Comments on: Google embraces the Linux desktop?

By: pedro mg

pedro mg — Sun, 28 May 2006 00:41:32 +0000

well… almost 24h after my previous post, and after a lot of thinking about this, i downloaded Picasa. I want statistics to matter. I told my Ubuntu-fan sister and my wife to do it too on their laptopsto they find it important. In the end it may be seen as dowloaded numbers, and decisions may be taken with that in mind. It’s better that our # is a good one.
GBU/Linux is a wonderfull world, since my 30-floppy back in early nineties back in college…

By: pedro mg

pedro mg — Sat, 27 May 2006 00:57:18 +0000

I don’t think Google effort is to be praised, just because of the wine-implementation. They have the means to go the other way around, through the front door.
And if they are investing so much in Wine project, maybe they think it really is a platform for their Linux apps. I just don’t understand…

By: Ian Murdock

Ian Murdock — Fri, 26 May 2006 18:11:02 +0000

I wasn’t suggesting the software should become part of Debian; I was suggesting it was an interesting cross-platform strategy from Google’s perspective. -ian

By: ulrik

ulrik — Fri, 26 May 2006 17:29:08 +0000

Well, it may sound great but there are lots of issues, and from a debian perspective they are quite significant.

Non-free software generally and wine-dependent particularily are hard to make cross-platform. We can’t do anything about it since it’s not free. Programs that only run on i386 hardware, how debian-friendly is that? We want applications for the universal operating system; as soon as it’s made ready for linux, you should be able to install it on any linux flavor and architechture.

Forcing and pressurizing software vendors to use as general libraries as possible is ofcourse good for us, the users, but in addtion the vendors will help us in the direction of breaking down architechure walls and borders, gaining users and disfragmenting the userbase.

By: Ian Murdock

Ian Murdock — Fri, 26 May 2006 16:07:34 +0000

Yes, it does sound great, at least to me. You don’t have to use it. -ian

By: none

none — Fri, 26 May 2006 15:46:39 +0000

“Imagine Google Pack for Linux, with Firefox and a bundled Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, Google Talk, Google Earth, etc.”

Sounds great. Smothering linux with nonfree software.

By: Ian Murdock

Ian Murdock — Fri, 26 May 2006 14:51:57 +0000

Still resolves for me. In fact, I’m running it now. Very nice, exactly on par with the Windows version aside from the missing features Google mentions. Import from my camera even works! -ian

By: ulrik

ulrik — Fri, 26 May 2006 14:41:33 +0000

I found a mirror link on slashdot:
http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/
http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/faq.html

Now, is it true that google blocks web visitors from outside the US, or did they simply retract the page?

By: Qasim

Qasim — Fri, 26 May 2006 14:28:06 +0000

I found an old(Feb 2006) article related to Google’s Linux Picasa efforts:

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9556554213.html

By: Serge van Ginderachter

Serge van Ginderachter — Fri, 26 May 2006 13:53:36 +0000

Same here, 404 on the /linux link :-(