We first heard back in November that Google could merge Chrome OS into Android. Now, an executive has publicly confirmed plans for a merger.

Sameer Samat, president of Android ecosystem at Google, asked a TechRadar journalist why they were using an Apple Watch, iPhone, and MacBook:

I asked because we’re going to be combining Chrome OS and Android into a single platform, and I am very interested in how people are using their laptops these days and what they’re getting done.

  • ChuckTheMonkey@fedia.io
    12·
    7 days ago

    Enough has changed that all I can think is, uuugh. This is exactly my feeling. While I still consider Google to be the lesser evil out of all the big tech companies. They have been in freefall in the last decade. Just the amount of telemetries give me shivers.

    Also, it will be a license nightmare. As far as I know, Chrome OS is proprietary and actual Android has proper open source license.

    • Ulrich@feddit.orgEnglish
      1·
      7 days ago

      As far as I know, Chrome OS is proprietary

      It’s only proprietary in much the same way as Android. That’s why there are forks like FydeOS.

    • 73QjabParc34Vebq@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      11·
      7 days ago

      Parts of Chrome OS are available, parts aren’t. Parts of Android are available, parts aren’t. Neither are really Open Source, but both have Open Source parts.

      • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        103·
        7 days ago

        Same with MacOS and iOS. They’re doing the same shift Apple has done over the last 25 years. Build on open-source, and slowly pivot to closed-source binaries. The perception of openness lags for a very long time until people finally realize it has just become more proprietary limited crap.

          • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            1·
            1 day ago

            Incorrect. MacOS and iOS both started out as Darwin, the Mach microkernel, and FreeBSD. 25 or so years ago, Apple had open repos and package managers to install standard Unix tools, and the core of the OS even used things like cron to schedule tasks. You could even configure MacOS to not launch the GUI and run it command-line only. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

            Over time, Apple slowly turned everything into Libraries, Extensions, and Frameworks, and slowly closed-source everything application-by-application. The same way Google is doing with Android.

            And if you missed the memo, there is no Google equivalent to AOSP. They killed it in March, because they are doing the exact same thing.

            • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
              1·
              22 hours ago

              Google can’t kill AOSP as it is under the GPL. They will always have to release the source code. Even if a lot of the apps have been abandoned the core system will still be GPL. I don’t see them changing that any time soon as it would mean a total rewrite of the OS from scratch which would be insane.

              Android also is designed to run on lots of different hardware unlike Apple. I don’t really see the comparison.