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.'"

Comments

It's about time...

[TheRedSeven]

For all the Google talk about organizing information and their 'open platform' push with Android, it's about time they start taking Linux platforms seriously.

Re:Google gadgets?

[Anonymous Coward]

42 I guess

Re:Google gadgets?

[jsnipy]

Think bigger. Gadgets can be more than just the typical fare that you download. Imagine all those pointless reports with executive gauges ... they can now be gadgets!

What about Opera?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you count Opera's widgets, this isn't the first cross-platform widget/gadget system.

Re:What about Opera?

[dsparil]

Plus, it runs on the most platforms; Windows, OS X, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD, Symbian* and Windows Mobile*; and it's just vanilla HTML, JS and SVG zipped up.
*Once Opera Mobile 9.5 ships.

Re:What about Opera?

[Miladinoski]

Opera's proprietary (CLOSED) shit Have you even tried Opera? It indeed is proprietary, but not everything that is closed is shit, and Opera is just one proof of that. They had the biggest innovations in the browsers: First to include tabs, first to include mouse gestures, bookmarks nicknames (it took Firefox to come to its third version to implement this great feature), complete control over the browser with the keyboard, and so on...

it took them years to ditch the advertising Yes, this is one of the reasons why Opera's market share is low.

now they need to ditch the closed source and open it up. This has its ups and downs, and one of the downside is when they open their source, their paid version of Opera mobile maybe still paid, but with the source of Presto (the rendering engine of Opera's browsers) everyone with more skills could make its own version and give it for free, which means no salaries for the employees. I guess I don't have to speak about the ups of it, because I guess everyone probably knows them :)

Re:What about Opera?

[Count_Froggy]

Opera's widgets are a good thing, but they do not run under the OS, but within a web browser. The advantage of Google gadgets, Konfabulator, Karamba, or indvidual apps like Rainlendar is that they are available without needing to load a browser. As much as I like Karamba, I welcome another Open Source solution. There may be an opportunity to recognize that all gadgets ought to be runnable under a common framework. Anybody remember TSR's (early MSDOS/DRDOS/other variants days).

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Konfabulator?

[PainMeds]

making it the first cross-platform [desktop] gadgets framework

Wasn't Konfabulator the first? It supported both Mac and Windows, and was the tool of choice until Apple decided to release the Dashboard.

Re:Konfabulator?

[databyss]

mac isn't a platform, it's a religion.

Gagdets, Widgets, etc.

[MistrBlank]

Do people really use them? I don't use any of the widgets on my Mac OSX system. I sort of used the calculator, but do I really need one in the background all the time? On Vista I shut down the sidebar, what a huge waste of resources. And why do I need a clock gadget when there's one already in the system tray? This just seems like a gimmick to waste collective time.

Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc.

[Chyeld]

I don't use the Google versions, but I do have Confabulator/Yahoo! Widgets installed and do actually USE some of the widgets for more than eyecandy.

Granted 90% of the widgets out there are useless, and the other 10% probably have alternatives to them that don't involve running in a widget engine. But the fact that there are other ways to skin the cat doesn't immediately invalidate the way you prefer.

That said, when I'm expecting to do heavy duty work that will probably peg the resourse on my aging computer, the first thing that dies is this.

Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc.

[qoncept]

There are a whole bunch of things that make you think they'd be useful. "Oh man, that would be so cool if only I [insert something you don't do, and realize that even then it probably wouldn't be very useful]." I used it for a while, mostly for the weather and and to keep an eye on my network activity. Huge waste of space and now that I'm in Linux there are much better options.

For the most part, you get blocks that staticly show one unimportant thing, or tickers. Tickers aren't convenient. You have to wait to see what you are interested in, or actively watch it. If you're going to actively watch it, you might as well visit whatever site the RSS feed is coming from.

Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc.

[Mascot]

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.

Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Do people really use them? I don't use any of the widgets on my Mac OSX system.

I used to be in the same boat as you. Right up until 10.5, widgets seemed to use up too many resources to make them worthwhile. Since 10.5, however, they are a lot better about being idle in the background, but still coming up quickly enough when desired. I regularly use the white and yellow pages widgets, a widget to track time I put in on various projects, a weather report widget, and a simple timer.

I think widgets are a reflection of improvements in multitasking and resource allocation. Back in the day, if I wanted to play a game at a LAN party, I shut down all my applications. I didn't leave applications sitting open unless I was actually using them. Since about version 10.2 of OS X, I never quit any of my applications that I use daily. I sure don't shut down my big, Adobe CS applications before playing a game. Better resource allocation has really changed the way I compute and Widgets are a reflection of that. Why not have a dozen small applications running in the background all the time, so long as they don't significantly affect performance? It is a lot more convenient than firing them up when needed, one by one. Mind you, there are a lot of useless Widgets and even some I thought I'd use (google maps) I don't because I generally have a Web browser open too. Still, I do think widgets are here to stay; especially for smartphones.

Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc.

[Sporkinum]

Nothing like having an alarm clock that draws several hundred watts of power.

Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc.

[3p1ph4ny]

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.

Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc.

[cashman73]

Oh, please! If I see Weatherbug on one more PC, I think I'm gonna go postal,... ;-)

Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc.

[Knuckles]

Well then you missed at least these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperKaramba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDesklets

Re:Google gadgets?

[D Ninja]

I don't know - however many you want?

Seriously, whatever Google is actually making is not the point here. What is notable here is the fact that they are providing serious application development for the Linux platform. With so many "big name" companies somewhat ignoring the *nix platform, this is a good thing.

With that said, I don't know if you were trolling, but have you tried out Google Gadgets (for Windows presumably)? There is some great stuff there. RSS feed readers, weather, traffic reports, etc. Yes, I agree, none of it is terribly important, and you can always head to a website to get that information, but it's always nice to have that information right at your fingertips. And, just because you don't have a use for something doesn't mean other people don't need it.

Re:Google gadgets?

[Anonymous Coward]

better question:

How much spying on your data, surfing, searches, and miscellany does one need on your computer?

Oh, I forgot. Do no evil.

Mod me down, but it's true.

Re:Google gadgets?

[Yetihehe]

It was aimed at "funny". I didn't try it because I don't typically use windows (only at work). I've tried some weather reports, but none have yet worked form me (Poland, small city) and it is impossible to find traffic information here (Poland, small city), not that it would be really useful (Poland, small city). Otherwise, I agree with you.

Re:Not feature complete

[ciaohound]

Are there any apps that Google has released in the traditional sense? Seems like they stay beta forever.

First X-platform? Really?

[GreyDuck]

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!

Re:Google gadgets?

[somersault]

speak its name with reference Oh almighty Google, we salute you!

Re:;o

[bsDaemon]

... but is it open source? Yes! Screenshot: http://google-gadgets-for-linux.googlecode.com/svn/images/ggl-standalone.jpg There are many reasons for me to hate Google. Their commitment to Linux and Open Source makes me look past all of them! Isn't that like a woman saying, "I know he beats me, but he bought me a nice car so I'll stay" ?

It really ought to take a little more to impress you.

Re:Not feature complete

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Since when was "open source" just an excuse for releasing a half-finished product? Google is a multi-million-dollar company. Surely they can afford to pay some programmers and testers to produce a finished product before they release it?

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.

Re:Google gadgets?

[Rob_Bryerton]

If they correct grammar and spelling, the answer is "more than you're currently using."

Re:;o

[Niten]

Isn't that like a woman saying, "I know he beats me, but he bought me a nice car so I'll stay" ?

No. Not even remotely.

Re:Google gadgets?

[Anonymous Coward]

no no, he meant "reference"...

as in "Oh &google, we salute you!" /sb

Apache license 2.0 ftw ;)

[junglee_iitk]

http://code.google.com/p/google-gadgets-for-linux/source/browse/trunk/COPYING

Re:;o

[barnackle]

Isn't that like a woman saying, "I know he beats me, but he bought me a nice car so I'll stay" ? yeah, but apparently the nice car was worth the beating. just look at fear factor.

Not sure about licensing (Qt is GPL)

[hubert.lepicki]

Hi all, I am not sure if they are not breaking rules of GPL. Of course, I don't think this is intentional - but if their gadgets use Qt - they should be released under the terms of GPL and not Apache Software License 2.0. Quick browsing their code repository shows that even files that require Qt headers have Apache license header - not a GPL one. Does anyone know if this stuff is legally possible? I'm not accusing Google of anything, I'm really happy that they released it and I'm building this software right now. I just think the legal stuff is really important.

Re:Google gadgets?

[Hatta]

But we already have tons of dock apps that work with just about any window manager. Why is Google reinventing the wheel here?

Re:Not feature complete

[Bandman]

No, it started as a pet project. Like Google Maps, which also produces income.

Re:Google gadgets?

[D Ninja]

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.

Re:;o

[mhall119]

They should use Windows, because nobody likes a toilet that runs all day.

Java 6u10 (beta) came first

[Nicopa]

This new release rewrites the plugin used to provide applet support to browsers. One of the new features is the ability of dragging an applet to the desktop, and the applet would stat there. It's really simple and it's very cool. This is coupled with the newly added support for abitrarily shaped applets.

Sun is trying to revitalize applets. There's no reason a Java applet should be slower than flash, and the language is much more powerful.

Re:Google gadgets?

[somersault]

If a joke is flying, but no-one is in to hear it, what sound does it make?

*whoooooooooosh!

:)

Re:Google doesn't really port to linux

[Benley]

afaik, only Picasa for linux is the wine crap. google desktop and earth are native ports. Earth already used QT on windows so the port was probably easier than Picasa.

Re:Google gadgets?

[ZerdZerd]

You know it's open source, right? You can check if their spying on you by reading the code.