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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.'"
Shouldn't that be chromeoid
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.
Oh crap. So you've got the new version of the operation system before me, with the spell checker too! dammit google!
They need to revoke his day passes and internet access at that hospital...
Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
This is a classic troll from the turn of the century.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I wonder if this means Android will converge towards a more standard Linux, or if Chrome will converge to become less standard. Or if they'll keep the unique aspects of each and just try to unify stuff like browser code. I don't really fancy a phone that can only run web apps, or a "PC" that can only run Java apps compiled to a weird byte code! I don't really like the way Android has reinvented all of userspace, whereas at least Chrome builds on existing code a bit more. But they are solving different problems, which perhaps explains *some* of the differences...
If Google shareholders take windfall profits now and try to mature the company early, they will be killing exactly what makes it innovative. It is not in the long term interests of Google to do that. Remember long term? Before we had day traders and similar idiots trying to turn everything into a casino, we had companies like IBM that were hugely innovative and came up with things like relational databases. Real innovation requires long term commitment and a great deal of luck. You make your own luck by funding people like Cobb, or Mandelbrot, and wait for them to lay golden eggs. Can't do that if the shareholders are whining that they want all their (unearned) profits out, now.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Maybe they could also add an X11 server, Gtk+, and Python? Just a thought.
or Androme / Andromeos...
The article seems to assume Android and Chrome OS will converge into a single product. That is one possible way for converging. But another possibility is that they would be built from the same code base, but still have a different UI for different size devices.
That's Maemo, not Android.
Deleted
Wrong. Chrome is an OS which (currently) runs on the Linux kernel. A kernel is not an OS -- pleae see Debian, which runs on Linux, FreeBSD, or even Hurd kernels.
Caveat Utilitor
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?
Thanks, I was about to say that. Now I am redundant. /. audience is losing its punch. Pathetic losers don't even know the difference from an OS and a Kernel... They probably came from MS world, and think being "linux" is cool... LINUX IS NOT AN OS, IT IS A KERNEL. AN OS IS something like Debian, Chrome, and Ubuntu, which is probably the one you as a newbie is using... AND NOW GET OUT OF MY LAWN!
Interesting how
Really? I don't see anyone claiming that it should be called Linux/Chrome...
Rather "My shiny metal OS".
Really? I don't see anyone claiming that it should be called Linux/Chrome...
I demand that you call it GNU\Linux\Chrome!
SSC
don't confuse google chrome (the browser) with chrome (the OS).
Both seem very limited and aimed at cellphones essentially. So it does seem they have huge overlap.
I was hoping Chrome OS would be more functional than Android (sort of lightweight Linux replacement) but it seems the opposite. It is just a browser. Yawn.
I really can't see the point of maintaining two cellphone "OS type" products.
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.
Android is a production product that must meet the needs of consumer devices today. Android's success as a production product today depends on its level of refinement and ability to function reliably on technology that exists today. Chrome OS's success as an R&D platform today depends on it retaining the flexibility to make rapid, sweeping changes as an experimental testbed.
Google doesn't presume to know what the smart phone and mobile internet device markets will look like in 5 years time, other than that Google technology will be a big part of it. That's more than many other companies can say.
Those criticizing Google should recognize that were Chrome OS an R&D product at any other company, we might hear about it through a few trade shows and blogs, but that would be it, and no sane commentator would be suggesting it be put into production or merged with a production platform.
And Android is not even proper Linux distribution.
Android is a hacked up bastard child of Linux only. Does anyone have any info on the ChromeOS. Has Google gutted that just as much as they did to Android?
.... if you downloaded the source and made your own version of ChromeOS (PlatinumOS?) that synchs and authenticates against your own server instead of theirs..)
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
It's just something we'll have to remember... as we crack open Chrome OS to install proper apps.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
They are a bunch of people who lack any comp sci education whatsoever, unlike the Slashdot of old. Long gone are the days when people like Alan Cox and Andrew Tridgell submitted comments. Who can blame them for leaving?
I think everyone is looking ahead to a point when the desktop and the mobile will merge. As much as smartphones are like trying to read a Reader's Digest condensed version of a novel, but even I find myself using my crappy one more than my desktop. Obviously it's too painful to use for a full-time wordprocessor, but I look at my kids use their's, and I get the feeling it isn't so much an issue of utility as a generational issue.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
When was this, and who is this "we" you're referring to?
At the very least, the userland api to the system services has been considered a part of the OS since day 1.
Also, microkernels don't include such things as device drivers and protocol stacks, which run in userland. Are they not part of the OS?
With Chromium, the userspace is mostly the web, from a philosophical point of view. Technically it's a webbrowser app in userspace directly on top of Linux and a WM which is also directly on top of the Linux kernel.
Here be signatures
At first, everybody is predicting:" OMG Linux will own the desktop! We need KDE 4.x and Gnome 3.x and it is all going to even let your mom operate her computer much easyer than the shitty last incarnation from Microhell!" Etc, etc.
Then when Linux actually gains marketshare, people start to complain. "Oh noes! Not all Linux users are kernel devs anymore! OMGz0rs! When did people forget to man or infor this or that and why do people get so dumb that they can't even convert high level code to assembly and turn it to 1's and 0's with their bare hand, using an assembler! OmG it get's populair!"
Well duh, elitist prick. When you drive your car to a garage because you can't replace your engine yourself, the guy who does that for you won't be complaining about that fact that you cannot do that yourself. "Hey why don't you read the manual on how to replace your backseat yourself! How can people be so stupid that they cannot even replace their own chairs?!"
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I think everyone is looking ahead to a point when the desktop and the mobile will merge. As much as smartphones are like trying to read a Reader's Digest condensed version of a novel, but even I find myself using my crappy one more than my desktop. Obviously it's too painful to use for a full-time wordprocessor, but I look at my kids use their's, and I get the feeling it isn't so much an issue of utility as a generational issue.
I don't think it's a generational issue, unless the next generation is going to lose the ability to read and write.
Most kids type very quickly on their cell phones because they're not typing full sentences -- or even full words, in a lot of cases. Anyting you put in your pocket isn't going to be great for text input until one of two things happen:
1) Voice recognition gets to the point where one can dictate flawlessly and have it understood.
2) Projection keyboards like this get cheaper.
Mostly, though, Chrome OS is a clunker because people don't want all their apps to be Web apps on a computer bigger than a cell phone. Yes, something like Google OS could pass okay on a cell phone, because people expect things that light to be on cell phones. But on a laptop? Not so much. A user would be better off with a lightweight Linux version than with Chrome OS, simply because it would be so much more powerful.
Maybe by 2015, when Google expects Chrome OS to be out, Web apps will be a little more serious. But they should've released it closer to then, in that case. Right now, Chrome OS just turns laptops into mobile dumb terminals.
Nothing makes me shiver more than the attrocity known as the web browser becoming the primary application platform.
Wake up grandpa, it happened a few years ago. Apart from a few novel iPhone apps, all the inventive mass-market "applications" in the last few years have been things you run in the browser. As web sites get brave enough to treat MSIE as legacy crap and use HTML5 goodness like SVG and the canvas, audio and video tags, the web application advances will only accelerate. Bitch all you want about how you don't like the languages of the web, meanwhile everyone else does groundbreaking work that's immediately runnable by an audience of a few hundred million.
=S
It is a real surprise they are going to merge chrome and android. /Sarcasm
First, physically replacing stuff in your care requires special tools and a shop in a lot of cases -- stuff that most people don't have just chilling in their garage. Every linux system comes with the tools to code the Linux system. Secondly, the guy in the car shop is getting paid a fair bit of money to do the work, whereas the people coming into IRC or on forums demanding help are never going to pay for that assistance, often ask in the wrong place, and are frequently rude and demanding about the free help they're getting.
Hell, if you poke around Ubuntu forums, half the time one person has a problem and then there are naught but 50 responses all going "me too!" and no actual solution in site. It's like AOL. There have always been new people coming into the community, but when it gets to the point where the newbs outnumber the established people, it tips the balance in a really weird way. Maybe it's "for the better," but I liked things just fine the way they used to be.
if Apple ever came out with that rumored tablet/slate, that would be the device to get if you really just want a locked down device that feels like a oversized smartphone. Come to think of it, all you'd really need is small screen with a behind the back docking for your iphone or other smartphone and you'd have a great netbook.
#2: Everybody starts out as a newb. "News For Nerds, Stuff That Matters" is more of a scare for popular people. I am sure that when people read this, only the nerds and geeks feel like they belong here so only 'the right group of people' will continue to visit /. regularly. Maybe one day they will even become kernel developers... The attitude of your post, don't take this personal ;), discourages learning.
#3: I left Digg for the same three reasons that you have just posted above. Not because I disliked the fact that it became popular but because it turned from geeky news to soccermom news...
Here be signatures
"Repairing cars requires specialized knowledge."
-"They are a bunch of people who lack any comp sci education whatsoever, unlike the Slashdot of old"
So at computer science you learn nothing? At least no specialized knowledge? Really? Ok...
Here be signatures
Will we be able to code C native apps on their OSes?
In the "good old days", someone might post a problem on the Debian user mailing lists (they didn't have forums) and get naught but 50 responses going "RTFM n00b" and no actual solution in site. That wasn't any more productive than the new way.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
...being a subset of Windows.
Yes, obviously those are the only two choices in the market. The remaining 95+% are a figment of your imagination.
(Seriously though, check out a phone store, don't rely on Slashdot for news on the phone market, as it only covers Apple and Google, which represent less than 5% of the mobile market.)
Indeed - sadly we've got people thinking that Iphone OS and OS X are the same OS too, due to the same mistake.
I demand that you call it GNU\Linux\Chrome!
Richard Stallman, is that you?
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
I'm sure Google had to promise the telcos adopting Android phones that the telcos could "own" their version of the OS. Which means releasing ChromeOS to the public, untied to a given HW platform, vendor or distributor as a "different" OS lets the telco cartel keep plodding down that smug path. Especially now, in the first few years while telcos are just gearing up to sell and support Android phones, telcos could just drop it if their monopolies seem threatened.
But Google gets to release upgrades to each OS. Over time, Google can release converging versions of ChromeOS and Android. Within a couple years, the two OS'es can be identical except for their brands (and perhaps their bundled drivers, if indeed different kinds of HW tend to prefer one OS or the other). A single API for a single developer pool. Indeed, if that API has enough in common with the base GNU/Linux such that Android and ChromeOS are just another distro (or two flavors of one, like Ubuntu server vs desktop vs notebook) that developers can use third party libraries tools for a single target, Google will have run circles around the telcos. And Microsoft, and Apple, and Red Hat, and Ubuntu, and everyone else competing in the oddly rebootable OS market.
--
make install -not war
I think its just a response to tax policy. Money spent on dividends directly reduces the value of stock compared to not paying the dividend, and since (but for fairly recent tax policy changes that sunset soon, and so would form a poor basis for corporate policy changes) long-term capital gains are more favored under the tax code than dividends, offering dividends is directly contrary to the financial interests of the shareholders.
I don't really know how things were in Debian-land, because I was off in BSD-world, and while I was expected to do a lot of reading and figuring out on my own, when I still had questions and could show what I had already tried, I would get coaching in IRC or from where ever else I could find it. I have this 5-digit since I was a Freshman (or first bit of sophomore year, I forget now) in high school -- I'm only 25 -- and the big, imposing uber-nerds didn't scare me away. They just expected that if I want to play in their league, I need to learn the rules of the game.
I think it was more productive.
Maybe this is what the world needs. God knows I am sick of helping morons who stop windows update from running, even though I set it to "download and install automatically".
Unfortunately, I don't think this will help you. An administrator would never come in contact with this kind of system. Google administers the servers. Anything running Chrome OS is little more than a dumb client.