Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 24th Nov 2009 17:28 UTC, submitted by waid0004
Google Google has put up a very interesting document explaining the security features underlying its Chrome OS. The document also details the underlying guiding principles of Chrome OS' security features.
Thread beginning with comment 396175
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE: SRWare Iron OS
by galvanash on Tue 24th Nov 2009 19:40 UTC in reply to "SRWare Iron OS"
galvanash
Member since:
2006-01-25

Personally I would rather see Google contribute out in the open,with paid developers/engineers not just GSoC, to an already established OS for instance by improving haiku with security and better hardware acceleration support via gallium3d. As far as that goes Google could maintain a fork of Haiku similar to how Apple does with webkit for safari.


Google has no business interest in conventional OS development. Chrome OS is an engine for running a browser. Ive pointed this out before, and it doesn't seem to be a very popular opinion, but all Google wants in the end is a shim to but a browser on top of some hardware - the OS is the shim, and that is all it needs to be.

The fact that it has started out as essentially equivalent to a full Linux distribution is just for convenience to get the ball rolling. It won't be long before it gets whittled down to the bare minimum needed to run Chrome and thats about it. The point is that Google's goals do not at all coincide with Haiku's or even the goals of Linux for that matter - they are only interested in the OS to the point of enabling them to run their browser on as little hardware as possible.

Thats not to say they couldn't for instance use Haiku (instead of Linux) as their "OS" for running Chrome. Hell, that might even be a good idea. But would the Haiku project benefit much from that? To put it bluntly, their notion of security is to make the OS a black box that the user cannot alter - that isn't of much use if you actual intend to let users run anything native on it...

Reply Parent Score: 5

RE[2]: SRWare Iron OS
by Thom_Holwerda on Tue 24th Nov 2009 19:58 in reply to "RE: SRWare Iron OS"
Thom_Holwerda Member since:
2005-06-29

To put it bluntly, their notion of security is to make the OS a black box that the user cannot alter - that isn't of much use if you actual intend to let users run anything native on it...


It's completely open source. As such, your statement is rather incorrect, as anyone will be able to run whatever he wants on Chrome OS - you'll just need the proper skills.

Calling it a black box makes it seem as if it is closed source - which it isn't.

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[3]: SRWare Iron OS
by Bill Shooter of Bul on Tue 24th Nov 2009 20:55 in reply to "RE[2]: SRWare Iron OS"
Bill Shooter of Bul Member since:
2006-07-14

I'm willing to be that chances are pretty good that google's hardware partners may "Tivo" the heck out of the hardware devices that run it. Especially, if its subsidized by 3G internet providers that are getting a share of the ad revenue. So it may be open source, but it might be non changeable on your hardware. Jail breaking (if it proves to be necessary) is going to be a bitch, with all of the security set up

Reply Parent Score: 2

RE[3]: SRWare Iron OS
by galvanash on Wed 25th Nov 2009 01:41 in reply to "RE[2]: SRWare Iron OS"
galvanash Member since:
2006-01-25

It's completely open source. As such, your statement is rather incorrect, as anyone will be able to run whatever he wants on Chrome OS - you'll just need the proper skills.

Calling it a black box makes it seem as if it is closed source - which it isn't.


The fact that it is open source isn't really relevant to my point. Some one else beat me to it the Tivo analogy, but its a good one. Actually I expect the official hardware will probably be harder to hack than a Tivo, custom BIOS and all that. Come to think of it, is the BIOS work they are doing actually open source? I have heard nothing to that effect myself.

Anyways, you could probably run a fork of Chrome OS on your own (not blessed by Google) hardware... It may even be a useful thing to do. But that doesn't change the fact that Google doesn't much care about the capabilities of the underlying OS beyond their own purposes - they are not going to roll changes into Chrome OS that involve running user binaries or adding features that do not meet their internal needs. People should really take them at their word when they say it is for running web apps - that is ALL it is for.

So yes, Chromium OS may end up being useful to the community at large (although I doubt it), but Chrome OS never will be. This is much the same as Chromium vs Chrome (browsers) now - there are a lot of features in the multitude of community builds of Chromium that have not and will never find their way into Chrome itself.

Reply Parent Score: 2