OStatic

by Kanchana Wickremasinghe on Nov. 12, 2008

I am waiting to see when the real Chrome appears in LINUX. It is sad that they have so much support for Open Source yet their applications goes on Windows first.

by Andrew on Nov. 13, 2008

I usually one who is all behind Google. But, this kind of development does make one wonder... Do they need more Linux developers??

...and using WINE for picasa is just sad. Come on google.... pick up the slack.

by Roy Schestowitz on Nov. 13, 2008

Had Google cared about Web standards (which they don't, they even DO ACTIVEX!), there would be no issue. My guess is that the company got poisoned by former Microsoft employees and 'Windows heads'. That's what I'm told by people close to the company.

by an anonymous user on Nov. 13, 2008

Google puts out a decent amount of stuff into the Open Source world. Those tend to be mainly developer-focused tools. However, as a business, it doesn't seem like they care much about the Linux user, who probably constitutes a small sliver of their user base.

The dev folk probably encourage releasing code into OSS. The MBAs in product marketing probably still cling on to their Closed Source security blankets.

Get the program, bitches!

by an anonymous user on Nov. 14, 2008

In case you were wondering:

Pronunciation: \prī-ˈmȯr-dē-əl\

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English, from Late Latin primordialis, from Latin primordium origin, from primus first + ordiri to begin — more at prime, order

Date:14th century

1 a: first created or developed : primeval 1 b: existing in or persisting from the beginning (as of a solar system or universe) c: earliest formed in the growth of an individual or organ : primitive

by Martin on Nov. 14, 2008

It is a little bit annoying considering Google are prepared to take from the Free and Open world, boasting that they had 10,0000 Linux servers etc. Make extensive use of Java, jabber, use WebKit for their browser rendering.

When it comes to giving...

For such a "cool" and "rad" cash-rich company that is pretty insulting.

Not sure what their contribution to open International Standards is...apart from ODF which they clearly have an interest in beating MS over the head with.

Still, can't argue with their web offerings.

by Petem on Nov. 14, 2008

yeah... im alittle bothered by google an their attitude... not that i care about chrome...... or that i use any of their services , save google desktop,. and even then i haven't reinstalled it with this last install of linux i did....

at the end of the day they are just another company looking to profit from FOSS and really don't care about the philosophy/ideals behind it.. it gets harder and harder to support these companies.. as it is...when i search i use scroogle... why.. because as they do not care about the ideals behind FOSS and our needs, i don't care about their business needs...

by an anonymous user on Nov. 14, 2008

It's perfectly fine to run applications through special WINE support. Picassa works well and they invested in WINE to get it going. I wouldn't be surprised if they are doing the same for Chrome.

A plugin for video chat on linux is a different story all together. The support needed for video chat isn't 100% on Linux itself. Pidgin has been working on it but the supporting libraries that come from other projects aren't yet ready. In this case it may not be possible to even do this feasibly for Google.

Give Google credit for what they have contributed. A few years of Summer of Code has promoted open source tremendously.

by an anonymous user on Nov. 15, 2008

I lost all my impression and enthusiasm towards Google's products when I came to know Chrome & Video chat doesn't work on my Linux box. You can't beat Firefox & Skype.

by an anonymous user on Nov. 15, 2008

Google is open source friendly (look at their MySQL patches, for example).

It's only that the Linux Desktop is a different ballgame. The Linux desktop is way too diverse and porting something like Google Chrome that was hacked up in a short time to Linux isn't going to be that quick.

Of course, Google Talk is a legitimate concern. It's an application that's based off of the open source XMPP and yet they haven't managed to bring out a Linux version - I think they're either not interested or are waiting for something like PulseAudio to stabilise, perhaps?

by an anonymous user on Nov. 29, 2008

We don't need no stinkin Chrome for Linux. We can build a better one ourselves. So quit whinin' about Google's commercial practices. Google is just Microsoft with a different name and color scheme. The FOSS community can stand on our own feet and produce better software than any of these dollar-hungry behemoths can.

by vivek on Dec. 11, 2008

now, there is no difference btw google and microsoft..

cm..on google, do some thing in favour of Linux, so that windows user can learn the power of open source..

by daniel on Feb. 05, 2009

not that i kno ne thing but if google chrome is foss then it would seem to be fairly easy to reverse engineer it to work on ubuntu or something. can anyone fix my understanding? isn't chromium a foss project? it seems that if ppl were working on it we would have 'Roam 0.1' for ubuntu in no time. hey yes u guys can use the name and thanks for all the great software!

by Jake B. on Feb. 16, 2009

Part of the problem is the Laziness of some "windows heads" who only learn to program in C# and .Net. I'm sure part of the slow crawl is now that they got the browser functioning for 90% of the worlds computers, they now must reinvent all the code in Objective C to meet Mac standards. Once this task is achieved the Linux version shouldn't be too far behind. I think Google is taking a Sun Microsystems approach to business by making free tools that will lead to sales of their cloud-computing and enterprise services. The reason the browser is not out for Linux yet...is other than IBM and Google itself...most enterprise-level customer's have Windows computers they're not willing to part with let-alone upgrade. If Google can get the corporations dependent upon chrome based applications, presenting Linux as a price-saving solution will appeal to their pocketbooks when Microsoft tries to squeeze them again for Windows 7 upgrades.

by JJ on Mar. 17, 2009

I guess Google will make more money releasing Chrome on Windoze. And remember folks 'money makes the Google go round'.

This answers the question, Smaller number of Linux users as compared to Widows users = Less revenue for Google

So rightly or wrongly that's why they're in no hurry to finish Chrome for Linux.

Chrome running via Wine is pants by the way...very laggy.

Opera is decent.

Firefox good too, but way slower than Chrome on Windows.

JJ

by an anonymous user on Apr. 03, 2009

I think it makes sense that they go for Windows users first.

They want to see how the browser would appeal to the majority, and if it is a hit (maybe if it's so much of a hit that even Linux users would ask for it) then it would eventually come on different flavors for Linux, Windows, and Mac.

I haven't much experience with programming but I think that it might be hard translating software from one platform to the next. You have to strive to retain as much original functionality as the original version and after that, you still have to test for bugs and fix all of them afterwards. A pain, really.

I see it as Google testing the waters for a just a little bit.

As for Picasa and Google Desktop, I think most Linux users can find more desirable alternatives for these... Maybe that Google simply thought it would not have a chance against F-spot or that Google Desktop just not that much of a functionality booster for most Linux users. I had Linux before and that's what I felt for their apps. I mean... why have Google Talk when there is always Skype for Linux (with a larger user base)?

Chrome is perhaps the first Google product that is revolutionary enough to be wanted in the world of Linux. I highly enjoy browsing with it as it gives me a browsing experience that cannot be substituted by Safari, Konqueror, Opera, Camino, Firefox, or even Epiphany.