Slashdot Mirror
Google Releases Desktop Gadgets For Linux
mstrom writes "Google announced it has ported its Google Desktop Gadgets platform to Linux, making it the first cross-platform [desktop] gadgets framework.
In a sign that Google is fully embracing the open source model, it admits the product is not feature-complete and has opened up the code base hosted on Google Code 'to give everyone a chance to tinker with the code powering the gadgets.' According to Google: "Gadget support is not just a single feature, but rather an entire platform for miniature applications.'"
If you count Opera's widgets, this isn't the first cross-platform widget/gadget system.
the first cross-platform [desktop] gadgets framework
So, this Konfabulator thing I've been running for years isn't cross-platform after all? Thanks for clearing that up, Slashdot!
I'm only wearing black until they come out with something darker.
Huge waste of resources? Waste, ok, but huge? The default sidebar thingiemajigs don't exactly drain a few CPU cores and gigs of ram.
Anyhoo, yes, some people do really use them (Yahoo's in my case). While I could perfectly well live without it, I do find having the free space of all my partitions readily visible, along with CPU, harddrive and network usage and some other tidbits to be handy. When I played Eve Online for a bit I also found the Eve skill/training monitor rather nice.
At work I find a world clock widget to be very useful when it comes to keep tracking of the local time at our various offices. Before we changed our presence system I also had a self-created widget that listed the activity and phone numbers of people key to whatever I was working on at the moment.
Sure, all this information is available elsewhere. It's just not as convenient as the always present always updated desktop widgets. It's not for everybody, but it does have its uses.
Google's development methods are quite different than other companies. Many of these beta services and products they release are not something the company is using to make money, but are the individual projects of the engineers. Each engineer gets 20% of their time where they must work on their own thing. A lot of those "things" eventually get tossed out for the public to play with, usually as betas and often as OSS projects. Sure, Google could pay engineers to work on this full time, but it isn't clear that is really going to make them money. Linux on the desktop improvements aren't exactly a goldmine. Rather, I think it is nice they let the engineer donate this code to Linux and let people help him integrate it into Linux.
For what it's worth, I think you're right. However, I've been using conky (http://conky.sourceforge.net/) forever, and I think it's great. That's about as close to gadgets as I come, though.
That's because they want you to use their product - not one of the other dock apps that exist. That's just smart business strategy there. First, Google looks great because they are supporting Linux when so many big companies don't touch it with a ten foot pole. Second, they get the "common geek" using their tools/APIs/etc. And third, they get more mindshare which is huge for any company.
And, honestly, you could make this argument for any piece of open source software. Why do people make their own? Because they can. One of the best things about OSS.