Are Chromebooks a danger to open source software?

Chromebooks have proven to be extremely popular devices, with many getting rave reviews on Amazon from very satisfied customers. But are Chromebooks a danger to the long term health of open source software? A writer at Datamation shared his thoughts in a recent article.

Bruce Byfield:

...online services and Google, the company that invented Chromebooks, are built largely on free software. Even the basic idea of the Chromebook is essentially an updated version of the thin client, a technology that free software perfected. Just as importantly, using free software means that Chromebooks were developed more quickly than they would have been if they were written from scratch.

In one form or another, free software is likely to survive the challenge from Chromebook and cloud services. However, not only is desktop free software likely to be curtailed, but also its efforts in the last decade to champion user's rights. For all their convenience, cloud services actually offer users even less control than traditional proprietary software.

If cloud services win out, free software may be left as a means of production -- something valued by developers, but even less known than now. That result might be better than all-proprietary development, but, considering free software's potential, it would still be a disappointment.

The danger is that, in Chromebooks, free software may have encountered a rival with which it cannot compete. The already distant, openly mocked year of the Linux desktop, already a remote possibility, might very well have become remoter than ever, and all thanks to Chromebooks.

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