Google Chrome OS on Linux

[Francis Earl]

On Thursday 09 July 2009 4:55:44 Ryan Rix wrote:
> Did King George have the freedom to rule pre-revolutionary America the
> way he did?

You picked a really bad topic to try to make your point, so I'll warn you 
upfront, I was born and raised in England, and believe everything about that 
country is greater than this - other than simple land mass of course.

For the record, I had no choice when I moved here, I moved because my mother 
moved and I was underage.

> Sure, but does that make it decent or right? We have the
> nation we have today (sic) because of those ideals and beliefs that made
> Americans Americans, and not Brits. 

The Americans revolted against taxes, Americans currently pay some of the 
highest tax rates in the world... so that worked out great.

> The beliefs that everyone should be
> equal and that no one should have absolute control over anyone else. 

Except for minor things like blacks and women, sure.

> And
> that is what Free Software is about. That's what it was created to do
> nigh on 26 years ago, regardless of what the OSI and the Open Source
> movement has done to it.
> I know I'm in the minority here, using GNU/Linux under the banner of
> Free Software (my freedom is important) and not Open Source (powerful
> applications that I can develop on using the open source method are
> important), but my freedoms are damn important.

What you seem to be ignoring is my main point in the last message I sent to 
this list - by insisting on your own freedom, you are not only settling for 
second best quite often, but you are infringing on someone elses freedoms in 
the process. If you can't accept the terms they were free to demand for their 
hard work, then either look for alternatives, or write your own.

I use FOSS software because to me it is simply superior for what I want to 
accomplish on my system. Not only that, but it is exciting playing with the 
new developments. Software is supposed to be a tool, not a religion.

> Injustice is a funny word. 

I chose it to directly refer to something you said, but I'll continue.

> Is it an injustice that you cannot further
> improve on that application should you want to?

No, it is the wishes of the author of that software.

> Is it an injustice to be
> unsure of whether your data is safe from the likes of third parties and
> unscrupulous coders?

It is impossible to ensure security unless you unplug your system from the 
internet. That said, you should read the privacy policies etc of the software 
you choose sure.

> Weaker is a funny word, too. Do you gauge strength on features? 

Yes

> On the
> stability of software? 

Yes

> Do you gauge it on the ability of the authors to
> support the software? 

Yes, although you'll note that ALL FOSS licenses seem to come with that nice 
little tag of no warranties what so ever. I guess it depends on your 
definition of support though.

> Do you gauge it on the future maintainability of
> systems running that software? 

Yes, but in this case, Chrome will be running Linux. Chrome itself will be 
open sourced, and all other google specific stuff will be open sourced also. 
They won't even be trying to lock users in since its all standards compliant.

> All of these things can vary wildly in
> proprietary software. 

You make it seem like they can't in open source software? Look at all the 
projects declared finished, or simply dead upstream. Quite often people do 
entire rewrites of parts of the software stack simply because the old stuff 
isn't maintainable going forward - HAL is a good current example here.

> Very rarely is there vapourware/abandonware in
> Free software, but you see that all too often in proprietary ecosystems.
> And the majority of the time all you are left with is an ancient binary
> and a headache as you search for another alternative.

In Open Source, similar things happen all the time. Sure people are free to 
take over that code base if they wish, but even then the project just dies 
slower. I'll use XMMS as the example here, the founders jumped ship and 
started an entire rewrite of it named XMMS2. People were displeased, and so 
two projects were started, Beep and Audacious. Guess what? Both of those are 
currently basically dead now too as far as I can tell.

It's damn near impossible to read every line of code in the linux kernel, let 
alone for projects like Apache, MySQL, X, KDE or Gnome at this point, and 
entire projects have been started to try and work around that... SELinux for 
instance. I think it's a poor decision to argue based on that point, but even 
then, ChromeOS WILL be using extensive sandboxing and other security methods 
to ensure security. Also, lets not forget that ChromeOS will be ENTIRELY open 
sourced itself. Google Gears can be used to store data on your local system 
too.

If Google insisted on all user data being on the web, that would be illegal. 
Using web based interfaces to access that data on the users system though is 
simply smarter in the long run for Google, which works out for users. It would 
be impossible to store everything a user has on their hard drives now on their 
servers... especially if ChromeOS reaches critical mass.

I think most of the issues will simply be null and void... Google is opening 
up everything that is important to ensure longevity, and using open standards 
wherever possible. Open source will never convince companies like Microsoft 
and Adobe to open up their software stacks, but you know what, some people 
require those things, and it holds them back from switching. With ChromeOS, 
Adobe and Microsoft already have moved towards porting their apps to the web, 
so those drawbacks won't be there any more. That and O3D - which shows a lot 
of promise - should even alleviate the gamers excuses.

Going back to my earlier arguments about England vs America, and to wrap this 
up, I'm basically saying idealism doesn't get you far. You have to be 
realistic at some point, and in this case, all you'd need to do is stick to 
open sourced web services. You'd still be working on an open sourced platform 
with open sourced API's, but you'd still have the potential to reach EVERY 
user on earth... which will draw more developers away from proprietary 
platforms, which will make the open source system itself simply better. 

All the FOSS world does right now is emulate things in proprietary systems, 
ChromeOS has the potential to do some real innovation, and to actually gain 
the critical mass that might put more pressure on people like Nvidia, ATI, and 
Creative amongst others, so everyone will benefit if its a success.