Abject Geekery

Bill Gates: I felt a grave disturbance in the Force.

Google is going to release an OS in 2010. They are targeting Netbooks. As far as brand names go, Google is likely the most positively viewed one in the IT world.

However… They are using the L-word.

The Chrome operating system will run in a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel — computer coding that has been the foundation for the open-source software movement for nearly two decades.

Using Linux as the foundation isn’t a plus… any and all linux(or BSD) based OS computers have barely made a dent in the Microsift world of user based computing. Any hardware provider will look at Google as a gamble for sales unless they plan to rebrand the hardware with Google’s logo making the inexpensive and trendy Google Chromebook the next Ipod.

In other words, the product with be more about Google than what it provides by way of functionality. Apple lost their war with MS because they stressed proprietary hardware with their OS, inflating the PPC’s price outside of mainstream budgets. Since Google is going pure software, they can pimp their brand name to third party hardware providers and surf into Microsoft’s Big Game with an inexpesive netbook and Google all over it.

Honestly, MS and Google are both ruthless competitors. From a purely non-partisan standpoint, this will be fun to watch.

I’m pretty much of the mind that acceptable frameworks for making online media a profitable enterprise for both content makers and content providers is an excellent thing. If the roadblocks to a market are removed, the market will take root and grow. One of these roadblocks… the threat of copyright lawsuit, has just been mitigated with a framework for legal distribution. This sets a precident for others to review and integrate.

Under the agreement, large commercial webcasters will pay copyright owners up to 25 percent of their revenue or a “per-performance” rate that is below the rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board. Smaller webcasters will pay either a percent of revenue or a percent of expenses.

In a statement, SoundExchange executive director John Simson said the deal will give webcasters a chance to “flesh out various business models” and give artists and other copyright holders the opportunity to “share in the success their recordings generate.”