Propos et Commentaires du Climenole

…..…..…..…..…..

The announcement of the Operating System Google Chrome OS will not fail to arouse much comments and I will not be outdone is above all about, avoiding foolish or irrelevant comments, the usual “Gossips & Buzz” that I leave to the Yahoos of the Web!

As I write this post, I have consulted no comments that are already published on the Web, maintaining my reflexions off any outside influence, keeping my first “hot” reactions while keeping a cool head because this is my climenole’s style.

In the announcement post of Google Chrome OS, I wrote:

«According to the official Google blog this (the new OS) is justified by the fact that existing Operating Systems, designed at a time when the Web did not exist, the Google Chrome OS is therefore presented as a natural extension of the Google Chrome browser for Web users … »

- An Operating System is, by definition, the software giving users and applications access to the resources of his computer. This definition should be clarified: access to its computer resources (hardware) and Internet resources.

The argument, or rather the insinuation about systems designed before the Internet (and the Web, which is not the same thing) is, in my opinion, a fallacious argument primarily with respect to Operating Systems and browsers then.

Let’s take a closer look:

Operating Systems

- First before Internet is widespread, networks existed, from which the Internet was built. The fact that Operating Systems was designed before the advent of the Internet does not necessarily mean it is not adapted to this other network: Internet. Things are not nearly as dopey.

- Secondly the UNIX Operating System designed from the outset as a multi-user systems and networks of Unix machines have appeared before the arrival and spread of the Internet. From the outset, the design of UNIX made it open to new possibilities of interconnections which differs fundamentally from the systems developed by Microsoft.

- Windows was initially a DOS GUI, single-user system designed for PCs before the arrival of the Internet and with the NT systems, a new generation of Operating Systems for PCs and architecture accounts access (administrators and users) inadequate and primitive compared to the hierarchical architecture of the accounts and access rights of UNIX developed well in advance and still valid for local networks or wide, including the Internet.

- In Windows, the local non-administrators users are generally unable to use local full resources and have to rely on an administrator account, then using this administrator account to access the Internet, and putting the whole system in an awkward position and vulnerability.

Advanced users of Windows XP will no doubt remember all the contortions needed to use local and external resources à la MS while maintaining a reduced vulnerability on the Internet (with for example DropMyRights and by avoiding interNUT Expl’Horror).

Only the latest versions of Windows, Vista and Seven were similar to the hierarchical concept of UNIX, but without the flexibility, precision and elegance of UNIX and its clone LINUX.

- In UNIX systems the hierarchical architecture of the accounts for a multi-user system from the outset is perfectly suited for its extension to a situation in which the access rights of system administrators are reserved for local administrative tasks and access rights for users, all at once, use local resources effectively and as well as the external ones without compromising the local system.

The original features of UNIX allow its natural (and safe) extension to the Internet and Web resources with a good browser to complete the best combination.

Needs the Google Chrome browser for that? Mozilla Firefox and Opera aren’t – at least – as good as the Google Web Browser?

Note that the fact that Google Chrome OS is built around a Linux kernel implicitly acknowledges what I have outlined here …

Browsers

With the advent and spread of the Internet, the Web browser software has become the most important application software of all Operating System. The software providing the access to non-local, is est, the web (1, 2, or semantic, as you like).

The insinuation from Google about Operating Systems designed before the Internet is irrelevant since it’s not the OS that is crucial here but the browser whatever the Operating System in use …

The determining software

The determining software for the access to local resources is the Operating System, the determining software for the access to non-local resources, essentially the Web, is the browser. Admittedly, the combination OS / Browser and their modes of interaction and integration is also a factor that it must be taken into account.

What’s an Operating System by definition and the hopeless case of Windows Vista

In this comment I would not ignore the case of the recent OS from Microsoft that seems to be contrary to both the definition of an Operating System and the art of creating a software architecture-oriented users and their applications.  Windows Vista is a bloated and heavy, which requires material resources to high-performance but mainly to run itself and not to put these additional resources available to users and applications.

In short: more resources are required but for “the big cow Vista” and not for you!

OS Performances and the relevance for a new OS

«Google Chrome is Open Source OS and presented as an Operating System that will light the first netBook and will be available to consumers in the second half of 2010. Google will work with the Open Source community and are already in talks with partners.»

«The official Google blog emphasizes lightness, minimal interface, security and speed of what Google Chrome OS

“We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds.”

Google Chrome OS will be available for the x86 PC as long as the Netbook and architecture of the Operating System consisting of a new system running Windows on Linux.»

Very good but still? Because if performance is not really exceptional, I do not see any relevance for a new OS…

Hypothetical performances and price to pay for them

The performances are all alleged non-standard, can we not assume that it will pay in some way? That is what I suspect with the following information:

« For developers, the Web will be the development platform so that applications will be portable to all Operating Systems: Windows, MAC, Linux and Google Chrome for OS and any browser meeting the “standards”…»

- This means that the new Google OS will be primarily focused on access to external resources that is to say in good English in a Cloud Computing system on which I don’t agree, at least for my main applications and datas.

Does Google Chrome OS is a Cloud Computing OS not saying his name?

«According to Google, users no longer want to wait until their computer starts and the browser is launched as they want, for example, instant access to their mail … They want access to their data without having to worry about saving them refuse to spend hours configuring their computers or be concerned with updates … »

In other words : that out-performance standards will be deemed made by the following maneuver:

- Local resources for processing information including the Center of Gravity, now the personal computer, his CPU(s) and other local resources for processing and storage of information will be moved to another Gravity Center of Information Processing: the remote servers on which minimals PCs are connected.

- The bulk of the processing would be (or will be …) on these servers (Google or otherwise) including the data retention, and their backup, and, it can be assumed, as well as the configuration settings…

- Which is to say, and I weigh my words, it will be the return of the old kind of computing: the “Dummy Terminals“ (Minimal PCs: Netbooks are an example of these new dummies) connected to one or more mainframes, servers of Google and other …

The only difference between the old dummy terminals and cloud computing à la Google residing  in innovations of these new dummies: the Netbook widgets and even grinding.

(And I’m not even discussing the problem of the PCs manufacturers offering their PCs with a mandatory pre-installed Windows…)

«The official Google blog acknowledges that much work remains to be done and they need help from the community of open source to achieve their visions of what should be the experience on the Internet.»

But certainly the work they do not seem to suspect in this announcement is they will have to convince users to hand over the keys of the house to Sergey Mikhailovich Brin and Larry Page. For me, the day that convince me to abandon my applications and my data to anyone, even a Make No Evil, is not to be expected because we remember that:

«… the misfortune that who wants to make the angel made the beast.» Blaise Pascal