Google Chrome Operating System – Open Source

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google-chromeNormally I would not post about Google on this site but this caught my interest in that Google announced yesterday that they are releasing an Open Source Operating system.


“Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.”

“We have a lot of work to do, and we’re definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision. We’re excited for what’s to come and we hope you are too. Stay tuned for more updates in the fall and have a great summer.”

Full Story here.

If any of you know of any further details please leave us a comment.

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    • ccherrett

      hmm, I wonder what the point is. I can create a small distro of linux to be as light weight as anything and boot up in seconds to be on the web.

    • http://www.digitalbitedesign.com Sandking

      ccherrett – point is that you don’t have so many clients ;] And well – greater focus on open source.

    • Jonthu

      And so the great Google world domination plan continues…

    • http://www.ronbravo.com ronbravo

      I agree with Jonthu. While I can appreciate how far Google has come and much of what they have contributed to the world and open source community, I don’t like how they have to keep moving into so much stuff. Large expanding companies seem to be damaging to our health, progress, and development in the long run. Just an observation. Maybe Google is the exception?

      Only time will tell I guess.

    • Magiciandude

      Google. Is. Awesome! I’ll have to give this a try when it’s available!
      Let them take over the world. They do everything right. <— Just kidding of course! But still, this is exciting news!

    • Cowman

      Blender will never fall into the hands of Google as long as one of us still draws breath !

    • Curunír

      Considering how much information the Google Chrome browser sends back to Google, I don’t dare to guess how much a whole OS will send.
      http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_chrome_vs_iron.php
      (Link leads to a remake of Chrome being compared to the original. Points out security issues well.)

      Also: First post ever on a Blender-community! Yay!

    • http://www.animationbytim.com/ Tim Formica [Room335]

      Here’s a good article about the pros and cons from the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8140594.stm

    • http://brandxmedia.ath.cx gbowles

      Perhaps with more people running Linux, we will see more hardware vendors providing real support for their products. M$ has their hands in vendor pockets, and what better way to influence sales than to release an operating system that requires hardware upgrades? Open source is the future. Open source isn’t only about free software, it’s about the user having the ability to take ownership of how a machine performs. This is big, and I believe a great thing. I would pay for software knowing that the company releasing it has full understanding of the OS. Programming in M$ is a hit and miss thing sometimes. You pass your code through an iron curtain and hope your app works. the irony is that M$ blames “poorly written software” for it’s issues but hides their code from the programmers. I run Blender through Ubuntu and feel it was intended to be Linux, and everything else is just a port. I noticed increased stability and nearly half the render time. I can also handle higher polycounts. Just an observation, your results may differ.

    • Blabeen

      I hope this is not an another failure attempt against windows.
      I think It is better for Google to focus on Android for the moment and port it to netbooks

    • Tom (not Ton)

      I saw that the CIA’s, err, Google’s making their first OS earlier, then saw open source. I’ll give it a while to be cleaned up but take a look at it. It’s not like everything else doesn’t spy on your every move. Unless you write your own everything from scratch you can’t be 100% certain.

      That said, if “most of the user experience takes place on the web” do any of you get the feeling, and I think M$ has a patent but I’d have to go look, that this will be more about urging folks to run web based programs or subscription services to make them cash down the road?

    • http://www.free3dmodels.fleshsoft.eu iuli

      ha ha, I can’t stop laughing =)) … let’s see if I understand

      Microsoft attacks the FAMOUS google.com engine, and they really make something…and now google pay back with the same moned, making the best os in the world….

      I think that if GOOGLE can achive that, then Microsoft Os will be history, no more xp stupid os no more virus :))) no more updates ha ha so cool

    • AMD55

      I agree with the statements for Google as “BigBrother”!
      I would never install or use a spying OS or a functionality of Google on my PC!
      For all users who didn’t kno it: MS OS (I mean especially XP) sends only informations to the web if you allow it!!
      The main leaks are softwares like Adobe!! (Boycott Adobe!!!!!!)

    • kenden

      Why not an article about Michael Jackson while your at it? Please keep the articles focused on Blender!

    • Sissy

      Not to say this this doesn’t peak my interest, which I might try on my university’s computers (destroy Windows!) once the semester starts.

      Point I wanted to say (I’m a person who makes fun of everything), the title says ‘sysytem’.

    • http://www.watchmike.ca Mike

      @ Tim Formica,
      To keep it Blender focused, perhaps we could speculate as to how well Blender could run in this OS.
      Seeing as google uses a lot of OSS for server-side operations, perhaps google could incorporate Blender into its 3d endeavors.

    • Anon

      Perhaps harness the power through the web utilizing googles billions of servers for our render farm !

    • http://www.RemnantStudios.com BlenderBoy

      For the record: OSS isn’t virus free, anyone can clearly write an app. to infect Linux or Macs; however, there is little motivation to do so as the market penetration of these OSes is lower than Windows. I laugh whenever Apple claims to have the world’s fastest OS, is immune to viruses, etc. Why does Apple lie to its customers? They know it’s not true. In fact, if you’re running Acrobat Reader on any platform, you’re machine is capable of running scripts just by visiting a website that loads malware JavaScripts, etc. So patch your bloated Acrobat Reader today.

      Anyway, it’s interesting to see how this war between Google & Microsoft will unfold.

    • http://www.animator.co.nr Lancer

      quote from BlenderBoy: “…there is little motivation to do so [make virus for Open Source Operating Systems] as the market penetration of these OSes is lower than Windows.”

      Now [haha] I can’t [haha] stop [hehehe] laughing.

    • trinity5150

      If google can put out one of the best search engines I’m sure they can put out a very good OS.

    • terence

      I’m curious as to how many apps (both open source and commercial) will be willing to write a version for a new os. In my opinion they might be better off with their own flavor of Linux rather than completely writing a new OS. If they did that I think we’d see a lot more apps come out for linux as well

    • http://www.ubuntu.com/ Socceroos

      @AMD55

      You’re either really young or really naive or you’re just trying to spread FUD.

      You have the ability to ‘opt-out’ of Google collecting your stats – this is *common* knowledge. Also, and here’s the kicker, because the whole thing is Open Source, many eyes will be scrutinizing the code. And you can double guarantee that will happen – everyone will want to keep Google honest.

      Personally, I’m going to be very interested to see just how they execute this. Are they going to shoot themselves in the foot by not allowing common client-side applications to be installed? I’m thinking of tools such as, simple movie editor, photo editor, business applications, office suites (other than the good, but limited Google Docs)…

    • Joskar

      @terence, from the article:

      “The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.”

      So yes, it’s linux. :)

    • drew

      I feel like posting something involving an operating system (and then specifically bolding how it’s open source) is just inviting a flame war…

      That being said, I think the more blender focus the better. Once someone gets the chance to download/install/install blender, we need to get a report back. While it sounds like the google OS is built to offload as much processing as possible to the web (Gmail, Google Docs, that type of thing), something that I don’t really see blender as capable of doing, having a very, very minimal background OS running blender successfully on a barebones netbook could be really cool. It would be like a sketchbook for painters. Go to the zoo or the park, pull a netbook out of your backpack and whip up a cool little model, or have a model and do speed animation challenges, trying to capture the look of that tiger or the action of those people playing football, offload the render to your machine back home (or to a google server? maybe?), and check out what you’ve done by the time you walk in your front door.

      Also, I stopped by the Institute offices in Amsterdam last week. Unfortunately, didn’t have a camera (got stolen the week before in Barcelona :( ), and I think everyone was out for lunch, but it still gave me massively geeky shivers.

      (now for the stuff that’s gonna get flamed…sorry, couldn’t resist. Seriously, no need to read past this point.)

      @Sandking – greater focus on open source? How do you get more open source focused than GNU/Linux?

      @Blenderboy – It’s not just that market share is less (on the contrary, while numbers of computers are fewer, the quality of the computers and info on said computers running GNU/Linux and BSD flavors is probably much higher…), it is harder to write an effective virus for those systems. They do a much better job restricting privileges and access when appropriate. As someone else pointed out, it’s impossible to run 100% trustworthy code unless you write it yourself (including the compiler), but considering the comparison (botnets vs OpenBSD’s 0 known, unpatched vulnerabilities), it’s more a semantic issue between “virus free” and “essentially virus free, not counting human induced security problems like trojans, using password1 as a password, etc”. But, if you wanna have fun, according to wikipedia the first “wild” virus was written for the Apple II.

    • Alex Blank

      Well I’ll be…Everyone has been speculating on this from the time Google announced Android, and now the plans have come to fruition. Never would have guessed that they announced it yesterday given the small amount of media coverage on the matter. And really, why call it an OS if all it is seems to be just a new window manager atop the linux kernel with maybe a few extra scripts and drivers to make it just a matter of pointing and clicking to get onto the net without fuss or muss. Yet, something makes me think that in the future, if there is intelligent alien life capable of travelling to earth, instead of hearing the sound of war and angst, they may just hear “I am (name) of Google. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”

    • http://www.bchynds.com BrianH

      @ AMD55:

      Google is “Bigbrother”? Was that why Yahoo turned down their proposal for a better search engine? *sarcasm*

      @ BlenderBoy:

      Comments like these irritate me. You seriously cannot point at market shares for “motivation” to write a virus for a UNIX based system. If you make claims it can be done for Mac OS X, then I want to see it done. Or prove that it has already been done. Competitions have been made in the past by major companies for users to create and spread a virus for Mac OS X into the wild, with VERY rewarding prizes, and they have NEVER seen anyone actually do it. The only virus that I have even heard of was a trojan that was made and spread by illegal versions of iWork. For one, if you’re ripping off a company by downloading an illegal version of their application, you deserve the free trojan that comes along with it. Not only that, but the trojan was immediately acted upon by Apple. It just really ticks me off when people point to Apple vs. Microsoft market shares as if they know what the hell they’re talking about. Apple’s low market share is due to it’s over priced systems, along with customers not knowing much about how a mac even works.

      BACK ON TOPIC:

      It’s awesome to see Google jumping in on the OS bandwagon. They have pushed Open Source applications for years now, and it’s great to see them biting at the OS market. :)

    • mektawik

      Alright, why is google doing this? What’s in it for them?

    • terence

      sorry about that. Should have read the article better.

    • ms

      I wonder, given what people in here know about blender’s GE performance if there would be any advantage to blender games on a netbook over another GE. It’s entirely possible, other than the flash platform, to be the first running game platform on a new Google OS.

      In this particular case, I believe Google is doing a good thing. I think we need another big entity of OS out there, one that people are attracted to. This will bring your favorite apps closer to being on free platforms. I actually like Adobe and I sometimes wish they’d create their own distro of Linux so it’s optimized. I’m really sick of Windows. And I don’t care for Mac OS much either. Both are OK, but tiresome. If this is the answer, by getting Google behind an OS that gets a big momentum, so be it.

      Google can stick their head into whatever they want, when it’s open source. Whatever they build, I could then modify and sell or service with my own clients. It’s definitely good for other people. Open platforms are good, as we know. And then other companies will be competing for faster start time and learning whatever is learned from this, competing where they can compete. Everyone gets better, hopefully.

    • http://WWW Tony

      “I am (name) of Google. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”

      Except that the operating system will essentially be a flavor of GNU/Linux, so something more like

      “I am (name) of GNU/Linux. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.”

      Which is of course the whole point of the GPL :)

      Actually, this is great news. As Mac has shown, some user-oriented, well-funded development on a windowing system to drop on top of a free *nix can make for a system that is more accessible than most Linux distributions. In my experience even the comparatively user-friendlyUbuntu is a much bigger drain on time and energy than Windows or Mac, and I’m a reasonably seasoned *nix user. This is partly to do with too many options (great for geeks and hobbyists, not so great for people who want to do things other than futz around with their OS) and a lack of coordinated hardware support. But of course OX S isn’t free itself, which would be a big point in Chrome’s favor.

      Plus, having Google get into the OS system business would put a very powerful player on the side of OS software. It’d be great to have Google in the free software corner when it comes to dealing with legal issues like software patents, which often hold back the progress of free software.

    • Dman

      All this talk about the web has me thinking. Would it be possible to run blender on a server and control it through a website?

    • Dman

      Think about all of the Summer of code projects that were possible because of Google. What better way to repay them than to make blender available on the web. It would be good for Blender too. Putting the processing part of blender on the web would make it usable on almost any computer hardware. Maybe some smart Blender programmers could get it to work with OnLive http://www.onlive.com/ or since Blender is open source, see if Google would want to try something like OnLive with Blender.

    • thud

      I guess it’s good news that netbooks are finally going to have an OS that works on them…seeing as their crappy hardware specs force vendors to sell them with WinXP instead of Vista.

      but really….

      I don’t see the appeal of netbooks. For the same price, I can buy a nice cell phone (like an iphone or a blackberry) and have the internet (along with tons of other apps) IN MY POCKET or for $200 more I can buy a laptop that will do a lot more than just browse the web.

    • Dman

      For me the internet experience on cell phones has been a major disappointment. I need at least a netbook to get a good internet experience.

    • Cowman

      as long as it is open source i am all for it. even if they drop it after a while it will still be something for the community to play with :) after all that is how blender fell into the hands of open source.

      i wonder were it will fit in here? http://webaugur.com/bibliotheca/field_stock/os-airlines.html

    • kijja

      Maybe I am out of time I don’t like to share everything to other.Like Google want me to
      do everything public. I don’t like their idea google earth, picasa ,Google docs,Chrome.
      I like Google Search Engine,trend,Lab,youtube. I think something should be secret.

    • kijja

      Sorry. out of date.

    • http://spotmeon.blogspot.com gauravanim

      time is approaching to say good bye to microsoft for ever

    • Doogle

      Will google do to MS as they did to Netscape???

    • http://www.eofw.org Jarod

      sorry, but it’s just a Linux Distri. nothing else….
      and webapplications are a nogo for me, my data only on my storage!

    • kwk1

      Google: “[...] so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates.”

      Well, this is Linux/Unix. No need to point it out.

      Google: “It should just work.”

      Now that is Ubuntu :)

    • tony

      A web browser that’s an operation system ? MS isn’t just use for browsing. How will this fight MS ?

    • Felix

      zOMG it’s SkyNet!

      I for one welcome our new overlords!

      nah, I’m really waiting to see what they will bring to the linux world. :)

    • SaphireS

      Why is that important to blender users?
      It’s an OS intended for netbooks with the focus on web.
      Who does serious 3D work on a netbook?
      I don’t even care if blender would eventually run on it.

    • johnj

      my humble opinion:
      1. if open source, it’s good and no spy
      2. if google, it’s important, and i want blender on it
      3. if they want open source community help, i think it’s good (like soc)
      4. a lot of open source has private help (openoffice, beginning of blender, etc.): bazaar+cathedral ;)
      5. only one problem: what about ubuntu, haiku, etc? may be dual (or more) boot… or in the future there will be only one (highlander os)?

    • tyrant monkey

      It puzzles me how many times people miss the point of how microsoft’s os dominate the market, most people get vista, xp because that’s what comes pre-installed with what ever pc they purchase unless you break that partenership between Microsoft and O.E.M you have no chance in hell of breaking their dominance.

      When these netbooks came out they were mostly running linux, it didn’t take too long before consumer demands meant linux was booted for an aged xp. I doubt it won’t be long before the folks at Redmond comes out with an improved windows ce for netbooks or similarly underpowered pcs. Seeing as how Intels atom processor are taking off I think it will be soon.

      Android has already been crowd out of the smart phone by Windows CE, Google marketing spin aside I am deeply skeptical this will have any impact on the OS landscape. The chrome browser has also had a failure to launch which just fuels more of my skeptisms

    • johnj

      may be; but the future is the web
      so, if they make it good for a lot of on line applications perhaps people will need it

    • Nik

      Sounds nice, but also doesn’t sound like an OS i’d like to use. My personal hopes go out to ReactOS instead.

    • http://www.DreadKnight666.com Dread Knight

      Ubuntu might get some real competition now, because most other distros are very lame.

      I really enjoy Google’s products and Google is not half as evil as M$ + Apple.

      I use google search engine, gmail, google docs, orkut, picasa, gtalk, google reader, igoogle, notebook, maps, earth and maybe more.

    • http://digitaldraw.wordpress.com aws357

      There is still one thing that few people have done in the current thread.

      “I demand Blender for Chrome”

      +1 if you agree. :)

    • http://lasserb.dk Lasphere

      I new this would happen at some point. They’v got a 3d app, they have got a browser and a map-thingy and so on. Quite ironic that such a big company’s website is all about redirecting cusomers away to other sites. ;P (pretty cool acually).

      Lookng forward to try this OS out.
      Btw, you have a typo in the title. (Sysystem)

    • http://lasserb.dk Lasphere

      Microsoft is having a hard time…

    • granny_biggins

      @Tim Formica
      So far, I’ve read this announcement on OSNews & Slashdot from within my RSS reader. Both of these are far more suited to report this than blendernation.

      Please, stop reporting things that are completely unrelated to blender. We are perfectly capable of crawling news sites ourselves. Grief, we’d be lucky to escape the hype.

      And efforts to justify this article with “can we run blender on it” discussions are futile too, it’s for netbooks with are terrible for 3D work.

    • http://www.taddmencer.com Tadd Mencer

      While we can sit here and cheer for the Google “open source” OS, let’s stop and think:

      1) It’s based on Linux – so it’s already open source

      2) Having a Google OS being open source means they don’t have to hire all those pesky programmers … they can just have the community do the leg work. Free labor and Google wins.

      3) Google is the Lord of Statistics. Say what you will, I’d bet every last penny that they’ll STILL in corporate analytic software on this OS – open source or not. They’re going to have their own programmers sift through the code before compiling for consuming humans anyway. It would be simple to write a few extra lines in the system before sending out to the sheep.

      4) This isn’t going to be a Microsoft/Mac OS killer. It’s an app specifically for web surfing – the concept isn’t new. Ubuntu already has a NetBook ready version of their OS. Heck, even Intel has their own ‘Moblin’. So the only thing that I can see changing is who’s releasing it. Google has the marketing power of the entire web at their disposal. I’m sure they could probably crap in a bag and somehow people would see that as genius and run to do the same. Anyone remember Google TiSP?

      It’s a web OS – not a full fledged power house like Ubuntu, Windows or MacOS. I wouldn’t look to it for running any major applications. Though what someone said is probably true: This may be a further push to use all online application. Google Docs rather than Office, Aviary rather than the Adobe suite (can’t take my Photoshop dang it!) … while on one hand having things mobile and online is great – but when it’s not on your computer you don’t own the data – they do. Call it what you want, but they own what’s on their computers.

      I may be tempted to dual boot my laptop with this in the future – if it’s small and lightweight. Just to see how it goes. I’m not an OS snob. But I’m not expecting anything but a ‘phail’.

    • Bozo

      Like Jarod pointed out, I want my data to be under my control, hence I’m not a friend of web based applications.
      Google OS may be interesting for thin clients and netbooks, but it’s certainly not something that fits everyone’s needs.

    • http://www.animationbytim.com/ Tim Formica [Room335]

      granny_biggins I wrote the article because the OS may have a future with Blender. Google stated that they are working with the open source community. Blender is a large Open Source community.

      I did check with Ton prior to writing the article and he had not been approached by Google as of yet. Blender already has a relationship with Google via the GSOC and I felt it was news worthy of this site. Part of Ton’s response was “better have real experts reviewing this first!” So I put this out to the Blender community who are the experts with Blender to gather their input.

    • Alexander Blank

      @ Tadd Mencer: While I absolutely agree with you regarding points 1-3, I still hold some degree of reservations on whether or not they could *potentially* dethrone Microsoft. My best guess is that this may weaken Microsoft’s grip on the mass market. I would even possibly go one further and say that if Android hasn’t beaten the iPhone yet, I don’t think it ever will (and then such goes to show that perhaps the Chrome OS stands little chance to make more than a slight ripple in the sea of OSs). While Google is the Lord of Statistics, I don’t believe that Google has a broad enough world view (or perhaps just the gumption) to take a step away from the internet. Chrome OS may take hold of the netbook market, but if they really want to get World Domination, they will come out with an OS capable of running for a few hours without having to reconnect to the net.

    • hitechboy722

      No single OS organistation in the world can gurantee you security! You have to be stupid to argue with me! and worse to go ahead and anounce it about your product!

    • Ryan Anderson

      What I can appreciate about Google is that they keep pushing their own boundaries. It seems less profit oriented for them and more them doing stuff just cause they want to try it.

    • http://nicknamfx.worpress.com Nicknamz

      i think is a good news, whatever other think, i prefer see more competition, more option for all user, google offer many solution free, and give uss the posibility to have some new apps in blender with Google Summer of Code… so, im curious.

      @granny_gibbins: you can read, you can post, but you can’t say… “Please, stop reporting things that are completely unrelated to blender”… is only a news, there other news about blender, where i dont see the number of comment like i see here, so if some only stand up for complain,.. whay dont stand to support this—->… this is a blender news i like to see how react blender comunity…..>

      http://farsthary.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/sorry-for-the-advertising/

    • nesneci

      Google always steals other people ideas and wrap them in a new package then the whole world drools over. If I were to compare MS vs Google I say MS has been way more innovative. So far the only thing Google has actually created has been a search engine, the rest comes from acquisitions or stealing concepts from others. Way long before gmail there was hotmail remember? I am not an Ms supporter at all but this sense of Google fan boy crowd makes me throw up. One day you all will be unhappy with your past Google fanboyism. No personal attack here but I prrsonally do not expect anything good comes from Google.

      Whos is the worst evil, Google or MS? I say Google.

    • Alexander Blank

      @Ryan Anderson: Perhaps its just me, but I tend to think that anything a corporation does is all about profits, and I don’t see why a Chrome OS wouldn’t fit into that template of corporate thought. Remember that any use of Google products can be a medium for advertising, which is how Google makes money, so if Google can have users interacting with Google 100% of the time, that means Google is raking in profit 100% of the time anyone uses a computer (which leads to a LOT of money). I don’t have a problem with them doing that as long as they don’t disrupt net-neutrality.
      @Nicknamz: Here-here! I share your sentiments in regards to Granny’s post.
      @nesneci: The entire computer business is based upon theft of ideas! As far as I am concerned, only a select few people have been innovative in the computer industry (and sadly, most of them have not profited from their innovation). The GUI was stolen from Xerox PARC by Apple which was then copied by Microsoft. Laptops, cell phones, software, operating systems, and even business models are just taken and given a shiny new face to conceal that you really aren’t seeing anything new. Most people don’t even know one operating system from another without REALLY obvious help (i.e. a new window manager or even just a new skin on the old one). Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Google: none have really been innovative in quite some time. That’s why I use CP/M! (Not really, but you get the point). I think I’ll stick with Linux and (only for Finale) Windows.

    • Pawel

      I think it’s exciting that they’re doing something new, and stepping into MS’s territory. However, I’m not into all this hype over net-based applications. I love using Zoho.com suite, which has offers A LOT more than Google Apps, and much more neatly (although still a bit buggy). I can do note-taking, scheduling, mail, even basic word-processing on the web, it’s convenient, mobile, integrated… But I wouldn’t want to do any 3D or 2D on a web-based interface. As some people have pointed out, it’s better to have all your important data (especially creative stuff) on your own drive. Also, I haven’t seen a web-based application that would run nearly as efficiently, neatly, be as fast, stable, and configurable, as the “old school” local program. Usually there’s a lot of clumsiness, sluggishness, dependence on net speed variations and failures, weird pop-ups with buttons extruding past the dialog border, text not quite matching the buttons… (maybe the latter wouldn’t be a problem if it were ONE system and ONE browser, so it would all have to look the same).
      Would you expect a remotely-powered version of Blender to run nearly as fast and smoothly as the local one? I don’t know, maybe it’s just a question of time when these differences disappear, but in the current reality, let’s leave the web to docs and calendars… And organizing your photos. But not doing any serious work on them :)

    • jap

      two questions when and were can i downloaded and what about developer tools

    • http://www.gameblender.org Richard Perkins

      I always told people who said “Google’s taking over the world” that they have nothing to worry about until they decide to take over the OS market, and here we are. Had a bad feeling they were going to, but wasn’t sure why.

      I’m curious how this will play out.

    • OboeNerd

      I don’t think people get it… they’re not taking over the OS market, they’re only aiming at netbooks for the time being. So all we’re pretty much going to see is a bunch of Google web apps and Linux support for Chrome. Lalala, I don’t see anything too exciting here. They’ve already made an OS for smartphones which competed against Windows Mobile, so what’s so special about this?

    • broken_sword

      What about… Blender OS?

    • Skyler

      Why is google creating yet another open source OS, when there is a perfectly good open source OS available? If google has no intention to make a profit off of their OS, why waste the effort. Why don’t they take their financial backing, and their talented developers and put it toward Linux? Not only would they have a great number of talented developers, but they’d have all the Linux developers at their side. I think it’s a waste of perfectly good resources to build something from scratch. Linux is amazing. Lets get Linux appealing to the ignorant who think Windows is great. C’mon google, you have a lot of developers, have you ever heard the term DRY? Why duplicate the effort that Linux has already gone through?

    • http://www.gameblender.org Richard Perkins

      @OboeNerd: The key word in what you said is “for the time being” :P

      @Skyler: I totally agree with you.

    • SiriusCG

      The new OS is “web-centric”, it’s designed primarily for those “who live online”. What beneficial impact this could have on the desktop OS applications crowd is dubious at best. Google Chrome browser and Android have failed to make serious inroads thus far and I doubt seriously that the Chrome OS will do any better.

      Ho Hum… Just give me a good LINUX distro anytime.

      Google, like Microsoft is over-reaching themselves and time will be the telling of it. Some one once said, “It is better to do one thing very well, than to do many things mediocre.”

      Stick to what you know Google.

    • johnj

      anyway, if the future is web 2.0 the problem is not if it’s good but how to make it good
      so, when there’ll be optical cabled people all over the world there’ll be a web-blender
      i think that the problem is how to make people to own there pc even if on line
      may be open source os, but with a lot of chances to control everything
      i think we must work a lot on this
      sorry for my funny english ;-)

    • As

      Good to hear there will be another option, Google Chrome OS has one advantage, maybe more software developers will create their app version for it? As long as Google Chrome OS is a free choice there are no problems with it. I wish major software developers would build Linux versions of their software, I don’t understand why they don’t, yea there are people who are only free software kind, but there are also a lot of people who would go to Linux if they could use their daily software on Linux natively, I don’t care whether i got to buy it or not, if i need it I will pay as long as I can use it on Linux and have a choice. now lots of people are forced to stay with MS because they can’t afford Mac, Linux has no native versions and there are no emulators to work good with software. Now Google Chrome OS has opportunity to bring something better maybe, well known name, it won’t be 1000 and 1 distro of Linux so developers will have a chance to have a stable core to build software for. And since GCOS will be built on Linux kernel, maybe the Linux that are built on the same core will advantage also? Because not everyone are internet maniacs and connects their power computers to internet. Offline version of it would be great though.

      maybe there is a chance to forget MS after all. Even though Windows 7 is great OS (Lot better than Vista and XP) with this economy free OS has better chances simply because i think most of people want to invest to software they work with rather than protection against malware and viruses.

      my two cents

    • Nemesis#13

      WHAT DA HELL HAS THIS TO DO WITH BLENDER?
      seriously, this news is now all across the web and when i look up blendernation i don’t expect “hey, see what’s new in the software world”, but “hey, see this cool blender related stuff”.

      put it on blenderartists’ offtopic/general discussion forums…

    • LOGAN

      That’s good news although i already know it’s coming. But to be honest it’s not even remotely related to Blender, not even indirect at this time. What’s next? Windows 7 released? Hehe.

      There’s some news lying on the shelf bumped ahead due to the Google stuff… Better topic; I added a few 3D models for Google Earth I made with Blender. 2 of the models are not in Google 3D layer :)

    • Hugo Oliveira

      Google owns the Internet. And is not Google, it’s Sir Google.

      But Google OS will not get to the real deal, company users. This kind of users prefers a SO for housewife, like XP or even worse, Vista.

    • nesneci

      Some people said that this is good news. What is so good about a possibly ad driven(if not now, in 5 years) OS?

    • johnj

      may be i’m wrong, but i think that this fact is related to blender; for example is possible that a team collaborate to work on blender because they need it on their os; in fact one of the prblems if you get a new os (as Haiku) is to get the applications; for 3d there is blender; if they go opensource, they can use ather people work, but they can make other people use their things; and blender can be the first web 2.0 3d tool; anyway, this is the power of the opensource

    • vidrazor2

      I’m at a loss why Google would launch a second Linux OS when it already has Android. Android is JUST beginning to gain some momentum and Google goes off and does this. This has the potential to screw up acceptance of Android. Frankly I think Google tends to have too many pet projects which it never follows through with.

    • alxarch

      Why would someone post this on BlenderNation? It’s not a news, everything and the kitchensync site, please keep this sort of posts to other blogs/sites.
      Chrome OS from what i have read (in the proper sites for this sort of news ie slashdot) will be completely different from other distros. People are even talking of a directFB implementation of the chrome browser. If this is true it will be harder or so hard that it makes no sense to port most of the apps that currently live in the X user space of most distros. Chrome OS is not sommething that blendershould worry about or even care at the moment to port to (except if a webplugin is achieved). On it’s own it’s destined to fail on overtaking MS. Combined with the upcoming Google Wave (google it…) it will shake things for good and a vast majority of “casual” users will be fully satisfied by such a product. I see this sort of OS being more of a competition to Ubuntu than to Windows. Ubuntu right now is the best platform (cost + safety) for a user who just uses their pc for browsing/photos/torrents etc. One good thing that can come out of it for Linux is hardware support. Google wants all content to be online but this content can’t magically dissapear from my camera/scanner/camcorder and appear on google’s servers. So some hardware io will need to happen outside the browser and there we’ll need to see how google can keep this OS lean and mean while having to run stuff like HAL/gvfs etc.
      I am feeling like feeding a troll answering to this post in blendernation.

    • http://www.animationbytim.com/ Tim Formica [Room335]

      alxarch

      As to why this is Blender news see my comment above on July 9th

    • http://illustriousproductions.com Clint G.

      There’s an aweful lot of bad noise about Google’s master plan to spy on everyone and supply the government with an endless stream of cookies.

      I reckon the concept of Free and Open Source Software is lost on some folks

      When you have access to the source code, you can look at it! So grab a copy of your favorite publisher’s finest tutorial on the C and C++ programming languages and do something about it.

      Read the code, contribute to the source-tree, and when everybody starts spying on everybody else, blame each other.

      You’re freedom and privacy are yours to protect, so protect it by making this Chrome OS the OS you want it to be.

    • http://illustriousproductions.com Clint G.

      Additionally, I’m rocking Android right now on a cell phone and a netbook. It’s made leaps and bounds in an arena that the folks at Google (and this developer) have never touched. It did so with some pretty original concepts too.

      Examples:

      Process (thread) locking: Threads use the user authentication subsystem of the Linux kernel to protect themselves, exclusively. Android isn’t really meant to be used as a multi-user operating system, and the community behind Android (Google initially and primarily) saw this and capitalized on it as a way to make the platform more secure than most.

      Multiple VMs:

      Multiple instances of the Dalvik Virtual Machine (at least 2) run at any given moment, helping to prioritize between demonized and foregrounded processes. When I heard the majority of the platform was going to be developed in Java I assumed it was going to be slower than most. This methodology provides the user with a snappier experience than most mobile handsets (apart from the OpenMoko software stack, whose software is largely written in C/C++ with a proper, non-interpreted Qt frontend).

      OpenMoko brings me to an important point. I’m excited to see Google and the rest of us, or those of us that can get off the blog and into the compiler, developing a lightweight GNU/Linux based platform. Google has done amazing things in the realms of communication and collaborative development. Code ain’t no LaunchPad, but I think everyone should keep a sharp eye on the Chrome OS, because Google and the community may suprise us with some groundbreaking innovations.