OSNews

I find it interesting that we've come to the point where we're eagerly anticipating new closed systems.

Currently, we have pretty much open systems that we can selectively sandbox (using VMs, special runtime environs, etc.).I'm not talking about source code accessibility, rather simply system accessibility.

Most modern kernels are more open than ever, having modular designs, offering pluggable extensibility, etc. We can easily add new drivers, new hardware, new applications.

Now, with GoogleOS, we have effectively a closed at the get go OS, offering only as much extensibility as Google chooses to let us have. We will be second class citizens on our own software/hardware.

Perhaps they'll publish the capabilities that will let folks "do whatever they want" to breach the sandbox and run "real apps" at the OS level of the system. Maybe they'll make folks jump up and down and spin around 3 times before they can install such apps and software, you know, to prevent viruses and trojans and all of the other wonders of the modern internet age.

Or...not.

They may leave that to the purview of the manufacturer. With nominally closed systems like Netbooks with fixed video architectures and other unchangeable hardware choices, who cares if you can load a new driver, etc.?

All of this is, of course, to make the consumer safe...safe from the internet, safe from their coworkers infested USB drive, safe from themselves, and, of course, safe for the content providers.

There may well be no way to install alternative codecs, or software that have "direct access" to hardware resources. Only approved software can touch privileged IN/OUT ports or memory mapped IO.

Even more interesting, given the likely commodity nature of the platforms upon which it will run, there will be little motivation for users to hack GoogleOS. Why bother? Just install Linux on it instead, a system that doesn't need to be hacked, a system that can (or will) Chromium readily, and any web innovations necessary to make the users GoogleOS web application experience noteworthy will likely be ported and duplicated in to a FF add on within a short time.

Who can say, we really don't know anything about GoogleOS and how closed it will be, but I'm just guessing the the trend is for more closed than not.

But it is an interesting trend to see. iPhone, GoogleOS, etc. Closed systems for the masses.