Native Client d**k-swinging met with fake Googasm

After a tech company has been making money on its own for a while, it will inevitably embark on a web enhancement project involving a browser plug-in that includes some sort of runtime or virtual machine so that the browser can do more that just render html. It's practically a coming-of-age experience in Silicon Valley. Google …

[The BigYin]

Horseshit

"Now imagine if you combine this with a unified way to manage locally installed software. Now that's innovation. Funny, though. It sounds suspiciously similar to something Microsoft has had for years: Windows."

Really? MS can manage all my locally installed software can they? Can they bollocks. The best they can manage is to punt a few more zero-day vulns my way.

Debian-style repositories, now they *can* manage all my locally installed software (so long as I got it from a repository) regardless of vendor (simplification, I know). They can also keep track of any dependency changes too. Now that's innovation.

Wait....it's been around for years and MS still hasn't stolen that idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

Herding cats

"the razing of Microsoft headquarters and a free, contextual-advertising-supported pony for everybody delivered personally by Barack Obama"

Oh thanks, thats great - now I have to phone the helldesk to ask for a new keyboard. Mine's full of coffee.

[Anonymous Coward]

World Blind...

Microsoft has shafted themselves.. it may take a little while longer but with gaming moving to the Xbox (and other consoles) and the sheer volume of DRM bloat, the PC is becoming a limited market, so much so that a simple mac will do everything that the customer needs (and usually better!) Microhoo is desperatly grabbing at web content so it can suck the dollar, while its OS tends towards a business only platform...

[Anonymous Coward]

Professor OldCrusty von Boring the Third

Good show Ted! The funniest and most truthful Reg article I have read in a while. Keep up the good work!

[Hugh_Pym]

another blast from the google blunderbus

I think they are working on the idea that because most big things on the internet came from some people doing some stuff that they find interesting and blundering ointo something universally useful, they think that if they have enough people dicking around with stuff they might get lucky in an 'infinite number of mokeys' kind of way.

So they use some of their enormous income to pay people to do stuff hoping one day someone will stumble into something good. This scatter gun approach doesn't seem to have hit anything yet but who knows? Maybe not tomorrow maybe not next year but someday...

There is a master plan its just a bit woolly. Still, More coherent than the buying planes and ridiculous head offices phase that some nerd billionaires never seem to grow out of. Or even the giving it all away to charity (in a business enhancing way) type of billionairism.

[Tim Parker]

Yawn..

"It would be great to have the speed of native code execution and the efficiency promised by automatic software updates over the network. Now imagine if you combine this with a unified way to manage locally installed software. Now that's innovation.

Funny, though. It sounds suspiciously similar to something Microsoft has had for years: Windows"

No Ted - it sounds an awful like the straw man you erected on Googles behalf.

That said, does Googles announcement add up to some major step forward - all intelligent discussion i've heard says no, aside a miracle of not, it doesn't... it's just that a lot of us can't be arsed to invent are own vehicles of failure for it, and then shoot them down, all the while pretending they weren't merely figments of our deluded imagination- but then again, we're probably not getting paid to it in public..

doesn't make the faux breast beating any more interesting however, just another pointless rant to reinforce that irritating little wannabe-meme 'fail'.

Back to sleep now for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Back to form

Made me chuckle, good read.

[Matthew Brown]

Google what now?

Damn, I never even heard of Native Code until this article >_>

[Matthew Brown]

Ohshi-

Native code? D: I meant native client.

[amanfromMars]

Never say Never.

"Funny, though. It sounds suspiciously similar to something Microsoft has had for years: Windows. "

Ted,

The perception is that Google and Microsoft are rivals, whereas with the default Windows Customised Links, Free Hotmail, Windows Marketplace and Windows Media bookmarks in Chrome may they be more than just good friends.

What better way is there to avoid being a monopoly than spinning yourself off and inventing yourself as competitor?

That is quite smart.

[Destroy All Monsters]

Pfff....

Oaww--awwwing over demos is for twatdangles. The McCrusty paper is where it's at. Let's get straight to it:

http://nativeclient.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/nacl/googleclient/native_client/documentation/nacl_paper.pdf

[Justin Stringfellow]

not enough rude words

I only read Ted's articles because of the swearing and stuff, and this doesn't have much at all. What's up Ted, got told to clean it up?

[Joe Cooper]

Love it

Especially the Nostradamus crack.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think MS are still lacking this one

"unified way to manage locally installed software" you can uninstall, and "repair", but it's hardly unified.

If you want to talk about unified package management then yum, apt and of course packagekit on top are closer to the mark.

[Marco van de Voort]

Network computers

Personally I'm waiting for a googlificated fourteenth coming of thin client aka Network Computers.

[Solomon Grundy]

Useless Comments

It's one of my favorite things, to visit ElReg and see all the anti MS commentary. All those comments make me feel good about my IT job that pays way too much and forces a 34 hour work week on me - comments proving how "alternative" software is the way to go - hahaha. It's great to know that I'm still making the right decisions banking on MS.

Remember you OSS business noobs, no one ever got fired for buying IBM or MS.

Get over your techie rubbish and get to work. Make a future for yourself.

Posers.

[Charles Manning]

MS unified installations

I recently installed a DVD or three of cruft from Microsoft. Five packages in all, designed to be used together as a whole. Each one used a different installer with different confusing messages.

Complete bollocks.

No wonder those folk in Cupertino are making such headway.

[Khyle Westmoreland]

@Amanfrommars

> The perception is that Google and Microsoft are rivals, whereas with the default Windows

> Customised Links, Free Hotmail, Windows Marketplace and Windows Media bookmarks in

> Chrome may they be more than just good friends.

Erm... are you sure you didn't just opt to import the IE bookmarks and settings? ;-)

[David]

Flash install stats

The 99% figure quoted by Adobe is mainly home users. And I suspect a large number of surfers are sitting behind work machines. In my experience corporate machines often don't have flash, or an outdated version. Even an up to date version of adobe reader is a luxury.

[amanfromMars]

Re Erm ..... and the Usefulness of Useless Comments dissing OSS

"Erm... are you sure you didn't just opt to import the IE bookmarks and settings? ;-)" ... By Khyle Westmoreland Posted Monday 15th December 2008 23:30 GMT

Erm ... Yes, I'm quite sure to the point of certainty that I didn't, Khyle. :-)

"It's great to know that I'm still making the right decisions banking on MS." ..... By Solomon Grundy Posted Monday 15th December 2008 21:03 GMT

Solomon,

I wonder if Banking and Finance is as pleased with MS/IBM? And if that is a pertinent question, they'll not be too happy paying you way too much for a 34 hour work week ..... which is roughly only 20.2380952380952% of a full service.

I don't suppose you compute "way too much" as theft resulting in way too little elsewhere .... [probably justifying it with an ignorant arrogance to match bully boy comment ..... {Optional alien comment, whenever applicable}]

You could almost be a plant for the modern day version of an altogether different OSS*, for the profile and methodology is not dissimilar ..... and typical of a newbie to the Great Game .... with 80% still to learn. MeThinks paying for that SAP would be Money better Spent in these Taxing Times, but of course, anyone would say that making a future for themselves and you to pose in.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services

PS. Don't jump to any reckless conclusions which would identify Open Sourcing Software and ITs Covered Operations for they will invariably be wrong or plausibly deniable when right.

[Duncan]

boogle

like it, you tell em!

I remember a few years back getting excited when hearing the latest google retoric, web this online that. at one point my fridge was going to online and would be googleing for the best price for my impending cheese replacement requirement. the replacement of MS office was with a web app was a full gone conclusion back then.

guess what came of all the bla bla! nothing. installing applications locally on a locally installed operations system is going to be a reality for a while yet i think and when i read this native client BS stocking filler rubbish i just sigh nowadays.

[Anonymous Coward]

Too much choice

"We already have ActiveX, Silverlight, Adobe AIR, Java Applets, and Flash – all which do essentially the same thing as Google Native Client – so why do we need another runtime?"

A very good point, and I can't help noticing the similarity to a problem that is often cited with Linux - that of "too much choice". As with Linux's "I don't WANT twenty email clients that all do essentially the same thing (except all of them have one or two serious bugs / omissions that prevents them being of any practical use *). I am happy with ONE client that works and does what I want", I don't (and I doubt anyone else does either) NEED half a dozen browser plug-ins that do essentially the same job. All they do is take up space on my disk and slow the computer down!

Having multiple versions of this stuff serves nobody except the people pushing it.

* - This is just an anecdote and not to be taken literally - flames not required.

[alex dekker]

Freetard developers?

What, pray tell, is a 'freetard developer'?

[Martin Owens]

Freetard Developers!

>> What, pray tell, is a 'freetard developer'?

Someone who works for free, obviously. Although what is little known is that they're actually free as in speech-tard developers. So couldn't give two auto-random-monkeys about the latest drivel from Google OR Microsoft.

[Edward Lilley]

@Too much choice

You're missing the point: no-one's requiring you to use all the email clients at once; neither is it necessary.

On the other hand, in order to be able to access all these rich-content-enabled websites, you need to install *all* of the aforementioned plugins/environments.

[Glenn Charles]

Googlegasm

I think Paris just had one.

--Glenn

[John Savard]

Unfair to Nostradamus

After all, he *did* predict the events of September 11, 2001. He only got the date slightly wrong, having the King of Terror come from the sky in 1999 instead.

[Aphoxema]

Really New Idea

I didn't know anything about Native Client before, and you make some great points but I think you're overlooking it's potential. I don't really think virtualization is going to be the revolution it's made out to be, but this really has some potential.

To run Flash you have to think Flash, to run Silverlight you have to think Silverlight, to run Java you have to think Java. With this, you wouldn't have to think anything new, you're putting the same old code in a smaller box.

Even if it doesn't go anywhere, it isn't the same old thing.

[Jim]

Quality

Yawn. This article is poorly written, contains swearing, and there does not appear to be any basis for the statments made. I would like to comment on the content of this article, but I can't. Because there isn't any.

You think Google is rubbish and there were just 2 bored guys swinging their dicks ? Whatever.

[Chris iverson]

I think the underlying point is

that announcements from google are speculated at being the end of microsoft, hence the term googasm in relation to the tech media. Google and MS have more or less a symbiotic relationship so to speak since MS essentially provide a way to get google in front of peoples eyes, yes mac and linux also accomplish the same task shut up already.

The next point is that there has been lately a slight blurring of what each company is trying to move toward and so far at this point more or less failing at it. MS trying to capture some of the search market and blast their own web 2.slow crap and google trying to build an environment around some of its products. Remember that dear Mr. Torvalds just wanted a console to access the unix system at school and look what it turned into, again I know that the situation discussed is different but the path is sounding similar.

So in closing would like to say both are in a way trying to get some of the others pie and failing at it at this point. Also with windows update Ted never did say ALL locally installed software and yes I prefer apt.

[Clueless Fucktard]

An alternative to flash is needed!

IMHO every compettion is healthy ;-) Luckily, neither google cannot afford to buy microsoft, nor microsoft cannot afford to acquire google :-) Hell, whatever will be better than the flash! Man, how I hate that piece of crap. I have nothing but problems with flash on linux :-( If that plugin will be open source and multiplatform, they have my vote.

And do no forget one thing - google has very effective tool to force users to install their plugin: youtube ;-)

[Henry Wertz]

Moon base

"Where, within this fail yard, is the secret to world domination buried?"

The moon project! If they get on the moon and set up a moon base, surely they will be invincible... invincible I tells ya (cue supervillain laughter)

But really, Google's new sandbox is interesting in that it uses x86 segmentation registers for security; they've been there all along (since the 8088 at least, 386 and up allows large segments rather than the old 64KB ones) but I've not heard of anyone really using them. It's more of a slap to Microsoft for having insecure ActiveX for so long (when segments would have provided a nearly no-overhead sandbox) than anything I think. This *does* make the google sandbox non-portable though, making it even less interesting than usual IMHO (REALLY non-portable -- segment registers were removed from x86-64 since noone was using them, so not only is it x86-only, it's 32-bit x86 only (it *should* run on 64-bit Linux but under a 32-bit browser.))

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see you doing anything more useful, Ted

Defeating Microsoft isn't the plan. Making interesting technology that might make us some money is.

[Paul]

Its all a secret plan...

(In best Arnie voice)

On August 29th 2011 at 18:17 eastern time, Google becomes self aware, at 18:56 it launches an all out attack on its rivals in Redmond and Cupertino.

The counterattack destroys the remaining opposition. skyn- *ahem Google then rules the planet, installed on every machine. A few survivors running ubuntu on EEPC's with 3 mobile broadband start a resistance, the plan is to send a BOFH back in time....

#music#

Duh-du, duh ,duh, duh, Duh-du, duh ,duh, duh, wahwawahhh, wah, wah, wah....