Google are open-sourcing the project as Chromium OS. They are doing this early, a year before Google Chrome OS will be ready for users, because they are eager to engage with partners, the open source community and developers. As with the Google Chrome browser, development will be done in the open from this point on. This means the code is free, accessible to anyone and open for contributions. The Chromium OS project includes current code base, user interface experiments and some initial designs for ongoing development. This is the initial sketch and we will color it in over the course of the next year.

via Official Google Blog: Releasing the Chromium OS open source project.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s VP of Product Management and Matthew Papakipos, Google Engineering Director for Google Chrome OS will be speaking at the event. And there will be a Q&A session afterwards.

via Google Holding Chrome OS Event Thursday. Complete Overview And Launch Plans To Be Revealed..

The world of open source development could be divided if the European Commission EC succeeds in passing a law extending consumer protection rules to software, according to experts.

The EC proposes software companies be held liable in the European Union EU for the security and efficacy of their products.

via Software liability law could divide open source : News : Software – ZDNet Asia.

Discuss this on boards.ie: politics > EU

“FIRST they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Mahatma Gandhi probably never said these words, despite claims to the contrary, but they perfectly describe the progress of open-source software over the past 15 years or so. Such software, the underlying recipe for which is created by volunteers and distributed free online, was initially dismissed as the plaything of nerdy hobbyists. Big software firms derided the idea that anyone would put their trust in free software written by mysterious online collectives. Was it really secure? Whom would you call if it went wrong?

At the time, selling software to large companies was sometimes likened to drug dealing, because once a firm installed a piece of software, it had to pay a stream of licence fees for upgrades, security patches and technical support. Switching to a rival product was difficult and expensive. But with open-source software there was much less of a lock-in. There are no licence fees, and the file formats and data structures are open. Open-source software gained ground during the dotcom boom and even more so afterwards, as a way to cut costs.

via Computing: Unlocking the cloud | The Economist.