Google may not be releasing an open-source operating system or a desktop suite, but the company is promoting, supporting and using open-source software. In a Ziff Davis Internet interview, Chris DiBona, Google’s open source program manager, said that while he can’t “talk about any future products,” he also added that, to the best of his knowledge “Google has no plans to release an operating system or an office suite.”
As you can see gnome gots only 7 successful projects while kde has finished 19…..
2 gnome projects are useless
iTunes patch for Rhythmbox
and “Search Party” a web app usable with firefox wich is not a gnome program.
This is off-topic but FYI gnome has developed at least 50 successful projects that are actually used everywhere. For example see http://gnomefiles.org
Not to burst your bubble.
Some of them are GTK, yes.
– Gaim is separated out. Makes 7.
– 2 projects under KDE are Gnome projects. Or do you consider gnomepanel improvements as KDE?
– You should look under mono 2.
– Under Ubuntu 3.
– Inkscape 1
– Fedora 1
That was just after looking projects I know where they are. What is the count again?
Google are going to release their own version of Firefox though.
That would be a shame – we’d have Firefox (mozilla), Firefox (distributors), Google Firefox, Flock, etc.
Firefox has (somewhat) developed a brand, it would be a shame to dilute it.
It’s not “diluting” it, that is the very nature of F/OSS. Fork and prosper! Nothing is ever lost, technology survives based on it’s own technological merrit, and forking is a way of experimenting with new ideas.
The average home user doesn’t understand why forking helps f/oss, because they are so entangled in the commerical software world where forking products is bad. You can’t compare the two methods, one is more about the base technology and the other has to do with marketing, and selling a product.
Google prefers their Windows-using customers. That is why Google-talk is not even available on Linux. And even though it is jabber (an open protocol), it will probably never be open source. People who expect an open source OS or office suite or any application from Google probably are dreaming.
You sound pretty confident; those who speculate with great confidence are usually wrong.
From a different view, they hired Sean Egan, the lead developer of GAIM, in what they say is an effort to get missing Google Talk features into GAIM.
I don’t really expect any company to opensource its in house products; and in Google’s case, not many have the data behind them to make use of their products anyway.
Its services pretty much set the standard for friendliness when it comes to using their public, well documented API’s. But, it would be nice if some more of their applications were available on *nix (mac os included).
No Google Earth for Linux
No Picasa for Linux.
No Google Talk for Linux.
No Google Desktop Search for Linux.
Google hasnt done anything for open source. All its products are exclusively for Windows. I dont care about Picasa/Desktop Search but it would have been really nice to have Google Earth for Linux.
Shame on google.
Google Summer of Code