No thanks Google, we've got Ubuntu

http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/software/soa/No-thanks-Google-we-ve-got-Ubuntu/0,139023769,339297306,00.htm

by nreece • 17 years ago

104 75 17 years ago

zdnet.com.au

Raphael• 17 years ago

Using the Linux kernel in GCOS is not intended to compete with mos Linux distributions, rather it is to keep the lights on.

michaelneale• 17 years ago

Similar with Android.

sadiq• 17 years ago

This is why the open source movement is so interesting, we're seeing competition and innovation in Operating Systems like never before.

The cost of taking world-class components (like the kernel, filesystems, windowing systems) is so low that it makes sense for people and companies to experiment, as we're seeing now. Chrome OS would be prohibitively expensive to develop if they weren't able to take so much off of the shelf.

netsp• 17 years ago

On the same note, without Open Source, netbooks may never have gotten a start. Microsoft could have charged a prohibitive license fee to sell $350 laptops. They could have refused to continue XP. Windows 7 for netbooks would never have been necessary.

greyman• 17 years ago

The author seems to see Chrome OS as just another linux distro, and asks why not to take Ubuntu and make it better. But I don't think that's the case. They will just take the Linux kernel and build browser-based OS, which will be quite a different product from Ubuntu.

I am looking forward to this. It seems to me, no offense, that Linux just didn't win against Windows, and that doesn't seem to change in the next few years. Even on netbooks, most people preferred Windows Xp for $50 to a free Ubuntu, and Win7 is supposed to be even better. It seems to me that Ubuntu is just a niche product, while Chrome OS could have bigger appeal.

woodsier• 17 years ago

What I find more troubling is this notion that variety (or fragmentation as they call it) is bad.

They very clearly state it is an OS geared for low-resource netbook style computers, where browsers are up and running within seconds of pressing the on button. We don't have one of these yet, afaik.

Why not work with Ubuntu? It's geared to be the Windows of Linux, an all-round competitor and jack of all trades. In my mind, this would be stupid. That's like the original Ubuntu developers getting grief because they weren't building on some other distro, which may have been built with a different use in mind.

I like using Unix for my server, Win7 for my home laptop, and hopefully giving a stable version of Chrome OS a swing down the line on my girlfriend's netbook. If anything, it sounds like they want to build "down" from ditro's such as Ubuntu, not up. I'd rather not use a baseball bat in a game of tennis. Variety is a good thing.

secret• 17 years ago

Isn't this browser OS concept essentially what the Crunchpad aims to be?

Edit: Of course, the crunchpad is also the hardware component, making it more all-in-one.

trezor4• 17 years ago

They very clearly state it is an OS geared for low-resource netbook style computers, where browsers are up and running within seconds of pressing the on button. We don't have one of these yet, afaik.

My laptop (Windows) and Netbook (Ubuntu) is ready to surf the net within seconds from I bring it back from suspended/hibernated state. I can't recall last time I powered any of them down.

So for me, while you are technically correct, it still fails to have any real world impact as far as I am concerned.

Variety is a good thing.

This I would have to agree with.

htsh• 17 years ago

My view is that Ubuntu has a long way to go in terms of brand recognition before non-tech folks will jump in. But I agree with your positive view of this news. I think more people would be likely to jump into a Linux-based os with the Google brand behind it. People have heard of Windows & Mac and they are still mostly afraid of the unfamiliar Ubuntu, but selling people on "google" is easy, if not already done.

brfox• 17 years ago

Apple also decided to make a linux distro which happens to be very good. If it wasn't for OSX, then Ubuntu would be far more popular than it is today. The author is thinking that perhaps Chrome OS will do more of the same thing (take away market share from Ubuntu).

I personally think that there is a lot more to a computer than a web browser, so maybe Chrome OS will be mostly competing with Windows in the Netbooks market - since linux has mostly lost a lot of ground in that area.

ErrantX6• 17 years ago

Indeed the same argument could apply to any new distro - why not drop your ideas and go make Ubuntu better.

Answer: because that is not the point of Open Source.

raganwald• 17 years ago

I logged into make that point _of Ubuntu itself_. Ubuntu was a new distribution at one time, launched in the face of existing popular options. If Ubuntu is wonderful, is it wonderful in spite of not rolling its ideas into the popular distributions at the time? Or is it wonderful precisely because it was able to decisively forge its own path?

And if so, why shouldn't that same logic apply to Chrome?

ktharavaad• 17 years ago

For an example of what the chromeOS might end up like, take a look at this:

http://www.thinkgos.com/index.html

Ironically, its called gOS which implies strong google connections and thats reinforced by the integration of all the google apps.

I think it boots up in a few seconds, only has a chrome-like browser running and custom launcher for certain apps.

peregrine• 17 years ago

I was thinking about that as soon as I saw this. I think Google's strategy is a little bit different in that Google will be a browser first an operating system second.

trezor4• 17 years ago

I think the author raises a valid point.

Back in the days, when Microsoft was the big, bad guy which everyone feared, not a monopolist, but the Monopolist, the One That Had To Be Stopped(tm), the current state of affairs was as following:

  * Microsoft controlled the OS
  * Microsoft had a Office suite
    (and defacto control of interchange file-formats)
  * Microsoft had a web-browser
  * Microsoft has a mobile platform
    (with support for the Office file formats and little else)

Now let's take a look at Google whose ass everyone seems collectively interested in kissing:

  * Google controls the majority of all web search
  * Google controls the majority of free web-mail
  * Google apps not only makes it their software
    but they also control your data
  * Google also has access to your local data
    albeit only if you use Google desktop search
  * Google tracks users everywhere on the web
    Google analytics lets them know what you are doing and why
  * Google has a browser
  * Google has a mobile OS
    Oh! And it in ties closely with all of Google's services
  * Google has a closed platform for application hosting
    Again they have total access to all your data

And now Google wants to make a desktop OS to further make sure they control every part of your daily activities.

But I guess it is entirely unproblematic that they can track your every activity wherever you are, on whatever device you are and whatever platform you are using. They are the good guys, right?

And it's not like they have lock-in on the file-formats you use, they just have lock-in on your actual data. I mean who cares about that?

After all they are using web-standards to do the stuff they do, so it can't be bad, right?

Edit: Posts like this makes me wish HN had markdown support for unordered lists allready.

ErrantX6• 17 years ago

solution (if you dont trust them).

dont use Google, it's perfectly possible to do so.

trezor4• 17 years ago

That doesn't alter the fact that they are much more in control of what most users do, yet people regard Microsoft as the one we should be afraid of.

And how would you know if you send mail to someone using gmail or gmail hosted that google doesn't use this information against you? You don't.

I'm not saying we need to shut down Google, just that I find it odd that most of the FOSS world still regards Microsoft as the one we should be afraid of and avoid at all cost. After all: Google does have its arsenal of closed-source solutions with varying degrees of lock-in and little to no options for opting out once your data is harvested.

If the day comes that the government wants to go big brother on us, I'm pretty sure Google and/or their data will first on the list of things they want to get under their control, not Microsoft.

dantheman• 17 years ago

Google most definitely does not control email. Yahoo mail has many more users.

jacquesm3• 17 years ago

That may be so, but it's been a long time since I've mailed somebody at a yahoo address, gmail addresses are 13 per dozen in my contact list, and all of them are active as far as I can see.

dkarl• 17 years ago

I have two Yahoo addresses that I check once a month and one Gmail account I'm logged into 24/7.

tjogin• 17 years ago

There is no lock-in with Google, and that makes all the difference.

Switching to a different provider of search, email, website statistics, ads, browser, etc, is not only possible — it is effortless.

Google haven't made alliances with other vendors to make it hard or even uncomfortable to use a competitor's product in either market. Quite the contrary, many of their services provide means of exporting my data, unlike many of their competitors.

Google does not dominate either one of those markets due to having leveraged dominance on another market, forcing the end-user's choice. I do not have to use Gmail just because I use Google for searching, it is just as easy to use any other email provider instead. Same thing goes for ads, browser, etc.

As long as Google's services continue to be free of lock-in and either one are easily switched out for a competitor's product, I'll be comfortable using their various services in spite of dominance in various markets.

patio11• 17 years ago

There is no lock-in with Google, and that makes all the difference.

I don't know, considering they're responsible for something like 80% of my business most days I'm feeling pretty freaking locked in...

rbanffy4• 17 years ago

"There is no lock-in with Google"

While Microsoft owned the program and the data format my data was stored, Google owns the program, the data format and the server my data is stored in.

I am not sure how comfortable I should feel. Data export facilities are your friends.

encoderer5• 17 years ago

Effortless?

You are currently using 1794 MB (24%) of your 7345 MB.

How can I "Effortlessly" move my 18,000 emails to another provider?

How can I "Effortlessly" replace my need to cater to Der Googlebot for the assurance of keeping happy my largest source of traffic?

All I'm saying is... if 3/4 of all toll free phone calls to American businesses were routed thru a single provider, that company would be regulated by the Government. I don't necessarily thing Google should be regulated, but I do think you are naieve if you think the existence of Google circa 2009 isn't as dangerous as Microsoft circa 1999.

stcredzero3• 17 years ago

There is no lock-in with Google, and that makes all the difference.

Companies that are making an effort to use lock-in to keep you are not using that effort to keep you by giving you good customer service and user experience. A "no lock-in" policy supports quality. It says that a company is going to live or die by quality, not by something that sucks for the customer.

zimbabwe2• 17 years ago

But I guess it is entirely unproblematic that they can track your every activity wherever you are, on whatever device you are and whatever platform you are using. They are the good guys, right?

That's smarmy. I'll admit a teensy bit of bias, since I've never understood why people are so worried about being tracked. My letters to college professors I'm fine with Google scanning; love letters are about as embarrassing as my Google communications get, but I'm not exactly worried about them leaking to the world.

If you don't want to use Google, don't use Google. Use DuckDuckGo for search, set up your own webmail, don't use Chrome, don't use the Google Toolbar, don't use Android, and Google has absolutely no power over you. You're free!

Meanwhile, Google makes their business out of studying data, and its users all seem to think that's worth getting access to Google's stuff.

I hate this sarcastic mode of writing posts wherein it's a given that the company's evil, so you're allowed little jabs like:

After all they are using web-standards to do the stuff they do, so it can't be bad, right?

Nobody mentioned fucking web standards, man. Nobody would ever use that as a counterargument. You're raising strawmen to be baked in gas chambers.

I don't use my Google account at all nowadays. Google doesn't seem too upset by that. I'm satisfied with their level of control if they're not assholes about it when I stop being enslaved.

jacquesm3• 17 years ago

So, some suggestions:

- Your business plan about your web search startup. - correspondence / health records documenting some medical condition - a personal diary where you admit to something embarassing

All of these - and true, they're created to illustrate the point so a little farfetched - would be a real problem in case google decided to take a more active interest in the contents of your various data stores.

Elepsis• 17 years ago

And how is this different from what you can do with Microsoft software and services today?

encoderer5• 17 years ago

Without disagreeing with your broader point, Gmail is popular but far from "controlling the majority of free web-mail."

allenbrunson• 17 years ago

It's not really how much stuff Microsoft controlled that made them dangerous. It's the fact that they had no qualms about using their monopoly power to squash competitors. So far, Google hasn't demonstrated that tendency.

TweedHeads• 17 years ago

Yes thanks Google, we've got Ubuntu and we want more options.

Better options.

wglb• 17 years ago

See, but it is not a one size fits all kind of thing. If you have an iphone or ipod or a mac, you also have freebsd. If you have other cellphones, you have another os. And his thinking is influenced by the system administrator point of view.

jncraton• 17 years ago

Mozilla Firefox is completely independent and not pushing anyone's agenda

I'm not sure that this is strictly true. The majority of the revenue from Firefox comes from the search deal with Google.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/28/mozilla-extends-lucrati...

noonespecial• 17 years ago

I shudder to think what ubuntu would run like on an arm with 128 meg. Ubuntu is cool on by daul core 4Ghz. Much less cool on my old 500Mhz PIII (even the XFCE edition).

Why not just say ubuntu is for big computers, chrome/os for small ones and not try to shoehorn any one thing onto everything?

krschultz• 17 years ago

Ubuntu Netbook Remix runs faster than Moblin & Windows XP on an Intel Atom - the primary CPU for netbooks. When they say ARM they mean something that can compete with the Atom, not some of the lower level ones.

maggie• 17 years ago

"I shudder to think what ubuntu would run like on an arm with 128 meg"

It's not bad.

rbanffy4• 17 years ago

Have you seen how much memory a couple tabs open in Chrome take? Heavy browser usage in a 128 megabyte machine is ludicrous.

What I fear is that a viable low-memory option for ARM-based netbooks kills the need for memory expansion on them. I want a light and inexpensive netbook, but I also need 2+ gigabytes if RAM to work.

And no. I won't return to a full-size (and full-weight) notebook.

wlievens• 17 years ago

Great news for ARM, I guess.

rbanffy4• 17 years ago

I would prefer a desktop-like OS for ARM-based devices.

If the mainstream go for simpler OSs for those smartbooks, there will be little demand for a multi-gigabyte RAM with real hard-disk class of non-x86 machines.

I love my Acer Aspire One and use it as my main development system, but I have no need for its Windows compatibility and would trade it for longer battery life any day.

And a cache-heavy 4+ core ARM with decent FP capability would still need less juice than a single-core Atom.

eli2• 17 years ago

You can email Linus Torvalds or Mark Shuttleworth directly and get answers to your Linux questions, sometimes within minutes or hours.

I call BS. At best, maybe you can get answers like that because you're a already a Linux wizard. Linus and Mark are not going to help me set up my network printer with Ubuntu.

jacquesm3• 17 years ago

If you need help with setting up your network printer with Ubuntu you can find dozens of avenues where you can get that answer (you could email me for instance, I'd be happy to help you ;) ), also, last time I did this myself the process was completely painless.

I realize that you are speaking tongue in cheek but it is a less than fortunate example.

Oh, and the offer to help is serious in case you really have that problem.

eli2• 17 years ago

Hey, every OS has support forums (and Ubuntu's are above average), but "I can just email the kernel developer" is not a rational way to deal with set up and support issues.

Support isn't the real issue anyway. You can always buy support (it's not like the support you get with Windows is anything special anyway).

Ubuntu (and Linux generally) is great as a server. I gave up on Ubuntu on the desktop. It was very hard to set up and configure. Sleep/resume was flaky on my Thinkpad. On my desktop it took several days of trying different drivers and hacking xorg.conf to get my second monitor to work properly, and my cheapo webcam is flat-out not supported by any driver I could find (and I really looked).

Yeah, these are mostly driver issues that aren't really Linux's "fault" -- but who cares. In Windows everything just worked out of the box.

I think Google will have the same problems. People aren't going to be happy if they buy a Google PC and nothing happens when they plug in their ancient, oddball plotter printer.

eleitl• 17 years ago

> The growing dominance of Ubuntu (at least on the desktop, the server room seems to have been won by Red Hat)

Not my server room, for certain. Debian is doing very nicely there.

Desktop yes (along with Win XP and OS X), but I could go to Debian there, if I wanted to.

jacoblyles• 17 years ago

If google sees a need that isn't being met by the community, then it doesn't make sense to partner with an existing effort that already has its own people, mission, biases, and agenda. Ubuntu is very different from the Chrome OS.

It sounds like the author is angry at Google for competing with a product that he is emotionally invested in. While I can understand his emotional investment, I think it is foolish to get angry at companies for innovating and providing the world with new technologies.

known• 17 years ago

Users do not run OS. They run Applications. Hence it is rational to compare Usability, Performance and Functionality of GNOME/KDE/FOSS/Google Applications with Microsoft Applications.

No thanks Google, we've got Ubuntu

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