A few hours after denying it had any intention to acquire the Napster digital music service, Google’s PR legions were called upon again, this time to disavow the Goobuntu talk.
Goobuntu? That would be a Google operating system built on Ubuntu Linux. If it were a product being developed. Which it isn’t.
Ars Technica cited a Google spokesperson, who commented that while Google does use the Ubuntu distribution internally, they do not plan to distribute it outside of Google.
Give Ubuntu’s developers credit, though. If the engineers who make it through the notoriously picky Google hiring process like Ubuntu, it’s probably worth the time to check out the base distro, or the Kubuntu distro that combines Ubuntu with the KDE user interface, or even the Edubuntu project aimed at schools.
All the frantic baying and howling over the Google Desktop OS would go away if the company would do one thing: port its applications to Linux. Goobuntu would become a reality, only it would be released from the Ubuntu side of the process instead of Google’s. Applications from Google would be included as part of the base release.
For all of Google’s talk and support of various projects, their actions speak much louder. Those denials of a Google OS may be denials of applications being ported to Linux too. API access is one thing, but Google may not be ready to see hordes of developers shredding open its applications and discovering hints at Google’s trade secrets.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
