Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

In the past few years we’ve seen a lot of hardware-based innovation (or at the very least expansion). New products and markets have arisen built around hardware and its use. Smartphones, tablets, netbooks and gaming systems are all examples of markets that have expanded and some if not most of the products make use of free software. This is great but why does it seem to be that the free-software products are second-generation, playing catch up. Where is the device innovation driven by free software?

If you haven’t heard, Google have announced they are pulling the plug on Wave, their interactive, real-time communication product. It’s a shame but I can understand why. It never really took off. Google have blamed lack of user adoption for the poor showing, and maybe that’s true, but in the end if people aren’t using your product: it’s not their fault - it’s yours.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

To the chagrin of their competitors, GoogleMail seems to have become almost as synonymous with webmail as Google has with search engine (recently my six year old was explaining to me how he Googled for something at school). GoogleMail is a useful tool and has a lot of advantages over traditional client-server mail accounts, particularly if you are on the move. To be honest those sorts of advantages are present in pretty much any webmail setup: I’m just concentrating on GoogleMail because it’s by my experience the most popular. But GoogleMail has one disadvantage, all your messages are stored on Google’s servers. If you lose access to Google service or to your account then you lose your e-mails. Fear not oh free software lover, help is at hand in the form of the very useful getmail.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral. Perhaps obvious but worth mentioning anyway. Also, when I did this early Bizarre Cathedral strip, I never realised how long it would actually take.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral. The mutt gets creative about Ubuntu.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

When Google announced their ChromeOS there was a flurry of comment and opinion on what this could mean for the GNU/Linux user and the future of free software. Our esteemed editor, Tony Mobily made a bold statement (albeit framed as a question) at the time that Google’s ChromeOS could turn GNU/Linux into a “desktop winner”. I’m not sure that it’s true.

Whatever happens of course the fact is that when somebody of Google’s size and impact enters a market, there will be winners and losers, losses and gains. Now that the dust has well and truly settled let’s have another look at the potential impact of ChromeOS.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.