Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Status of google chrome and chromium

[A.J. Venter]

> * The Google Chrome EULA makes reference to various features that would
> be odious to free software users: the browser automatically updates
> itself without warning the user or allowing them to intervene.  It also
> automatically downloads a blacklist of extensions from Google; if the
> user has installed extensions on that blacklist, they will automatically
> be uninstalled.  I'm guessing these features aren't in Google Chromium
> -- again, either by being absent from the source code or not included in
> a default build.
I can at least offer some new comment on this - I investigated the
release to see what it actually does. The autoupdate feature is fairly
non-malicious and easy to disable, it just installs a script into
/etc/cron.daily that updates the package from a tree for your
distribution. This was probably the only way they could find to
auto-update something installed by a packaging system since updating
will require root access, and the program is usually never run that
way.

The EULA is utterly non-free. The google-code for chromium is BSD
licensed and fully free as far as I can ascertain - as are all the
third-party components that are actually used, however it also has
extension and plugin support - and in this scenario it may face the
same problems as firefox does. The extension site doesn't give any
indication of the license of any particular extension
(https://chrome.google.com/extensions). So unless there is some sort
of requirement by google that only free extensions go there, it's a
possible problem for free distros.
There is a third-party extensions list at
http://www.chromeextensions.org/ it likewise does not prevent non-free
extensions, but it does at least provide a field for licensing
information so users can make an informed decision (which is better
than not knowing at all I guess).

I'm not aware of any branding issues as with firefox on chromium so
that at least is clean.
>
> Searching the web for confirmation on any of this hasn't yielded any
> success, unfortunately.  [This might be easier to find now that Chrome
> has been released for GNU/Linux.]
Let's hope my initial investigations is just the first of many. As it
stands, we can be pretty sure the chrome-OS will not be a free
distribution, so in fact this could become more important soon if
somebody decides to do a fully free competing distro.

A.J.



-- 
A.J. Venter
Founder and lead developer, Kongoni GNU/Linux
www.kongoni.co.za
www.silentcoder.co.za - Blog