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Welcome to Chromium

Sep. 2, 2008 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

I'm surprised that there isn't a Google Chrome Blog. After all, the company has about 1100 different blogs, and seems to have one for just about every product and service it makes. That said, Google does have a Chromium Blog, which is about the open source project behind Chrome. It's a start. Here's part of the first post:

Today, Google launched a new web browser called Google Chrome. At the same time, we are releasing all of the code as open source under a permissive BSD license. The open source project is called Chromium - after the metal used to make chrome.

Why did Google release the source code?

Primarily it's because one of the fundamental goals of the Chromium project is to help drive the web forward. Open source projects like Firefox and WebKit have led the way in defining the next generation of web technologies and standards, and we felt the best way we could help was to follow suit, and be as open as we could. To be clear, improving the web in this way also has some clear benefits for us as a company. With a richer set of APIs we can build more interesting apps allowing people to do more online. The more people do online, the more they can use our services. At any rate, we have worked on this project by ourselves for long enough - it's time for us to engage with the wider web community so that we can move on to the next set of challenges.

We believe that open source works not only because it allows people to join us and improve our products, but also (and more importantly) because it means other projects are able to use the code we've developed. Where we've developed innovative new technology, we hope that other projects can use it to make their products better, just as we've been able to adopt code from other open source projects to make our product better.

Discuss this Article 91

Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
>>Google does very much say that Web applications are as capable and "real" as traditional apps; they say it in their comic book which pretends that that's how we all compute right now.<< Well, most of us do use web mail...and perhaps a RSS reader. Those are real apps that have migrated to the web.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
>>Hillcrest Laboratory is suing Nintendo over several patent violations concerning the Wii mote. Nintendo has been successfully sued for other patent violations over the Wii classic controller and the Gamecube controller by Anascape Ltd. -- The Wii is part stolen technology and not true innovation from Nintendo. << LOL at your conclusion. Did they admit guilt, or pay up to make the cases go away? Did Hillcrest Laboratory have a game system in development, or were they one of those idea laboratories that reserves ideas and then sues from the blindside when someone actually implements them?
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
>>By comparison, beta 2 of IE 8 which is used by most Windows users got half that coverage at best.<< Everyone has been waiting for a Google browser to drop...that justifies the coverage. If MS didn't have a browser and suddenly announced that they were going to release one, it would have gotten the same coverage. >>It's not as though Google isn't getting coverage. There really isn't a need for the press release reprint articles. << Get your own blog Mike...you've got the gravitas. I like Pauls coverage....just...as...it...is.
Waethorn
on Sep 3, 2008
C'mon Ocean. Can you really believe anything stated by the same company that openly stole book contents to accelerate their own advertising business? You can't possibly answer that question and come out looking intelligent.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
According to a bit of Googling (what would be the equivalent if I used Live Search?) that company is a 'patent troll' that loves the judges in a certain part of the country. http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/sony-slapped-with-blu-ray-patent-laws... http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/5/nintendo_loses_21_million_patent_infr...
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
Yep...those companies were paid to go away. Just another nasty slur. http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech-Software/wtr_16280,300,p1.html?...
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
Stole book contents? Was it that blatant, or was there a legal dispute?
subzerohitman721
on Sep 3, 2008
@Ocean, If Hillcrest Laboratory legally own the patent, what they do with the technology is their business. You just can't decide my company's need is greater than yours and violate patents. If you must know, the technologies are licensed out to several different companies including Logitech International SA, Universal Electronics Inc, and many others. So to answer your question, they haven't just sat on these ideas. These companies are using that technology and paying the proper agreed fees. If you want a specific product that uses the "Freespace" techonology, I've got one for ya. Logitech® MX Air™ Rechargeable Cordless Air Mouse. The patent is theirs and anyone who wants to use the technology has to deal with them. And no, its not my conclusion. Anascape Ltd, won its suit against Nintendo. So its stolen tech, no matter how you spin it. As for the Hillcrest Laboratory suit, they're seeking to suspend importation of the Wii's. It might take 15 months, but if they win, thats more stolen tech found in the Wii.
gorath
on Sep 3, 2008
@ Ocean "According to a bit of Googling (what would be the equivalent if I used Live Search?)" maybe it's "living" :D
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
subzerohitman721...they're patent trolls. I read the same article you did. Do a bit more reading.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
Here's the Wikipedia entry about the Book Search. Google calls it Fair Use, some people call it infringement. It's hardly as blatant as some here are making it out to be: >>While librarians hail the initiative for its potential to offer unprecedented access to what may become the largest online corpus of human knowledge,[29][30] the publishing industry and writers' groups have criticized the project's inclusion of snippets of copyrighted works as infringement. The Authors Guild of America[31] and Association of American Publishers[32][33] have separately sued Google, citing "massive copyright infringement." Google claims its project represents a fair use, and is the digital age equivalent of a card catalog with every word in the publication indexed.<< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Book_Search
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
>>A more forceful refutation of Rubin's position comes from Ed Black, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, an industry interest group in which both Google and Microsoft are members. "While I normally avoid commenting on disputes between members, I cannot overlook Microsoft's unfortunate mischaracterization of copyright law," Black said in a statement. "Contrary to Microsoft's suggestion, every unauthorized use of a copyrighted work is not infringement. Highly transformative copies, such as those made by search engines like Google and Microsoft's own MSN, or those made by Microsoft's software programmers when reverse-engineering competitors' products, are fair use under copyright law. Microsoft would do well to consider that its own business depends on fair use before brushing aside that important doctrine." "Copyright practice currently labors under an oppressive 'permission culture' in which every unauthorized use of a work is viewed as a potential violation of the law," Black added. "This distorted view of the law undermines access to information, is hostile to innovation, and most importantly, is not accurate. The copyright monopoly is a limited one, and it must stay that way if it is to continue to promote progress." Don Dodge, director of business development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team, in his blog called Rubin's speech a "really dumb move." While allowing that the legal issues mentioned remain unresolved, Dodge chastises Rubin for "pandering to the Association of American Publishers" and inviting bad publicity. << http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID...
Waethorn
on Sep 3, 2008
"Google calls it Fair Use, some people call it infringement." ....those "people" were the authors and copyright holders. I would just imagine the kind of lawsuit that would happen should Google have gotten their hands on somebody like J.K. Rowling's next Harry Potter script and thought it would be "fair use" to publish it online. I wouldn't put it over Google were they to think it would help push their ads.
Waethorn
on Sep 3, 2008
BTW: quoting wikipedia and informationweek doesn't help your argument any either.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
You're calling it outright theft. I'm saying it's a legal dispute. You may be correct in the end, but you're not correct now.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
The quotes establish the facts: this is still a legal dispute. There has been no judgment.
tayme
on Sep 3, 2008
@Ocean - Didn't you say that you were going to quit posting here? You remind me of the Mac guy in the Mac vs PC ads...like that pesky little neighbor kid that is starving for attention and just won't go away. @Paul - We really need an IGNORE feature here. --tayme
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
Tayme...why did you just waste 50 seconds of your life posting that?
subzerohitman721
on Sep 3, 2008
Paul, I second tayme's call for an ignore function. Ignore or moderated boards. Later.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
I like the moderated boards idea. I've rarely seen the ignore function well implemented though. Most times you end up seeing the ignored users post in the replies that others make to him.
tayme
on Sep 3, 2008
@Ocean - For the same reason that you waste hours per day of your time hijacking this discussion thread, costing your employer. Or...are you just the newest encarnation of our old zit faced friend, bonch, using the high school's resources, when you should be in math or English class? Anyway...I usually try to avoid personal attacks, but you make it so easy...and fun!!! Your F5 finger must be cramping, as you wait for the next refresh with something new for you to carry on about. Have a great afternoon and evening. --tayme
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
I hijacked it? Surely you jest.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
Just a tip for all you all...no need to use f5 (or whatever key it is to reload)...just use this extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/115
Waethorn
on Sep 3, 2008
"You're calling it outright theft. I'm saying it's a legal dispute. You may be correct in the end, but you're not correct now." No, you just don't get it. I'm not calling it ANYTHING. The AUTHORS are calling it theft. The thieves are saying it isn't. I'll side by the ones whose property it is, thank you very much.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
By what basis do you call them thieves? This Fair Use stuff is pretty murky.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
EULA update (I love that last sentence): >>Google's Rebecca Ward, Senior Product Counsel for Google Chrome, now tells Ars Technica that the company tries to reuse these licenses as much as possible, "in order to keep things simple for our users." Ward admits that sometimes "this means that the legal terms for a specific product may include terms that don't apply well to the use of that product" and says that Google is "working quickly to remove language from Section 11 of the current Google Chrome terms of service. This change will apply retroactively to all users who have downloaded Google Chrome." It's worth noting that the EULA is largely unenforceable because the source code of Chrome is distributed under an open license. Users could simply download the source code, compile it themselves, and use it without having to agree to Google's EULA. The terms of the BSD license under which the source code is distributed are highly permissive and impose virtually no conditions or requirements on end users. So, there you have it: a tempest in a (chrome) teapot.<< http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080903-google-on-chrome-eula-cont...
pthurrott
on Sep 3, 2008
Ocean, sorry to say, but we're going to have to figure out something for you. You're a bit much. BTW... http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_chrome/google_clearly_sees_c... ""I think operating systems are kind of an old way to think of the world," Brin said. "They have become kind of bulky, they have to do lots and lots of different [legacy] things. We want a lightweight, fast engine for running applications." But seriously. Let's at least keep things on topic. The insane diatribe about Google Books is pointless. And uninteresting.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
Someone else posted it, I merely replied. But cool. I'll keep it On topic and ignore the trolls. :-D
shark47
on Sep 3, 2008
"But cool. I'll keep it On topic and ignore the trolls." Sounds reassuring, but how do you ignore yourself?
mikegalos@msn.com
on Sep 3, 2008
Paul, "I'm not a "partisan" writer. And I think that's what kills you. I can actually think. And I don't always pick Microsoft. In fact, this topic proves it: I use Google services heavily. " I think the consensus from an earlier discussion you may have missed is that you tend to: Like Windows but Dislike most other products from Microsoft Dislike OS X but Like most other products from Apple Like almost anything by Google Obviously there are exceptions (Live Mesh, MobileMe, WHS, iTunes, SyncToy) but that's a pretty reliable predictor of how much coverage a product will get, how much actual content will be in that coverage and what direction the coverage will take. Of course, it could just be you've been hanging out with Leo Laporte a bit too much :-)
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
>>Sounds reassuring, but how do you ignore yourself?<< I think that this is the kind of thing that all of us need to resolve not to do.
Waethorn
on Sep 3, 2008
"By what basis do you call them thieves? This Fair Use stuff is pretty murky." Fair use doesn't cover copyright infringement for the purpose of self-promotion or monetary gains, sorry to say. It also doesn't cover public exhibition of said copyrighted materials. In fact, fair use is only for personal usage models, and only if the agreement of license allows one to copy another's work "for the use of a personal backup". Copyright supercedes fair use if the copyright holder requests it, and even the DMCA even states outright that it's illegal to counter any digital protection system in place to prevent piracy. There is no "fair use" clause with the DMCA. Period. In all of those instances, Google broke several copyright laws, and their actions don't even fall under the category of "fair use". They stole book content that wasn't theirs without permission, which is classified as intellectual property and protected by copyright law, and published it publicly. They are thieves by the very definition of the word.
Ocean
on Sep 3, 2008
Sorry Waethorn...we'll have to have this discussion off-line or not at all. The Paulster has spoken.
colinbowern
on Sep 3, 2008
One has to wonder if this is linked back to advertising dollars. Google's main revenue stream is ads and having browsers that can track users actions to deliver more relevant ads would be very useful for them. If this was really about advancing the web why didn't they increase their investment in Firefox? Is Mozilla bogged down in too much politics to get anything useful done? (Well, the whole web has that problem. XHTML 2 died before it was given a chance to live and now we're talking about HTML 5!)
Waethorn
on Sep 4, 2008
"The insane diatribe about Google Books is pointless. And uninteresting." I would say that the relevance is that many people won't trust Google's cloud computing because they: a) collect too much personal information (as is demonstrated by many privacy advocates) b) want to bombard you with advertising based on said personal information c) don't care to word their privacy and usage policies to maintain the owners rights towards intellectual property "we are releasing all of the code as open source under a permissive BSD license" Let's just clear the air about this licensing type for a moment. Free software advocates HATE the BSD. It allows someone to commercially market a product based on free open source code. Take Apple for instance: Apple wouldn't be able to gouge users $130 every year or two if they had built OS X on GPL-licensed code. BSD offers them that freedom. It also allows someone to link to proprietary code without license restrictions (GPL code can only be linked to other GPL code, not to proprietary code). It also further allows someone to take BSD-licensed source code, modify it, repackage it, and sell it again without legal recourse from the originating developer. In essence, BSD is a twisted form of open source. It requires source code to be distributed openly, but you can still make money off of it. It also allows patent rights. BSD would be more fitting for a company like Microsoft, should they ever decide to go open source (which will never happen). For Google to go this route, they aren't as "open" as many people think they are, and it further proves what I've said before: FOSS != OSS. BSD is just a lip-service to the open source crowd that don't know any better.
Waethorn
on Sep 4, 2008
"One has to wonder if this is linked back to advertising dollars. Google's main revenue stream is ads and having browsers that can track users actions to deliver more relevant ads would be very useful for them." Of course it is. To think otherwise would be foolish.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Sep 4, 2008
Waethorn "Let's just clear the air about this licensing type for a moment. Free software advocates HATE the BSD. It allows someone to commercially market a product based on free open source code." The BSD license (or Microsoft's similar Ms-PL see: http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/licenses.mspx) is very similar to releasing the code into the public domain. (You know, what government agencies and altruists used to do) It has pretty much the least restrictions on what you can and can't do of all the "open source" licensing agreements. As such, anyone who hates BSD but likes GPL isn't talking about "free as in speech", they're talking about liking the additional GPL restrictions.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Sep 4, 2008
"One has to wonder if this is linked back to advertising dollars." Google and TV Network are in the business of selling viewers to advertisers. TV shows are not what TV networks sell. TV shows are an investment to get viewers that the network can sell to advertisers. Software is not what Google sells. Software is an investment to get viewers that Google can sell to advertisers. In either case, you are not the customer. You are the product being sold. That's how ad-based revenue systems work. (And, yes, it does mean that the advertisers in both cases are a LOT more important than you are)
mikegalos@msn.com
on Sep 4, 2008
Ocean Like the new avater. You do remind me of a BSOD.
Waethorn
on Sep 4, 2008
"As such, anyone who hates BSD but likes GPL isn't talking about "free as in speech", they're talking about liking the additional GPL restrictions." If ever there was a hippy-Communist, Richard Stallman would be it.
mikegalos@msn.com
on Sep 4, 2008
Stallman is a trip but at least he's consistent on his views unlike the "We just want information to be free but not that free" types supporting the GPL.

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