There are obvious benefits to Chromium being open-source, but you're kidding yourself if you think that gives you an ounce of control over the direction of web standards and the web as a whole.

Sure, you can look at (most of) Chrome's source code, and fork it all day long if you want. But it will amount to little when it comes to actual control of the web. You simply won't have the marketshare to steer the direction of the web standards themselves.

The end result will be the same as we suffered with IE's dominance: de facto control of the web by a single entity.

But at least the ride to hell will be nicer.