Although I consider myself to be a computer geek in general, there are a few different sub-areas of computing where I tend to geek out the most, and Operating Systems is definitely one of my areas. So it was with special interest that I took in Google's announcement of a new operating system, Chrome OS. While there haven't been too many actual details released as of yet, I have collected 3 links, and will discuss them below:
Google's official announcement - Google's official announcement is chock-full of the vague. And as an OS geek, that's disappointing because I want some meat. I'm not sure why Google didn't wait a few more months, and announce when they actually had source code that I could look at. For the time being, we are left to speculate. I do want to call out one specific quote from the announcement, however:
"Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel."
I interpret this to mean that Google is going to entirely replace X11, and come up with some entirely new graphical layer. The other way to interpret this is that they're just going to do a new window manager on top of X11, but while that would be a lot easier, it wouldn't be as compelling. Although there has been a lot of work put into modernizing X11, the features that make X11 unique (separation of display and server, network transparency) just aren't needed in a modern environment, especially one targeted at netbooks. So I think that Google will eliminate the cruft of X11, and introduce a modern graphics system for Linux. This should have performance advantages, as well as security advantages, and will hopefully be the one true X11 alternative that has legs.
Other interesting things in the announcement is that Chrome OS is only "initially" targeting netbooks -- Google probably has grand plans for having Google Chrome OS ship on all non-Apple PCs. The other curiosity that I haven't seen discussed is why Google chose to base Chrome OS on Linux. If their goal was to make the most secure OS possible, I would think that they would have built on top of OpenBSD. My guess is that they went with Linux for the wide array of driver support, but for now, it's a mystery.
Who wins? Netbooks, smartbooks, and Google's Chrome OS - In their coverage, Ars Technica speculates that netbooks will ship with Chrome OS & Windows installed from the factory. I bet this is true -- if Chrome OS doesn't cost the vendor anything, and has a reasonably small footprint (in terms of storage space), why not ship it on your machine? Apparently, there are already netbooks that ship with a second, Linux-based OS, so there is some precedent here.
Google Chrome OS to Power Netbooks in 2010 - TidBITS goes even further, and posits that Google could actually pay netbook makers who install Chrome OS on their machines. If this turns out to be true, it will turn the economics of PC operating systems upside down. The logic here is that Google already pays browser vendors (like the Mozilla corporation with Firefox and Apple with Safari) for search traffic that comes via the browsers built-in search box. The theory is that if someone uses the built-in browser to perform a Google search, and ultimately clicks on an advertisement, then the browser vendor should get a cut of that revenue. Well, that same idea can be extended to netbook vendors who ship Chrome OS -- if an end user uses Chrome OS, and clicks on a Google advertisement, why wouldn't Google share that revenue with the PC vendor?
If this one comes true, Microsoft will be put into a really tough spot. They have already lowered their OS margins for netbooks, and I could even see them giving Windows 7 licenses to PC vendors for free. Microsoft could get away with that by charging end-users for in-OS upgrades to fuller versions of Windows, and by hoping for netbook users to by a copy of Office. But there is absolutely no way that Microsoft will actually pay vendors to install their OS, which could give Google a huge advantage.
All-in-all, I'm intrigued by Chrome OS, and will definitely be checking it out when it is released. But for now, there isn't much sense in getting too worked up over it -- all that we have is vaporware, and there are a lot of different ways that Google could take this thing.
-Andy.