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Chrome OS and Android "Will Likely Converge" In the Future
xchg writes "When Google first announced that the company would be pursuing development of two distinct operating systems, many questioned Google's motivation. 'Google executives, including CEO Eric Schmidt, have downplayed the conflict ever since, asking for time to let the projects evolve. And a few days after Chrome OS was revealed, Android chief Andy Rubin said device makers "need different technology for different products," explaining that Android has a lot of unique code that makes it suitable for use in a phone and Chrome has unique benefits of its own. But Brin, speaking informally to reporters after the company's Chrome OS presentation on Thursday, said "Android and Chrome will likely converge over time," citing among other things the common Linux and Webkit code base present in both projects.'"
Google have the same problem as Microsoft: they're too successful. They have a river of cash flowing through the front door and an allergy to paying dividends to shareholders.
Thus they're pursuing what I call the "spaghetti cannon strategy". They blast buckets of spaghetti up against the wall and hope that some of it will stick.
Eventually any such company becomes large enough that it cannot coordinate what the various bits and pieces are doing. The self-cannabalising overlap of Android and ChromeOS is a symptom of the spaghetti cannon working overtime.
Because god forbid you send any of the profits to the people who paid money to own part of a wildly profitable company.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
Google has had the foresight to cut their losses before...
I have an Android phone. It was a gift from Google. Admittedly, it was an early version so maybe Android 2.0 looks better, but frankly when compared to an iPhone it looks like a high school science fair project. I'd rather pay for an iPhone than use the Android phone for free.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
I don't think Chrome OS is a good thing for desktop Linux. Who will develop for an OS on which you can't install any applications ? Commercial vendors won't target Chrome OS / Linux, they will target the web browsers, and that won't have any impact on the "monoculture" problem of the desktop.
Hah! The kernel is exactly what we used to call an "Operating System", before people started putting Window Managers on top.
The cake is a pie
If the Chrome OS is only an access point into a Google (or other) cloud then it is of no interest to me and shouldn't be of interest to anyone else. I haven't come this many years down the road of "personal" computing to hand over control of my apps and data to some faceless corporation. Doesn't anybody else feel Big Brother tapping on their shoulder?
Like the inimitable Groucho Marx, I would never join a club that would have me as a member.
How true! Instead of trying to confuse things and try to hitchhike a ride on Linux success, people who try to prepend a GNU/ on everything should study history and learn where this "operating system" definition started.
There was a time when every computer was dedicated to running a single program at a time, it often took hours to switch from one program to the other. In many computers configuring hardware to run different tasks involved plugging patch cords into sockets.
An "operating system" was the software that let the computer hardware be shared among different users with less hassle. In that context, the equivalent of what was initially called an operating system would be a set of device drivers and a task scheduler, exactly what Linux alone does.
Of course, language evolves and what was called an "operating system" in the 1960s would not be the same thing today. But that should be for the people to decide, the GNU/ trolls are very obnoxious in trying to force an usage that the general public never came up with spontaneously.