista "versions (of past)" were and are good valid examples where users acceptance of any OSes was being turned off due to lousy implementation.

cheers ...

 

Once again, Google is not developing a new OS at all, the confused babble of clueless journalists notwithstanding. All they do is take various bits and pieces of the existing Linux OS, and add their lame browser to the mix. Thus, they will have no problem, nor will they care about device driver issues. They will simply rely on the "open source community" to do their work for them. Gotta love these guys. Like I have said for a long time with regard to Google: That emperor has no clothes, none at all, but they sure do a heck of a job making billions of dollars out of nothing...

 

Sure it is what they are doing, grabbing here and there for parts. I still want to see how they manage drivers and other free stuffs out there. It is a big difference between Linux OS and Google (linux or whatever) OS since they put their name on it - thus claiming ownership and responsibility.

Question is will they give users links to get the drivers and tools, or they will appropriate them and store them in their repository. Either way, it is interesting for me to see how they present this.

cheers ...

 

Sounds more like it should have been called the Google Chrome GUI, not OS.

 

There is nothing to manage for Google. Linux is not a micro-kernel OS. Drivers are part of the kernel distribution, which is (tightly) controlled by the Linux kernel development team (and for good reason, I might add...). Google has no control over this, and moreover, neither do they have any interest. As far as they are concerned, if "their" OS runs on your machine, and can talk to your devices, fine; if not, too bad for you.

Google cannot "appropriate" this work, and does not have the resources to do their own kernel development, at least they said they don't want to: they "are obviously going to need a lot of help from the open source community". Why in the world the open source community would want to work for Google all of a sudden is a question that I don't know the answer to, and neither does Google, I suspect.

The main mistake you make, I think, is the assumption that the "Goggle OS" is even remotely comparable to a real OS, that is supported by a company, or even a community whose very existence depends on it. This is not the case, and I'll leave it at that.

 

Yes, I think that would be more accurate, and a lot less misleading.

 

There is no mistake and there is no assumption that Google OS is comparable to other OSes. There is simply nothing to compare to.

One does not assume that an OS is an OS or not an OS (like you have implied, mistakenly), until the end (or alpha or beta) product has been developed and presented.

And I do take the word OS literally - you "build" it, you own it. Google is putting its name on it, Google will own it. How it (or any other OSes) performs and presents are something for users to judge, as I have stated over and over again. How it is being built, let the developers community do the judging. And if Google tries to redefine what OS means, let me see this as well. Until then, one does not assume if it will not be an OS.

As I mentioned before, it is cool for novelty OS, let me see how it pans out.

cheers ...

 

Read an interesting little column, published on July 11 (can't seem to find the link again ), in which the author takes the view that the "point" of Google's doing this is not to attempt to compete with Microsoft or anyone else in terms of an actual OS, but to basically "spook" companies like Microsoft and .Apple into building out the web-based components of their OSes and applications in order to get you - the user - out onto the web - almost any website will do - in order to generate revenue for Google through its ad services.

Not to steal all the thunder from the original article, but here is the gist of the article, in its concluding paragraphs:

So, basically, Google doesn't really care a fig about creating some hip new alternative to Windows that will steal the Windows' user-base, they just want to prod Microsoft (and .Apple, and, probably, any other major software publishers) into tying the web more and more into its OS and, more particularly, its applications, to boost traffic to websites with Google-based ads, thereby boosting Google's revenue.

In fact, under this arrangement, it's not even in Google's interest to try and compete against Microsoft in a zero-sum manner; instead, Google is essentially trying to piggy-back off of Microsoft's popularity, and rather than decrease the number of people using Microsoft's products, Google would actually do better if the number of people using Microsoft's products increased - so long as that included an increase in the number of visits to Google ad-mined webpages.

Pushed closer to its logical extreme, that sounds like something the Antitrust division of the DOJ might want to take a look into.


EDIT: Found the link to the article, here, on mashable.com by a gent named Ben Parr.