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I would think that a community supported Debian distro wouldn't match up to a canonical supported distribution. But it seems otherwise. The existence of Ubuntu

I would think that a community supported Debian distro wouldn't match up to a canonical supported distribution. But it seems otherwise. The existence of Ubuntu has greatly benefited the Linux use base, with many patches contributed upstream to Debian and other related projects. Sad to see Google move away from them. Personally, Ubuntu is much more palatable to end users who aren't CS majors, especially with their willingness to ship/support closed source drivers, unlike Debian If they release gLinux to the outside world, we can all benefit from their constant vigilance, compared to just a community supported distro

reacharavindh 9y ago
Alternatively, I'd rather prefer for them to send changes upstream to Debian so that the entire community gets the benefit. I wouldn't want to run gLinux(based off of Debian, and meddled with by Google). I'd trust Mainline Debian with community vetted Patches from Google.
- mankash666 9y ago
  And you already have that choice. What's missing is gLinux's availability to Google outsiders. I think gLinux vetted packages are likely to be more secure than the community edition. But, if Google decides to monetize it, they may track the fuck out of consumers like they do on Android. That's the only downside I see to gLinux
  - qznc 9y ago
    I remember that Goobuntu was usually quite outdated as it is based on the latest Ubuntu LTS plus trailing behind a little. Googlers themselves were not tempted to use it at home. That does not matter for Google development, because all their tooling and code comes out of a monorepo. Thus, I really wonder if gLinux wants to follow Debian testing closely? The might trail behind like the Ubuntu releases.
jkaplowitz 9y ago
It wouldn't have made sense to release Goobuntu publicly, since it was simply Ubuntu with central management and logging, integration with internal account systems, maybe some hacky bits specific to their environment, etc. They've said roughly this much in past public talks about Goobuntu. All of that makes sense for an internal corporate distro at a place like Google. It doesn't add meaningful value over Ubuntu for external users, except for state-sponsored attackers who want a more precise understanding of the vulnerabilities in Google's corporate workstations. It seems like gLinux would have the same tradeoffs, except that they're going to push more of the broadly useful changes upstream. (Disclosure: I worked at Google in the past, used Goobuntu, and am a Debian developer. But I was not on the Goobuntu team or involved with the decision to switch to a direct Debian base.)

reacharavindh 9y ago

Alternatively, I'd rather prefer for them to send changes upstream to Debian so that the entire community gets the benefit. I wouldn't want to run gLinux(based off of Debian, and meddled with by Google). I'd trust Mainline Debian with community vetted Patches from Google.

mankash666 9y ago
And you already have that choice. What's missing is gLinux's availability to Google outsiders. I think gLinux vetted packages are likely to be more secure than the community edition. But, if Google decides to monetize it, they may track the fuck out of consumers like they do on Android. That's the only downside I see to gLinux
- qznc 9y ago
  I remember that Goobuntu was usually quite outdated as it is based on the latest Ubuntu LTS plus trailing behind a little. Googlers themselves were not tempted to use it at home. That does not matter for Google development, because all their tooling and code comes out of a monorepo. Thus, I really wonder if gLinux wants to follow Debian testing closely? The might trail behind like the Ubuntu releases.

jkaplowitz 9y ago

It wouldn't have made sense to release Goobuntu publicly, since it was simply Ubuntu with central management and logging, integration with internal account systems, maybe some hacky bits specific to their environment, etc. They've said roughly this much in past public talks about Goobuntu. All of that makes sense for an internal corporate distro at a place like Google. It doesn't add meaningful value over Ubuntu for external users, except for state-sponsored attackers who want a more precise understanding of the vulnerabilities in Google's corporate workstations. It seems like gLinux would have the same tradeoffs, except that they're going to push more of the broadly useful changes upstream. (Disclosure: I worked at Google in the past, used Goobuntu, and am a Debian developer. But I was not on the Goobuntu team or involved with the decision to switch to a direct Debian base.)