Chrome OS *does* run apps not signed by Google, but it warns the user about it. It is a security feature and is not designed to prevent people from modifying their software, and i wouldn’t call it DRM.
— Fredrik 
Just built Chromium OS and took it for a spin, and I loved what I saw. In this game, terms like ‘OS’ and ‘browser’ are going to become irrelevant — it’s simply a way to power up “the computer” and get on “the internet” which is all we seem to be doing these days anyway. This is the future, and it is simple.
Spending some time in Freenode’s #chromium-os, it’s clear that developers and geeks are going to be the last people to get on board with this. 30 seconds after joining the channel there’s some guy asking about how to get his favorite Office app compiled and running, and other guys asking about developing native apps. “Forget native apps,” I said. “Just make good web pages that do good things.” This was met with the IRC equivalent of people looking at you like you have two heads.
Maybe I just don’t get the hacker mentality, but the direction of this project — toward complete and total simplicity around doing the things we like to do — is right where I want to be. The roots can just go sudo themselves.
— bee
@Fredrik: you’re likely basing that conclusion off your experience running a developer build. Developer builds do not use a verified boot” system to check the integrity of the firmware, kernel, and application binaries. According to the webcast that introduced Chrome OS (last Thursday), the final retail systems will only run binaries signed by Google.
Quoting from the verified boot design doc: “Key management is of utmost importance for the key used to sign the read-only firmware. That key should only be used on the R/W firmware which should be updated much less frequently than the rest of the system. If possible, this key should never be exposed on a network-enabled machine.”
— Mark
I’ll buy one to my mum, another to my dad, two for my parents-in-law, another to my daughter, and forget about “fixing” their computers all the time. Of course I need a few “real” (linux!) laptops for other purposes (e.g. doing serious programming), but most of my relatives don’t. Everybody will be happy. I die to see this stuff on the market!
— Davide
I am basing my conclusion off the webcast and the design docs on the sites that are quite clear on this point.
Quoting from http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/firmware-boot-and-recovery
“We likely will need to show a warning screen which includes the following elements: … A means of allowing the user/developer to proceed down the “untrusted” path … It is desirable for the warning screen to have a timeout, so that Chromium OS devices with developer images can be used in unattended applications (for example, as a media server).”
— Fredrik
On the new Chumby One:
“There’s also a pair of test points on the board labeled “SETEC ASTRONOMY” that you can use to bypass the write protect on our authentication ROM, in case you want to wipe out the keys we use to authenticate your chumby. I can’t think of a real reason why you’d want to do that, but I added them on the principle that hardware you own shouldn’t hold secrets from you, so if you don’t like it you can nuke the encrypted access codes we put into each device (of course, it means you no longer have the codes to fetch widgets from our servers, but hey, it’s your hardware, void the warranty and do what you want with it).”
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=611
Locked-down software so that crackers can’t mess with your machine is a feature, but so is being able to do what ever you want with your own machine. These schemes need an opt-out. Maybe not contact point on the PCB, but a switch under the battery or something.
— Yo
I would also probably install a “real Linux”, and I would do the same for my wife (probably) and kids (I want then to have Gcompris, some board games and various other things I consider good for them).
I also know a lot of people who just want web, email, and a word-processor, and this is perfect for them. Simple, reliable and secure, and it does what they actually want.
— Graeme
I forgot to say, there are some people who would be better off with a simple and locked down desktop or notebook OS, not just on a netbook.
— Graeme
@bee wrote: “Spending some time in Freenode’s #chromium-os, it’s clear that developers and geeks are going to be the last people to get on board with this.”
I agree, and this is what makes Google’s annoucement this week so perplexing. Chrome OS is only available in source code form, so that a community of developers can form, and help Google push Chrome OS towards the finish line. Yet, as it stands right now, Chrome OS isn’t really aimed at the very same set of developers.
I think it will be interesting to see how much help Google gets from the outside.
Ouch. I don’t care how good it is. No one should have something arbitarily locked down like this. It scares the willys out of me.
Isn’t this just what stallman has been warning us about these past couple of years?