OT Chrome OS next year

[Derek Broughton]

Odd wrote:

> james mcm wrote:
>> 
>>      >Better Google dominating the market, rather than Microsoft.
>>      >Though I believe it will be a long time before Microsoft is
>>      >dethroned. Google at least is contributing resources and
>>      >code to the open source world.
>> 
>> I wouldn't be so optimistic - a corporation never does anything out of
>> goodwill. 

That's a patently false statement.  Many corporations have actually 
understood the concept of "enlightened self interest".  Doing the _right_ 
thing, can actualy help sales, help P/R, and general good will.  All that, 
in turn, improves the shareholder's return on investment (which is of course 
why corporations exist in the first place).

>> They will help offline Free Software just so that more people
>> can have good access to their online services, but that doesn't make
>> them a friend of Free Software - all their online services are
>> proprietary and closed source. If anything this could be the doomsday
>> scenario for Free Software -  a push to web services where Free Software
>> has effectively no presence (due to running costs of servers, etc.),

LOL!  And just what platforms are those servers using?  In fact, most web 
services I work with are Free Software, as are the software they run on.
> 
> Again, the drama. People won't stop making free software just
> because Google launches an open source OS. Free software
> is evolving, just like proprietary software. I think people are
> overthinking this.
> 
Nah - there's not that much thought going into it :-)
-- 
derek