Picasa is now available for Linux. This is huge news, if you ask me, if only for what it could portend. Imagine Google Pack for Linux, with Firefox and a bundled Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, Google Talk, Google Earth, etc. By taking this approach, Google could build a client metaplatform across Windows and Linux without getting into the OS business directly. Nice answer to the fact that Google’s biggest competitor is between them and 90% of their customers today, all without the headache of being an OS vendor—simply ride atop what’s already out there.
Related news: Google Reaches Agreement to Have Its Software Installed on New Dell Computers.
Yes but most of this tools aren’t available on linux (Google Desktop and Google Earth for example)
Right, the operative phrase was “what [this] *could* portend”. -ian
The Picasa on Linux link is a 404 for me and no mention of Linux on the main Picasa page. Strange.
Same here, 404 on the /linux link :-(
I found an old(Feb 2006) article related to Google’s Linux Picasa efforts:
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS9556554213.html
I found a mirror link on slashdot:
http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/
http://picasa.google.com.nyud.net:8080/linux/faq.html
Now, is it true that google blocks web visitors from outside the US, or did they simply retract the page?
Still resolves for me. In fact, I’m running it now. Very nice, exactly on par with the Windows version aside from the missing features Google mentions. Import from my camera even works! -ian
“Imagine Google Pack for Linux, with Firefox and a bundled Google Toolbar, Google Desktop, Google Talk, Google Earth, etc.”
Sounds great. Smothering linux with nonfree software.
Yes, it does sound great, at least to me. You don’t have to use it. -ian
Well, it may sound great but there are lots of issues, and from a debian perspective they are quite significant.
Non-free software generally and wine-dependent particularily are hard to make cross-platform. We can’t do anything about it since it’s not free. Programs that only run on i386 hardware, how debian-friendly is that? We want applications for the universal operating system; as soon as it’s made ready for linux, you should be able to install it on any linux flavor and architechture.
Forcing and pressurizing software vendors to use as general libraries as possible is ofcourse good for us, the users, but in addtion the vendors will help us in the direction of breaking down architechure walls and borders, gaining users and disfragmenting the userbase.
I wasn’t suggesting the software should become part of Debian; I was suggesting it was an interesting cross-platform strategy from Google’s perspective. -ian
I don’t think Google effort is to be praised, just because of the wine-implementation. They have the means to go the other way around, through the front door.
And if they are investing so much in Wine project, maybe they think it really is a platform for their Linux apps. I just don’t understand…
well… almost 24h after my previous post, and after a lot of thinking about this, i downloaded Picasa. I want statistics to matter. I told my Ubuntu-fan sister and my wife to do it too on their laptopsto they find it important. In the end it may be seen as dowloaded numbers, and decisions may be taken with that in mind. It’s better that our # is a good one.
GBU/Linux is a wonderfull world, since my 30-floppy back in early nineties back in college…