Chrome OS Could Offend The Open Source Community

Maybe not "offensive," but it does seem unnecessary. To me, Google represents everything on the web, all of the odd links and connections between people who want to communicate, be heard, get feedback about their ideas, etc. It actually did make a lot of sense for it to release a web browser.

So even though its basic mission is something like "To organize the world's information, digitally," I don't know if that should really extend into the private sphere. There is a lot of private data that people want/need to keep offline. Separating its over-arching "www" mission from its hyper-aware "blanket snapshot" of all the live pages on the web would be really tough.

It'd be heading in the direction of Microsoft, where when you go buy a new PC at the store, and they include all those stupid-annoying icons glued to the desktop.

I'm probably a bit biased because to me, an OS [http://oss.zentu.net/?q=forum/1] should be like the local agent, there to help me have more control over what the Internet and its many ports have access to, on my local machines, at any particular time.

This lack of divide (the Microsoft OSes and IE browsers) and the lack of separation of control by one business to so many facets of a person's private data is one of the primary reasons MS was targeted for anti-trust issues.

Anyway, if Google does end up releasing a truly open-source OS, I might possibly link to it in the directory. . . (the Chrome web browser is already linked). But taking into consideration the number of OSes already out there (37 in my directory alone w/a few more in queue), it doesn't seem like the wisest choice or business move.

Besides, with all of the new offerings and "stuff" it is working on, doesn't it already have enough on its plate? For such a relatively young company, it seems like they might be attempting to take on a little too much. Healthy growth life cycles and all.