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Google Releases Source To Chromium OS
Kelson writes "Google has released the source to what will eventually become Chrome OS, and will begin developing it as an open source project like Chromium. The OS differs from the usual computing model by (1) making all apps web apps (2) sandboxing everything and (3) removing anything unnecessary, to focus on speed." Reader Barence adds "Google said consumers won't be able to download the operating system — it will only be available on hardware that meets Google's specifications. Hard disks are banned, for instance, while Google said it will also specify factors such as screen sizes and display resolutions. Google said it plans to officially launch Chrome OS by the end of next year."
FTFA:
Boots from flash, be it built-in or external (think SD card), presumably. I'm sure someone will come up with a live CD/PXE boot eventually, though. Plus, it's an open source OS, so someone will eventually hack in standard SATA drivers and the like, if Google refuses to provide them.
Unless the EULA says no. Then it'll be the same as running Mac OSX on whatever you want. I don't see a problem with running whatever OS I want on any piece of hardware I can get it to run on, but the companies, lawyers, judges, and fanboys disagree.
It is open source, you are per definition allowed to copy the code. You cannot name it Google obviously. Their reference implementation will run on linux, moblin, ..., so you will be able to adapt your linux box, and run the things you want, except the Google branded ones.
Note also that you will be able to run it in 'unsafe' development mode, after which you would be able to install KDE/GNOME on top of it if those provide packages for this distribution
Open source means just that; open source. The source code is readily available to anyone. It does not necessarily follow that configured, built, regression tested binary images are available for download. Of course Chrome OS is open source; it's based on GPL 2 Linux kernel, GNU libraries, Google's open source Chromium browser, which is in turn based on webkit, etc.; Google is obligated to make the source available for most of that and even the parts for which they are not obligated (it's not all GPL) they're providing anyhow. None of this means that the built binary images for any particular device must also be provided by Google.
If you have the wit to obtain the source, and configure, build and install the resulting images then you're free to do so.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
Thin clients are fantastic. I run Citrix across 5 sites and it's godsend. They rarely fail and everything being centralized makes my job a lot easier.
"Hard drives" = spinning drives, solid state drives are allowed.
Yes, you can: http://alt.org/nethack/soiled/
How quickly does gmail open for you, barring load times? How quickly are emails sent? Have you ever seen the word "loading"? what do you think that means? (hint: it's not referring to just processing).
The answer is that loadtimes are not instant. How fast does someone else editing a google doc with you see updates? Not instant. There is an acceptable latency, but lots of things get around it which are also things that don't need good latency.
It's also not about quantity of bandwidth. Latency is not bandwidth capacity. You can have 1TB/s but if your latency is >300ms, there are things it will not work for.
Also, please quit the "Typical use" phrase that comes about all the time. There is no definition of typical use that you can specifically define for anyone other than yourself, as everyone has different definitions of that phrase. "typical use" is entirely subjective. You can try your best to generalize it but there's a limit to how realistic and accurate it will be.
I think you're missing the kind of apps that will also have an issue. There are apps that are latency sensitive, and there are ones that are not. As an example, someone will notice packetloss/latency trying to load the slashdot homepage, but they don't notice the latency between when they hit submit on a comment and/or preview. The difference is whether what you are doing requires attention or not. In the case of "all apps to be online only", that will inadvertently catch a ton of applications.
Easily. These are just hardware requirements, no one is trying force you to run it on an approved version of the hardware. If you can build hardware that fits the requirements, you can run it.
Instructions on creating (downloading and building) your own chrome os are available here & http://www.chromium.org/. You can build a disk image and mess around with it. Right now they recommend building on Ubuntu 8.04 or higher 9.10 recommended. It seems well explained and shouldn't be a problem.
I might give it a try on my Acer Aspire One netbook tonight or this weekend...
They mention to keep it secure, every part of the OS, from the firmware, to the kernel, to the apps will be signed. (to make it impossible to inject code or modules) They can keep their own keys, and just open source the code. Then, you could fork, and make a Firefox OS or whatever, but you will not have the keys to change the official ChromeOS.
But the key will be the custom firmware, that can be signed, and required to boot the signed kernel. That would give them a secure way of ensuring that only certain hardware can run the official google OS, and people can test and dink with forks...
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Who said anything about my using Google? Actually I am looking at Citrix in a virtualized environment. The testing I have done shows it is a very viable alternative to what we are currently using.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Google Gears locally caches your data for offline access to web-apps.
The OS won't boot from a HDD for security reasons. They are treating the OS more like read-only firmware than a traditional OS install. That doesn't mean the netbooks that ship with this won't have storage of any kind.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
from /src/LICENSE:
// Copyright (c) 2006-2009 The Chromium OS Authors. All rights reserved.
//
// Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
// modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are
// met:
//
// * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
// notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
// * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
// copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer
// in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
// distribution.
// * Neither the name of Google Inc. nor the names of its
// contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from
// this software without specific prior written permission.
//
// THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
// "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
// LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
// A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
// OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
// SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
// LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
// DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
// THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
// (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
// OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
It looks like the code - what there is of it - is licensed under a BSD-style license:
http://src.chromium.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=chromiumos.git;a=blob;f=src/LICENSE;h=0aa7fc93577374e4f4c29387cf2a17ea95f8d4bc;hb=HEAD
The third party tree contains the linux kernel and other gpl licensed tools - as well as Chrome which is under the same BSD-style license
Help me out. Where can I download the source code to OS X and all the software components for a working Mac?
Here you go. There used to be a buch of people who built a full functioning OS out of the source but they had little success because whingers like you don't really care about the source, only about bashing Apple.
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
It looks pretty BSDish to me:
http://src.chromium.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=chromiumos.git;a=blob_plain;f=src/LICENSE;hb=97f06ceb4198795ce0764aca2214d91b6ce461dd
All the Google code is covered by the BSD license. The other bits carry whatever license they came with (kernel = GPL, WebKit = LGPL, etc.).
http://www.opensource.apple.com/
I think you can download the core of their operating system. Google has said released under opensource. It has said nothing about using the GPL. They could use Apache or some derivative there of and still be "opensource", but it won't be ChromeOS unless on their approved hardware.
We have a client that was using a web based POS and moving back to one that runs on their local lan. Why? If they lost their internet for any reason, they're business is dead in the water. They can't process transactions. Now they are still using a web-based ERP solution, but if they loose internet they can still process transactions. They're store's info just doesn't sync with the ERP until the internet comes back up.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Not really. Google provides an extensive search across the e-mail. Check out the Using advanced search in Gmail article. All kinds of things to help you do the searches you are looking for. And then, you can save your searches for the future.
I saw it at http://chromebook.blogspot.com/2009/11/chrome-os-has-been-released-introducing.html
there is a torrent to a .vmdk file which should boot up in virtualbox or vmware,
have fun!
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