With MS and Apple you know what your getting into.
Google is more like someone pretending to be a friend then stabbing you in the back.

I can't see how what Google does is ok as long as you can see their source code.
Google is a data mining company that has reached a compromise with Verizon on net neutrality.

How is that good for anyone?

Furthermore, as stated previously, there are options besides Google Apple and MS.

There are two things I look for in judging companies.

First off, the more code they open, the closer in functionality and appearance the open source versions are to the proprietary versions of their software, the better.

Second, the more anticompetitive tactics a company uses (i.e. software patents, vendor lock-ins, software "features" that boss users around, software updates that break jailbreaks (or Hackintoshes), etc.) the worse they are.

Google doesn't use any anticompetitive tactics of the nature of the ones listed, and they also open up *almost* all of their source code. See the difference?

Google is like FOSS spyware.
Thats the difference.

Since when? What is making Google FOSS spyware?

Ever since they became widely known to the world, and they started working in line with the U.S. government.

Sure, Google may violate *some* privacy rights, but those privacy issues can be cleared with Adblock Plus as well as the settings panel (where you can clear your browsing history every time you shut down). And in Chrome OS (at least on the Cr-48), /tmp is on a RAM disk anyway.

I still don't trust them anyway.... I use them for searching and for general e-mail. Have yet to find me a fully trustworthy internet-based email service....

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What I would see chromeos useful is as a sort of "instant-on" feature on laptops.

Hmmm...rather than actually trying to pull apart your argument Kenny_Strawn, I'm going to try to be constructive rather than divisive.

I could possibly have a minor detail or two wrong, and I'm not going to point out subtle differences between different versions of the licences. Also, this stuff has never been tested in any court as far as I know, and different courts and legal systems could have verdicts if it ever was tested in court. This is an overview of the situation.

Lets say I write a program (I am not a coder, I'm using this as a simple example)-

If I release it under the GPL, I am still free to make a closed source version. Because I have automatic copyright, its owned totally by me, and because I own the copyright 100% it would be legal.

Now, anyone is free to write modifications to my GPL code, as long as they don't distribute it. If it is distributed, then it must be released under the GPL. So if somebody writes any modifications then publishes then, which would count as distributing it, then the code must be released under the GPL.

Lets say Jane Smith writes and distributes this-

That means that both myself and Jane Smith own copyright to our portions of the work.

Ah-ha! I think, thats great, its been made more secure and better for a wider range of users. A while later I find a minor problem with my original code, and fix it-

If at any point I did want to make a closed source version, it must have Jane Smiths code removed-

What canonical is doing is asking that copyright is assigned legally to canonical, making them the single copyright holder. If the canonical user contribution agreement is not 'signed' then contributions will not be accepted.

Because all copyrights are owned by a single entity, it becomes the same situation as my original program- canonical is free to make a closed source version.

Other people are still free to use the code in accordance with the GPL, but canonical is not bound to the same standards.

What google is doing is this-

Because its a BSD licence, the rules are different. The code can be closed at any time, as long as the BSD licence is displayed. So if the same step as above were followed, there is no need to for google to remove Jane Smiths contribution to make a closed source version.

So you can get this-

Or worse yet, this-

That is totally legal under the BSD licence. Its only one line changed, most of the code and functions remain the same.

Do you see why I say that canonical and google are playing licence games?

The Chrome (sorry, Chromium) browser may be BSD, but everything else (kernel, GTK+, X.org, and the many other open source CLI apps located in chrome://about/os-credits) is GPL. So there.

So it is okay to break the rules, if you can fix that with a third party app? And do you really think that the users this OS is aimed at will open the settings to fix something like that?

But exactly that is the point. At any time, they can change to code of Chrome to only run the apps they want, and they can change it in a way that is not available to Chromium.
In the meantime they have developed a "killswitch" for Android-apps, do you really think they will not do that for ChromeOS?

Those Android apps were MALWARE INFECTED!!! The only reason why Google removed them was because they presented a danger to Android as a whole. With Chrome OS, the possibility of apps infecting Chrome is nil. There is the possibility that there will be apps that phish, but that's about all they would physically be able to do, because there's no way to make an HTML virus. There may be a way to make a Python fork bomb and host it on Google App Engine; then again, Google knows the safety of users' devices, and safety comes first. Google has every right to remove an app that poses a danger to users, their privacy, their identity, or their devices. It's a shame that others here don't see it that way.

They have the ability to do it, that is the point, and no one can keep them from doing that. No license and nothing. Maybe next time they will remove software that is a direct competitor for one of their services.
By the way, if they would remove software that is a danger to your privacy they would have to remove Android and ChromeOS themselves.

The OP wanted thoughts on ChromeOS, here is one that bothers me the most: I own my computers, and everything I install on them is so as it is because I wanted it that way. No one has the right to deinstall remotely anything on it. The developers/maintainers can notice me if there is a bug or security issue, but simply deinstalling anything and leaving a note after that is the perfect way to hunt me away from that OS to one that will do what I want. My device, my OS, my data, my control. None of those things has to be in the hand of others.

I don't think that it is a shame that there are people here that do not want to give their privacy and control away.
In fact, I think it is a shame that there are people that want to do that, just for a pretended convenience.

Apparently, there's a bug in the Dev channel that I reported:

http://groups.google.com/group/cr-48...d442fd03f8c6e7

Never say never. LOL.

There is always the possibility of apps infecting an OS. So far nobody has managed to make a 100% safe and secure OS, and I'd doubt there ever will be.

Google has every right to do whatever they want with ChromeOS (not the GPL parts that it runs on top of though). Thats part of the point, its closed.....

+1. Though I cant say I know that about for sure android, I simply havent looked into it. I do my computing at home, and I'm not one for 'smart phones', or even laptops, etc..

You know, being able to admit you were wrong is a virtue. I'll take that response as 'I was wrong but I cant admit it'.

BTW, excellent use of 'nah nah ne nah nah'. It might work at school but in the real world......I wont say what people generally think of that, I'll let you find out.