Google Chrome OS Released To The Open Source Community
Google last week announced that its Chrome Operating System (OS) has been released to the open source community. This means that the code is capable of being changed by anybody, and in any way that benefits the OS. This open source access has been announced a year in advance of the proper release of Chrome OS; this is to make sure that Google gain maximum benefit in terms of functionality from the open source community.The upside of using the open source community in this way is that you get the "wisdom of crowds" operating, for free. The downside is that you do not have the control that you would normally have over your project. Google have obviously decided that the benefits outweigh the risks in this case.
Google says in the recent Google blog entry:
"We want to take this opportunity to explain why we're excited about the project and how it is a fundamentally different model of computing."
They go on to explain the main advantages of Chrome OS over a standard OS:
1. "First, it's all about the web. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs."
2. "Second, because all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. While no computer can be made completely secure, we're going to make life much harder (and less profitable) for the bad guys."
3. "Most of all, we are obsessed with speed. We are taking out every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds."
These three benefits, Google is hoping, will allow Chrome OS to achieve the monumental task of overtaking Windows in the operating system wars. If that will happen, only time will tell.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link