> * 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
