Comments on: Google Chrome OS: Web developers rule! :)

By: thnkfstr

thnkfstr — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:32:04 +0000

Nice Wired article that takes a hard look at why Chrome OS has a lot to overcome. Apparently no one wants Linux netbooks (~25% market share in 2008, ~5% expected in 2009). Will Chrome OS successfully disguise itself as something more than another Linux distro? I’m not convinced…

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/chrome-linux/

By: thnkfstr

thnkfstr — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:14:42 +0000

Chrome OS Beta

That’s all we’ll see for the next 5-6 years. Google’s notoriously bad customer support will undoubtedly be ramped up by a person or two to handle stone walling the increased number of users looking for help.

Sigh… it’s an exciting announcement, but I call bullshyt until it’s out of beta with strong customer support.

By: OutputLogic

OutputLogic — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:43:35 +0000

Here are a few tips on how to monetize Google Chrome OS:

- short Microsoft stock
- long Google
- write a book on Chrome OS
- add “10 years of Chrome OS experience” to your resume
- offer PowerPC and other processors support
- register lots of Chrome OS-related URLs now and sell them later

By: hbi

hbi — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:21:37 +0000

@soundseller, @loadx, @fzametti:
First of all, thanks for the kind words. Even though I’m a daily reader of Ajaxian, I have deliberately postponed submitting anything about Cloudo at Ajaxian. The reason for this is that I don’t feel we’re anyway near a final release. Additionally, we want to avoid the cliché “promise mighty, deliver poorly”. Instead our aim is to deliver our vision of how it should be and at the end we will be judged regardless but at least we have not promised limitless blue skies.

@loadx:
The goal is to submit/surrender applications running in Cloudo to suitable developers/groups. They will decide and plan the development branch themselves. Obviously, the open source community works for everyone’s benefits so why not absorb this process? Furthermore, IMHO, if some day Cloudo (or any other platform) becomes popular, the control as well as contribution to it should be decentralized. Of course we’ll organize some important applications in Cloudo, such as Finder and the core of Cloudo. Our intention is to offer Cloudo for free and we want to deliver a solution so that the developers/groups share revenues from potential banners (or whatever commercial ads they add) so that their work in fact is rewarded. I think you see where I am going with this but have in mind that this is our goal. It might take some time before we’re there.

@WillPeavy:
Perhaps I have misinterpret the article but gcOS will work on standards-based browsers. A thin Linux kernel, with a great browser (such as Firefox) “pre-installed” and auto-started is insignificantly done. There are already such distro:s available. This task is on our to-do list as well but not as prioritized. I suspect the gcOS will have some additional features but why speculate? :-)

Once again, thank you for taking a positive pose towards Cloudo. But we have received criticism for not developing Cloudo faster but the reason is as stated above. We’re working with other projects as well. If you like Cloudo and what we’re doing with it, I hope you’ll have patience with us.

By: kitntodd

kitntodd — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:41:54 +0000

Web development is about to evolve. The current technologies we use to create web apps can’t build the kind of apps that consumers want/need. HTML, Javascript, CSS, Ajax: they’re too slow, not powerful enough and suffer from cross-browser compatibility problems that make web apps expensive to build. What is needed is a unified platform for building web apps that could target the middle ground between apps like Google Docs and MS Office.

We’re already beginning to see the precursors. Flex, Silverlight, Google Chrome OS: these are being created in response to demand from consumers who want a richer, faster Internet experience and who want the Internet to play a more central role in their daily lives.

It’s coming…watch for it.

By: fredclown

fredclown — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:16:21 +0000

Isn’t this exactly what gOS Cloud is doing?

By: WillPeavy

WillPeavy — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:28:37 +0000

Chrome OS looks awesome. Cloudo looks awesome too.

I don’t see how the architecture is similar though. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears Cloudo is a web app that looks like an OS and allows file storage/sharing. And Chrome is a local desktop environment that runs over a linux kernel.

By: fzammetti

fzammetti — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:06:48 +0000

Ditto soundseller and loadx’s comments… Cloudo is extremely impressive. I’ve looked at every web OS that’s come down the pipe, and I put in a few months’ time developing my own, which ain’t bad… but then I see something like Cloudo and I realize I’ve been wasting my time :)

I’ll be watching your project with great interest. Obviously you’re a business, so the cost is going to be interesting to see, but if it’s reasonable then I’m excited about this. What you’ve done is very, very impressive and I’m more interested in it than Google’s project at this point :)

By: loadx

loadx — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:17:32 +0000

@hbi: After i saw your post I was thinking.. here we go yet another web os. Not true, I am in awe of what you and your team have achieved, I can’t get over just how much work has been done to make it an almost full-featured OS and being funded off of your own back to boot.

You and your team must be commended on such a fine effort.
I look forward to seeing where this goes.

One thing I quickly noticed was commits to source code in existing applications. What happens with these? Is it stored only on the users instance or is it pushed back to a source control branch etc? ..you can see where I’m going with this right. Imagine the collboration when you have people branching and fixing bugs for you!

Mat.

By: soundseller

soundseller — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:44:02 +0000

@hbi
This is crazy s%&t!

By: hbi

hbi — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:30:18 +0000

The architecture is very similar to Cloudo, our own project. We are still in beta phase and we do have lots to do left but at least you can try it out.

http://www.cloudo.com
http://beta.cloudo.com

Have in mind that we are just a small company with few employees and we’re financing this project privately ourselves by undertaking profitable projects.

By: pmontrasio

pmontrasio — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:49:52 +0000

If one OS has to die I hope it’s Android: it’s not really Linux, it’s not really Java. At least Chrome is really a web browser.

By: asylmottaket

asylmottaket — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:43:02 +0000

So, based on the graphics gsOS is a compressed version of Microsoft Windows? :-)

Will Chrome be renamed to Internet Chrome Explorer and get features like poor CSS and HTML support too?

By: andysky

andysky — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:34:45 +0000

> “Google now has two competing open source in-house
> Linux-based operating systems with Webkit browsers.
> This won’t end well.”

Why not? This is open source after all. Both can feed off each other.

By: andysky

andysky — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:28:19 +0000

I hereby swear allegiance to the Open Web.
;)