I'm neither a Google zealot nor a skeptic, wicked-cool giant future-perfect robot logo aside, my interest in Chrome OS arises from a lifelong love of doing more with less. It's my opinion that the potential gain in material efficiency with an approach like Chromium OS is worth examining. If it's sound then we can reclaim a significant amount of energy tied up in a process many technologists never gave a second thought: compiling.

Though the Ubuntu Netbook Remix is the best and most mature operating system for netbooks, the Ubuntu roadmap doesn't look like it incorporates any of the of the insight of the Chromium OS project. Its my opinion that the Chromium OS team identified a large inefficiency in the conceptual client/server model. 

Chrome OS specifically departs from the classical approach in the handling of compiled binaries. A fundamental example is the Instant Messenger client. We can assume that if an IM client can connect to a server to send an IM, it's only a small amount of bandwidth away from accessing the IM program its self. As bandwidth becomes more readily available, it becomes an unnecessary cost to download and compile "Pidgin" (a popular linux IM client) as a binary on the system. The same with so many of the elements we take for granted as necessary architectural elements of a computer. Chromium OS is the opportunity to examine exactly what can and cannot be moved into the (dare I say it) cloud.

As far as I can tell there is no significant recognition of this in the field. The closest thing is Jolicloud, which has made effort to convert Synaptic into an "App Store" experience. Though with the volume of GPL code involved in synaptic I don't believe Jolicloud could ever sell a commercial piece of software or media through the "App Store-izing" of Synaptic. In addition they do not give any way to discern which apps are based upon the web and which apps are compiled locally. This makes a very confusing app experience where some Apps just look like bookmarks; and the bookmark-like nature of Jolicloud has done a lot to craft my opinion, concluding that until someone like the Mozilla Foundation pursues it's own flavor of Ubuntu, and presents it as the FirefoxOS anything other than Chromium OS approach will look like a glorified bookmark.

Ubuntu tries to support everything, rightly so because everything needs support, but they do not yet support the one thing Chromium OS is trying to do very well, which is take back the space and time wasted in compiling and storing the binaries we no longer need. I believe the opportunity with Chromium OS is sound. Especially if there are organic elements to the eco-system. Like user groups and independent technologists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. *wink

http://www.meetup.com/ChromeOS

Sid Gabriel

Posted via email from The Sid Gabriel Post