Google's future may well be fuchsia.dev
which is certainly not Linux !

I use Unison instead of rsync for my backups and mirroring, it's based on rsync but with enhanced features. Unison has both gui and command line interfaces and, can operate on locally, on a lan or, even across the internet. The command line interface has options that make it suitable for automated backups.


The way I've got it set up, Unison mirrors many of the folders on my laptop and desktop within my home folder using ssh, or my personal vpn. I run it this way about two to four times a week. Then about once a month I run it to backup my whole home folder on my desktop to a usb drive which I then unplug and put back in it's box to guard against a failure of my ups, earthquake, & ect. Talk about surviving hardware failure, if one computer ever goes down, I can use the other till it's fixed:)

Today I came across the following conversation online:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Docs/thread?tid=35b7c6eb9943e9ed&hl=en&fid=35b7c6eb9943e9ed000479b60cae7679


Now what I find disturbing is the notion that there are any filters in the first place.

What is the purpose of this censorship in the first place? People sharing documents that someone else doesn't think is appropriate? I can't quite get my head around that. Blogger, for instance. Does that have a filter that prevents people sharing offensive things? What about Youtube? No. What about images found during a google search? Not from what was said about the images that were intended to insult the USA president's wife. Google indicated that it didn't intend to censor such things.

Though the image has apparently since been removed:


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/24/michelle-obama-photo-goog_n_368760.html


the issue remains as it was the image poster, not google, who removed the image. Google merely apologised.


So I repeat my question: What is the purpose of this filter when Google provide other services to which the broader community has great access?

If this is something Google believes is reasonable and it would appear it does, then this would surely be something that the adopters of Google's ChromeOS should become more aware of and maybe they should take greater notice of RMS (Richard Matthew Stallman) who is seriously concerned about keeping your documents etc in the 'cloud'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman


This is more grist to the mill and raises questions for me about the use of google docs.

I'ts open!!
Shuttleworth people are doing most of the development and he would NOT help if the thing was not going to stay open and free.

Just because the netbook version supplied by the hardware vendors is limited, dose not mean others will not take it to new heights. The limitation of the boxs will be put in to keep the every day user from mucking up his own platform and relieve them from the task of admmining their computers. I's not that it better but it is the fact it will just keep working flawlessly for them. Also don't forget local clouds @ work were the IS department can keep tabs on what you do with your computer--this actually why cloud computing revolution is a given.

Hello Fredrik,

I appreciate your comment, but you aren't being fair to Google. Whatever you may think of the whole "who will win the Linux war" silliness, Google is a very good FOSS community citizen. Not perfect, but who is? They use and develop with Linux and open source software extensively, share development with the community, and pay full time staff to work on open source projects like the Linux kernel itself. While they may not share everything -- Google is a business, remember, whose responsibility to employees, shareholders, etc, is to make money -- they nevertheless share a great deal. Look at the Google code site, Google's Summer of Code program, and those paid programmers working on FOSS code.

As to 'owning your data', nothing stops you from taking your email archive and walking away with it. Just mount your folders via IMAP and retrieve them.

-- Marcel

You claim that without Linux, Google would have to make license payments to Microsoft. Do you even know that BSD operating systems exist, or that big players (like Yahoo) use them?

What problem does Chrome address, exactly?
I keep hearing about cloud stuff and about the browser acting like applications so I don't have to run separate applications. What problem does any of this solve? The problem that I own my own data? The problem of using mature applications designed from the ground up for their purpose? For a real application, its user interface is completely dedicated to its particular job. Why would I want to instead use a web app, where I'm going to have screen real estate and functionality devoted to web browsing interfering with my attempts to word process or spreadsheet or whatever? Maybe it's more convenient? But I launch normal apps with a single click, either on a taskbar icon or a file. Short of telepathy, how much more convenient could a web app be?

Chrome solves a problem I don't have--even on a netbook.

As far as Google's proprietary services (like Gmail, Calendar, etc.), they make a real effort for users to be able to move, retain, and control their data. (see: http://www.dataliberation.org/)

But more importantly, Google has contributed a lot towards many open-source projects. Google's Summer of Code has expanded everything from the Haskell programming language to tons of Python modules. Google has also contributed a number of features and patches to the Linux kernel, not to mention tons of open source API's to their services and tools to interactive with their services. Do your research before making general statements like that.

http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/
http://code.google.com/hosting/projects.html
http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2009/11/latest-addition-to-googles-open-source.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/Dcni+(Google+Code+Blog)

Not a god idea to automatically delete files from your backups, at least not if it is your only backup. If you accidentally delete a file from your server and then the backup runs before you realise (as is often the case) you will not have a backup to go back to.

Usually backups done is more then one level. For instance a weekly backup that is complete snapshot at the time it was taken and daily backups that only store changes since the weekly.

Dear Writer,

I understand you enthusiasm towards Linux, specially Ubuntu; and for the record, im an ubuntu user as well.

I also agree with you that Google has based its incredible growth on Linux and general OSS.

But, the real thing here is that Google has found an innovative way to really use OSS to produce solucions that are really addressing the problem in the end user corner; something that Linux has (still) failed to do.

Ubuntu has advanced a lot, but still lacks of many things; specially for the enterprisee.

So, yes, Google es growing and will continue.

Google is not dependent on Linux. There are equally suitable free BSD variants. If Linux had gotten totally marginalized and BSD would rule supreme in the open source operating system field, it wouldn't have any direct impact on Google.

Note: I'm not saying anything about which are better, *BSD or Linux OSes.

I do disagree that with you that it is correct as citing "Gmail. Google Maps. Google Calendar. Google Earth." as stuff that Google has "given back" to the community for a number of reasons. First, as long as you use Gmail or Google Calendar you just don't own your information. You are not free from anyone using it (by automated or manually). This goes towards the Freedom concept of FOSS in my mind. Second is the sourcecode for Gmail and all the other things you mention available for free usage? I would like to setup my own Gmail server so I can avoid my first point above. Not possible? How do you reach the conclusion that Google has given back??? Same with ChromeOS; if it is all backed up for you automagically, guess how owns your data??? Freedom? Beer? Don't think so.