Google empire

cdwillis · 2009-07-08 21:56:08

I think this is good thing. They can get support from OEMs and that means more hardware support for us. People like my mom would buy a computer with the Google operating system.

vkumar · 2009-07-08 22:27:26

edit:
disregard this post, sorry

Last edited by vkumar (2009-07-08 22:28:05)

alienman · 2009-07-09 00:00:53

cdwillis wrote:

I think this is good thing. They can get support from OEMs and that means more hardware support for us. People like my mom would buy a computer with the Google operating system.

I agree with you, that's exactly what I'm expecting to happen, more hardware vendors coming to linux.

I know it sounds like a dream, but it's good to have dreams

Last edited by alienman (2009-07-09 00:01:45)

madalu · 2009-07-09 04:56:06

Some good points above about hardware. It would be nice if this
attracted better hardware support for GNU/Linux.

I'm still really curious how this thing will be licensed. Probably a
mix like Android and the Chrome browser, I suppose.

I do get tired of Google's grandiose marketing rhetoric: operating
systems are broken, we will "reinvent" the operating system, the web
is the only viable platform, the desktop is dead, etc., blah, blah,
etc.

Here's my view: I paid for my hardware. I don't want some crummy
"thin" browser-based OS on my machines.

Also, why does everyone keep insisting that netbooks are only good for
"web-based" tasks? My primary computer is a dirt-cheap Asus 1000he (a
road warrior that I hook up to an external monitor at home). Arch
Linux runs just fine on it and does everything I need. In fact, I'd
rather smash the netbook before installing Google's "OS for dummies"
on it (if and when it emerges from vaporware status).

In the end, I suspect this might be a bluff to rattle Microsoft (in
the aftermath of Bing) and to keep everyone else on their toes.

Last edited by madalu (2009-07-09 04:56:47)

toad · 2009-07-09 05:26:09

I am also quite excited about this. If it is indeed open source and based on linux then what better endorsement than the new big b(r)other using it to undermine the old one?

Also, it seems to be a step away from the old monolithic OS more in line with android and some such, but time will tell. It will be interesting to see how extendible - if at all - their structure will be and how much they allow the average user to play with the insides.

nLEyETn · 2009-07-09 05:26:39

tomk wrote:

You have to give Google credit, though, for their in-depth market research:
Google Bullshit Department wrote:
We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better.

olovram · 2009-07-09 07:01:29

nLEyETn wrote:

tomk wrote:
You have to give Google credit, though, for their in-depth market research:
Google Bullshit Department wrote:
We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better.

lol

Garns · 2009-07-09 08:22:54

vkumar wrote:

Garns wrote:
vkumar wrote:
What really botherse is that they're already chasing OEMs..
Why does this bother you, it's the only realistic way for them to get some market share. And I don't think anyone around here really cares wether his shiny new Box is bundled with Vista, Chrome OS, Ubuntu, PC DOS or whatever.
I don't see why they want huge market share.. I don't believe they think it's their duty to make computers "better", and it's not possible to make too much money with it (seeing as it will eventually be completely open-source). I just don't understand why they're doing this.

They would hardly try to produce an OS if they didn't want people to use it. Don't ask me where they make money in the process, but I am sure they have a plan. Even if the OS itself is completely free (as in beer and as in speech), the google stuff it "tempts" you to use might not be.

I disagree with you on the last point "no one cares which OS machines ship with".. I'll have you know I'm going to get a refund for Vista on my new lappy!

So basically you don't care. If someone would sell you the same one with another OS or without one, but for 50 bucks or whatever less, you would take that one.

Themaister · 2009-07-09 08:32:48

Google OS will be very tightly integrated with Google products. If they can get OEM vendors to endorse them (easy, they're a multi-billion dollar company), they will effectively kill off Microsoft in the low-end "surfing and low-end multimedia" segment, while also giving them even larger market shares for their web apps. Neither Google nor the Linux community has anything to lose.

Xyne · 2009-07-09 09:07:18

moljac024 wrote:

Also, I see it as a type of Orwellian/Big Brother take on computing...don't like it one bit

While I see some potential benefits in this (hardware support, greater Linux support and awareness overall, etc) I really think that the masses are walking right into Orwell's nightmare. In x years from now we'll have broad internet filtering, deep packet inspection will be omnipresent and most people will be using cloud computing that's ultimately under the control of companies that feel no moral obligation to you, only to their bottom line and their shareholders.

Well, the bright side is that China and Iran will be jealous. HAHA! Oh, wait.

Themaister · 2009-07-09 09:37:42

In 10 years we will have the usual internet as we know it where everything is cencored etc, and the underground illegal hacker network

pauldonnelly · 2009-07-09 10:30:56

Dusty wrote:

pauldonnelly wrote:
Anyway, I hope it fails. The last thing we need is a world where our apps are black boxes served over the Internet, with acceptable programs chosen by some evil corporation ('sup, iPhone). Serve me a service. Nobody should get control over both endpoints.
Who says its blackbox? The apps can still be open source, hosted where you want. wordpress, anyone?
Of course what google wants is: Use google chrome OS with google chrome browser running google gears to access a google datastore hosted on google appengine through your google account... that's a wee bit scary. yup.

Yup. And I think we need to consider whether a Google dumb terminal is necessarily going to be an open platform for anyone who wants to host a program, or if there's an iPhone-style lockdown on the way. "It's not evil, guys, it's to create a more reliable system." And also where data is stored. The more centralized storage gets, the more potential trouble people who aren't savvy enough to keep local copies are going to be in. Or perhaps there's no practical way to push data into the system and pull it back out, so even savvy people have to decide whether to use the mainstream system (because it's used by family or colleagues) or live in an unintegrated backwater.

IMO, this architecture is ripe for abuse. A cloud designed with users in mind would first and foremost ensure that data was accessed in a freely transferable way (meaning network apps would be able and willing to operate on local data), and secondarily ensure that when contracts got terminated, ex-users could not have their access to whatever programs are involved revoked, leaving them without the magic key needed to do anything with their data (practically speaking, that means running software locally). And even then, the cloud is an extremely iffy proposition when your relationship with your service providers is changeable and impersonal, yet involves things important to you, personally.

Trent · 2009-07-09 13:32:15

pauldonnelly wrote:

IMO, this architecture is ripe for abuse. A cloud designed with users in mind would first and foremost ensure that data was accessed in a freely transferable way (meaning network apps would be able and willing to operate on local data), and secondarily ensure that when contracts got terminated, ex-users could not have their access to whatever programs are involved revoked, leaving them without the magic key needed to do anything with their data (practically speaking, that means running software locally). And even then, the cloud is an extremely iffy proposition when your relationship with your service providers is changeable and impersonal, yet involves things important to you, personally.

This is precisely what bothers me most about the idea of "cloud computing" or whatever marketing phrase you want to use to describe it. I may trust Google with my email, but I wouldn't store all my data on their server (or anybody else's, for that matter). Not unencrypted, anyway. And I certainly wouldn't pay regular fees for a "service" just to open documents I created myself.

Just because I'm paranoid...

kensai · 2009-07-09 13:39:48

Trent wrote:

I wouldn't store all my data on their server (or anybody else's, for that matter). Not unencrypted, anyway.

You, I and some geeks wouldn't do that, but 90% of the Internet population might do that. So well, google may have something here that will revolutionize, or either be ignored by the world.

PS: I even wouldn't trust my data to be stored on a Windows machine, that's why I use Linux.

Tyriel · 2009-07-09 14:08:48

Not sure how many of you remember but back in 2000 Microsoft had the idea to make all there applications web based and people pay a yearly service fee to use it. Due to public/industry backlash they ditched the idea as there are many issues that can not be addressed.

- Internet Security of sensitive data
- A DoS attack could prevent people from doing work
- Internet connection goes down and you can not work
- Trust issues (want a potential competitor to have a copy of your secrets on their server)
- Bandwidth issues (Not so bad these days)
- Slower performance than a local application
- There are many more but you get the point

Google also needs to address these issues and although people are more comfortable using the internet, I highly doubt most are willing to ditch local client applications for an online solution.

madalu · 2009-07-09 14:10:17

kensai wrote:

Trent wrote:
I wouldn't store all my data on their
server (or anybody else's, for that matter). Not unencrypted,
anyway.
You, I and some geeks wouldn't do that, but 90% of the Internet
population might do that. So well, google may have something here that
will revolutionize, or either be ignored by the world.

What bothers me is all the talk of this being a "step forward." Why on
earth would I want to depend on a virtual "mainframe" that I don't
control when I can already have everything I want on my own computer?
Google has everything to gain from this, so I understand why they are
proclaiming "the web is the platform for software development. But we
have to remember that Google is first and foremost a marketing company
--- everything else is subordinate to that.

My guess is that average computer users won't buy into the hype. Most
people feel comfortable with a hybrid solution (online/offline,
synchronous/asynchronous), in which they do some stuff online but work
on their most important documents offline. I just don't see them
feeling comfortable entrusting all their documents to third parties.

But what worries me most of all is that Google will do the same thing
to Linux that Apple did to BSD: build a locked-down userland on top of
an open *nix base. I wish Google had thrown its weight behind Ubuntu
instead.

Last edited by madalu (2009-07-09 14:13:38)

zenlord · 2009-07-09 15:54:00

In my environment this kind of OS could prove useful for our clients to be connected to our own server hosting web apps. With a decent server and network (and f.e. a tmpfs for the browser cache), that could become one hell of a fast way to do my office work.

Like most of you, I don't want to be connected to the net to be able to do some very basic stuff, like sending emails

moljac024 · 2009-07-09 16:04:06

zenlord wrote:

Like most of you, I don't want to be connected to the net to be able to do some very basic stuff, like sending emails

Good luck with that..

Last edited by moljac024 (2009-07-09 16:04:50)

VoodooSteve · 2009-07-09 16:27:03

madalu wrote:

But what worries me most of all is that Google will do the same thing
to Linux that Apple did to BSD: build a locked-down userland on top of
an open *nix base.

Wouldn't the GPL prevent Google from building a locked down userland on top of Linux? Apple was able to do that with BSD because of the BSD license allows you to do anything with BSD, but anything using GPL software has to be GPL itself doesn't it?

Dusty · 2009-07-09 16:41:45

VoodooSteve wrote:

Wouldn't the GPL prevent Google from building a locked down userland on top of Linux? Apple was able to do that with BSD because of the BSD license allows you to do anything with BSD, but anything using GPL software has to be GPL itself doesn't it?

You can still write 100% non-GPL software that runs on top of Linux. Apache, for example. ;-)

Dusty

Dusty · 2009-07-09 16:44:19

zenlord wrote:

Like most of you, I don't want to be connected to the net to be able to do some very basic stuff, like sending emails

The irony aside, its already possible to browse gmail without a network connection. Go into google labs and enable offline gmail.

That is my point: The new web is not going to require an always-on network connection to work. This is important in mobile devices. This argument is completely false and is basically equivalent to saying "I don't want to use Arch Linux because I need a network connection to use pacman". You can still run the apps without a network connection, you just can't sync or update them.

Dusty

Dusty · 2009-07-09 16:49:16

Trent wrote:

This is precisely what bothers me most about the idea of "cloud computing" or whatever marketing phrase you want to use to describe it. I may trust Google with my email, but I wouldn't store all my data on their server (or anybody else's, for that matter). Not unencrypted, anyway.

The architecture does not demand you store it on their server, you can store it on your server, hell, you can store it on a server running on localhost.

That aside, why do you trust Google with e-mail? I bet you frequently send documents over e-mail. What's different between that and storing a document on google docs? If you're that paranoid, you really ought to be encrypting all your e-mail (maybe you do), and/or not ever sending anything to a gmail address.

Dusty

ralvez · 2009-07-09 18:11:02

The thing that I find scary is that Google, once they become the "defacto" online application service provider will forget their motto: "do no evil" and just do evil.

As a matter of fact if they control the OS they can mine your data even more easily than they do now ... and they have showed not scruples to go for it so far. The fact is: power corrupts; that's human nature, and Google is no different.

I also believe that when it comes to data I want it close to my chest and not in some server somewhere in the Internet ... and I have the impression that *that is also* the feeling of most corporate users.

Sure, you can use their service and store your data locally ( or so I hope ) but, then again, what would be the point of using their services that way? I believe that the "selling point" of the Google OS is "access your data and your applications from anywhere, any time" and that's where Google will "help us"

The way I look at it, and I may just as well be missing something here , is:

1. Linux does everything I need as it is, so I do not need Google OS
2. If I want to access my data from anywhere I can use a VPN connection to my system or server
3. If I can control the OS I can control what's in it and who has access to it... and I'll sleep better at night

... so in conclusion, I see no benefit to the Google OS other than to Google itself. So, thanks but no thanks...

R.

Last edited by ralvez (2009-07-09 18:13:41)

toad · 2009-07-09 19:23:49

It appears dusty actually knows what (s)he is talking about - makes a change from the usual "it's new, I don't like it!" or "they'll know everything about me" tack.

Heck, none of us use M$ - we are free not to use Chrome OS. I won't displace any more electrons because of this apart from this:

- Linux distros as we know them are for the PC
- new devices such as netbooks or mobile phones do one or two things only

There is an obvious gap. Linux runs on a lot of hardware already but not enough. As soon as bigger players such as google get hardware manufacturers on board, things are starting to look rosy. Ye olde desktop is on its way out and mobile items which communicate to the home server (or the cloud if you choose the google system) are on the up. If open source is going to conquer that ever expanding market I'm all for it and welcome google's involvement. My cloud, however, is gonna be my own server and their advancement in OSs for specific devices is going to make it possible

BurntSushi · 2009-07-09 19:40:06

Yes toad, you are right- Dusty seems to be the voice of reason here. His email analogy is spot-on.

Google will market it as "access your data and your applications from anywhere, any time"- as ralvez said. That's the point. If you aren't comfortable with your data stored remotely with Google, then you are obviously not Google's target demographic.

It will however do much good for people who don't mind having their data stored remotely, and need access to it from many different locations. (Or perhaps more realistically, some data stored remotely.)

(Keep in mind that web applications don't have to come from Google. It won't just be Google storing your data, but other various web sites that provide other services. Google seems to have high ambitions to start a new style of computing- and thus far, it doesn't appear they want to control it, but rather, get in on the ground floor.)

Last edited by BurntSushi (2009-07-09 19:42:27)

Arch Linux

#26 2009-07-08 21:56:08

Re: Google empire

#27 2009-07-08 22:27:26

Re: Google empire

#28 2009-07-09 00:00:53

Re: Google empire

#29 2009-07-09 04:56:06

Re: Google empire

#30 2009-07-09 05:26:09

Re: Google empire

#31 2009-07-09 05:26:39

Re: Google empire

#32 2009-07-09 07:01:29

Re: Google empire

#33 2009-07-09 08:22:54

Re: Google empire

#34 2009-07-09 08:32:48

Re: Google empire

#35 2009-07-09 09:07:18

Re: Google empire

#36 2009-07-09 09:37:42

Re: Google empire

#37 2009-07-09 10:30:56

Re: Google empire

#38 2009-07-09 13:32:15

Re: Google empire

#39 2009-07-09 13:39:48

Re: Google empire

#40 2009-07-09 14:08:48

Re: Google empire

#41 2009-07-09 14:10:17

Re: Google empire

#42 2009-07-09 15:54:00

Re: Google empire

#43 2009-07-09 16:04:06

Re: Google empire

#44 2009-07-09 16:27:03

Re: Google empire

#45 2009-07-09 16:41:45

Re: Google empire

#46 2009-07-09 16:44:19

Re: Google empire

#47 2009-07-09 16:49:16

Re: Google empire

#48 2009-07-09 18:11:02

Re: Google empire

#49 2009-07-09 19:23:49

Re: Google empire

#50 2009-07-09 19:40:06

Re: Google empire

Board footer