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I haven't seen any suggestion that Chromebooks are somehow directly subsidized by Google - are Samsung, Toshiba, etc. getting some kind of kickbacks for making
by blacksmith_tb 10y ago
I haven't seen any suggestion that Chromebooks are somehow directly subsidized by Google - are Samsung, Toshiba, etc. getting some kind of kickbacks for making and selling the hardware? ChromeOS itself is free to license for vendors [1]
But most have fairly low-end CPUs, not much RAM, and small SSDs, so I don't think they compete with Apple for features, per se.
1:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook#Sales_and_marketing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook#Sales_and_marketing
- Mark222 10y agoI think you answered your own question: > ChromeOS itself is free to license for vendors If it's free, it's for a reason.
- geofft 10y agoThat same logic applies to the Linux kernel, right?
- grillvogel 10y agoChrome OS is not open source.
- xyzzyz 10y agoChromium OS is, though. https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os
- grillvogel 10y agoyeah but how many of these K-12 educational chromebooks are going to get that installed on them? these just allow google to start tracking people even earlier in life than they may have otherwise been able to.
- Mark222 10y agoNot really, the linux is a volunteer effort spearheaded by a non-profit where members take advantage of the advance of the kernel for their own products/ideals, while Google is very much a for-profit corporation which benefits here by the increase in users for their services. Services which are ad-supported for the most part.