Anyone have any opinions on the recently-announced Google Chrome OS?
As has been said before, "blogware". I'll believe it when I see it.
I don't like the idea of terminals/servers. I prefer to keep all of my data on my own system, and release the parts of it that I want to share.
I agree. When I am not connected to the 'Net, I want everything I have to work. Net applications are exactly that, 'Net dependent.
As inept as Bill Gates is, his commitment to "thick clients" was correct, for the consumer market.
Thin terminals and good servers are an excellent solution to the small/large office environment, where applications are standardized, and it makes a great deal of business sense to have working files centralized for ease of backup. It also means that a failure of a system on someone's desk can be fixed by simple replacement, and the user has lost nothing.
If Google asked my opinion, which you can be sure they didn't, I'd tell them to make a really good "GoogleOS Theme" for KDE or GNOME or XFCE, and customize an install disk, but put it in front of a full-blown distribution like Debian.
(yes, pretty much like Ubuntu did, but NOT tracking Sid!)
That way people could have GoogleOS quick and pretty, but if they "got under the hood" they would find only more functionality and usability, not a limited shell of Google-only applications and nothing else.