Comments

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-12-20 21:37:37

  ...until Sergey Brin was irritated at the lack of a Mac version...

  
  
  I think that he still uses GNU/Linux actually.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-12-20 21:41:55

  That claim comes from interviews with Sergey Brin I have read. I don't think it really matters, as both are non-Windows platforms and are similar in many ways too.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-12-20 22:14:36

  I vaguely remember what he said and it was not about Apple. Unless you can find the source of course...

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-12-20 23:11:09

  Here is one source: http://valleywag.gawker.com/5044780/google-cofounder-on-no-chrome-for-macs-its-embarrassing

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-12-20 23:17:51

  It seems like it's the WSJers (Murdoch's) who complained, not Brin.
  
  '"But you don't have a Mac version, baby, so no," Swisher tells him in this clip, excerpted from Swisher's longer interview. "I know, I know, it's embarrassing," says Brin.'

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-12-20 23:19:50

  I should add: on another occasion I believe that Brin actually wrote (proactively) about needing Google Earth for GNU/Linux, which he appears to have used on his desktop for over a decade.

• whatever

  2009-12-21 03:58:39

  At Google I/O in May (I was there), he spoke a lot about Chrome and Mac. Eric uses Mac for sure -- I think Sergey is 50/50 Mac/Linux. I've never seen him at an even using anything but a MacBook Pro unless it was specifically for a demo.
  
  Not that it matters, the lack of a Mac version was hugely embarrassing as much of Google HQ uses Mac. I know a lot of Google people and only a handful use anything but Mac OS X -- or at the very least they use Mac hardware. Even with Pinkerton (co-creator of Camino, the first Mac-native implementation of Gecko that predated Safari and outperformed Firefox for Mac until Firefox 3 -- ironically both original Camino debs now work on WebKit. Scott at Apple, Mike at Google) on the team, the Mac version had no excuse for being so slow to go beta. I mean, it's so similar to Safari as is (the web inspector is exactly the same as web inspector in Safari, right down to the glyphs and buttons. And that's true for all platforms), just with differet JavaScript engine a d extension support that amounts to essentially GreaseMonkey.
  
  As for the EULA, whatever. I mean they say don't be evil, but it's not like they don't want to track every aspect of your online activity so they can better sell ads against what you use.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-12-21 08:26:24

  Well, the EULA does matter though.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-12-31 07:13:59

  "Eric uses Mac for sure — I think Sergey is 50/50 Mac/Linux. " And as I said, it didn't matter which one, because it was not actually about Chrome for Mac, it was about Chrome for non-Windows platforms.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-12-31 09:34:26

  But Schmidt was also in Apple's board for a long time.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-12-20 21:30:04

  "deceptive license from Microsoft" Looks like only WTL, which was Windows-only open source that came from Microsoft, and was part of what tied Chrome to Windows, until Sergey Brin was irritated at the lack of a Mac version. Now Chrome for Mac and Linux in beta.

• your_friend

  2009-12-21 00:08:14

  The Microsoft Permissive License is also included in some of the source code. Is there any Microsoft license that does not violate software freedom? The FSF opinion page on various licenses has one Microsoft Public License, which they urge people not to use because of it's weak copyleft provisions. Notice that permissive and public share the same letters, MPL, as the Mozilla Public License. The name space collision is most likely intentional as are OOXML and many other phoney open things from Microsoft.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-12-21 00:13:28

  Yes, Subsonica has pointed this out

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-12-21 07:34:50

  According to Wikipedia, Microsoft Permissive License was renamed to Microsoft Public License when it was submitted to the OSI.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-12-20 21:13:24

  "The source code terms are a lot better, so I have to wonder what the Google people were thinking above" Google isn't the only one making this mistake, Mozilla itself made it once too, and SUSE is another example I remember being covered on BN. I nowadays use Firefox mostly, with occasional use of Chrome sometimes.

• seller_liar

  2009-12-31 12:24:59

  The google logo is very similar of freemansonry

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-12-31 12:41:18

  I'm sure Brin and the lads never intended for this to happen back in 1998 (in a students' garage).
  
  http://neatorama.cachefly.net/images/2008-02/logo-google.gif