Slashdot Mirror
Google Unveils The Google Pack
7hunderstruck writes "Google yesterday announced the release of Google Pack, a 'free collection of essential software'. Along with Google's own programs, such as Google Toolbar and Google Earth, Google Pack contains Firefox, Adobe Reader, a six month subscription to Norton Antivirus, and Trillian as well as other apps. Any respectable /. user should have most of this suite installed already (excluding a few things), but it will be nice to make it all widely available to the general public." Commentary on ZDNet.
forget it you could get me to install it if it was free forever.... avg for me... http://free.grisoft.com/
Are the non-google products identical to the versions issued normally, or are they branded? It says firefox comes with the google toolbar (does it add anything to ff? I can already search google easilly and block popups...), is that the only modification?
I'm not sure why google are doing this, unless they're getting paid (in money or some other way) by the producers of the software...
This is supposed to be a "great" announcement? That's it? A bundle of software that's available anywhere? And none free/libre? and Norton isn't free since you have to pay for updates after 6 months (just like any other OEM installation). Why not choose AVG, which has free updates, on it's personal version, forever?
...and all of it only works on XP? No wonder Bill Gates dismissed them out of hand at CES.
Bet their stock pricer just went down.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
Well, it's not far from the product you get when paying: If you pay for NAV the update subscription still expires, only after 12 months instead.
I think you've hit the nail on the head, so to speak. Google seems to take without really giving much (except talk). Yeah they have funded some stuff, but really, in relation to their income, it's not even a drop in the bucket. They use open source software, and yet, everything they put out is proprietary. That's not giving back, and it's not doing good (although I guess it's not"evil" either, just kinda shady.).
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
They said Adobe Reader, which last I checked was completely free and does a better job rendering than any open source PDF program does. Don't get me wrong, it has enough issues I typically use xpdf or other programs, but I still keep a copy of Acrobat Reader around because certain things just don't render correctly in anything else.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
This is why the original writer is wrong. All respectable users of Slashdot shall fuddle around with Wine to get the tools run.
What surprises me is that OpenOffice.org is not included in the Google Pack despite of the partnership announcement.
I'm all about being skeptical but:
google a true friend of open source? dont think so. 400 times 4500$ for the summer of code is some money and it has some benefits for the open source development in general. but, first, compare this prize money to the millions that they paid this ms guy. second and more important, google gets to know 400 bright people and can approach/hire them when they are students - not necessary to pay millions to hire them from a competitor at a later stage. this certainly is worth the 400 times 4500.
I don't see the analogy here. They're hiring students to work on Free Software projects for the summer... The students can do what they want afterward. Many large companies have internships for students, but few of them involve Free Software.
they take lead developers (read: directly weaken the os community) from ff and gaim and hire them to work for google.
That's what many companies do, hiring smart developers. While it's not good- I don't see how Google is any worse than any other company for this practice. Google has been relatively skimpy on the Free Software front, but code.google.com does have some useful programs.
Who says Adobe are paying Google to distribute it?
It's freely available software anyway, I suspect you can even find copies of it bundled with your breakfast cereal.
XP has 73% of the market. Up about 1% a month. W2K 15%. Down about 1% a month.
Mac and Linux 3%. Up 1% since 2003. Linux remaining pretty much where it was in July 20004.OS Platform Stats This is how the world looks to a developer. I'll leave it to your imagination to consider W2K's place in the home market.
I have seen this before, and I have NO IDEA where people get that from. Picasa is a photo collection program. It lets you make small edits (crops, reduce red-eye, color balance, etc) but it is not an image editor. It is designed to help your organize your photos and find them easily.
It is the best program I have seen for that purpose on Windows. It really is great. And free too (back when it cost money, Wolf Camera would give it out on photo-cds you got back with your pictures; then Google bought it an made it free for everyone).
The only program I like more for that purpose is iPhoto, but that isn't available for Windows (obviously).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Why -should- they care about *nix? After looking at this crowd and the rather snarky reaction from most of the higher-rated posters, they'd wind up spending a year of manpower creating 20 different packages for 40 different *nix distributions, of the 3 applications in the pack that most *nix people don't get already. And then, they'd get bitched at ad-infinitum by the same snarky bastards here, because the package formats wouldn't include ".formatIcameupwithwhilereallystonedandcompilingGe ntoo".
There are several reasons why it makes sense for Google not to bow to the Open Source movement and users, first and foremost being that people who use *nix don't need this level of ease. Second of which, being that they've tried to appeal to this crowd by offering the least evil solution in most markets they enter into. But thirdly, it's because Open Source zealots are a bunch of backstabbing pricks that don't recognize a good thing when it's handed to them or their loved ones that -don't- run free-as-in-speech everything.
Fortunately, Google -is- working on Mac support where it's relevant. They should get credit for that much, rather than attacked and derided for not supporting an Operating System that can't get its shit together even to agree on a standard way of installing software.
I run Debian on headless servers, but after trying to install various flavors of *nix on my P2-366 Toughbook, determined that none of the distributions will handle such a low-spec system as well as even -XP- does. Quit whining about Google and fix that crap.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page