Google Releases Desktop Gadgets For Linux 172
mstrom writes "Google announced it has ported its Google Desktop Gadgets platform to Linux, making it the first cross-platform [desktop] gadgets framework.
In a sign that Google is fully embracing the open source model, it admits the product is not feature-complete and has opened up the code base hosted on Google Code 'to give everyone a chance to tinker with the code powering the gadgets.' According to Google: "Gadget support is not just a single feature, but rather an entire platform for miniature applications.'"
What about Opera? (Score:5, Informative)
First X-platform? Really? (Score:4, Informative)
So, this Konfabulator thing I've been running for years isn't cross-platform after all? Thanks for clearing that up, Slashdot!
Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc. (Score:4, Informative)
Anyhoo, yes, some people do really use them (Yahoo's in my case). While I could perfectly well live without it, I do find having the free space of all my partitions readily visible, along with CPU, harddrive and network usage and some other tidbits to be handy. When I played Eve Online for a bit I also found the Eve skill/training monitor rather nice.
At work I find a world clock widget to be very useful when it comes to keep tracking of the local time at our various offices. Before we changed our presence system I also had a self-created widget that listed the activity and phone numbers of people key to whatever I was working on at the moment.
Sure, all this information is available elsewhere. It's just not as convenient as the always present always updated desktop widgets. It's not for everybody, but it does have its uses.
Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc. (Score:3, Informative)
I used to be in the same boat as you. Right up until 10.5, widgets seemed to use up too many resources to make them worthwhile. Since 10.5, however, they are a lot better about being idle in the background, but still coming up quickly enough when desired. I regularly use the white and yellow pages widgets, a widget to track time I put in on various projects, a weather report widget, and a simple timer.
I think widgets are a reflection of improvements in multitasking and resource allocation. Back in the day, if I wanted to play a game at a LAN party, I shut down all my applications. I didn't leave applications sitting open unless I was actually using them. Since about version 10.2 of OS X, I never quit any of my applications that I use daily. I sure don't shut down my big, Adobe CS applications before playing a game. Better resource allocation has really changed the way I compute and Widgets are a reflection of that. Why not have a dozen small applications running in the background all the time, so long as they don't significantly affect performance? It is a lot more convenient than firing them up when needed, one by one. Mind you, there are a lot of useless Widgets and even some I thought I'd use (google maps) I don't because I generally have a Web browser open too. Still, I do think widgets are here to stay; especially for smartphones.
Re:What about Opera? (Score:5, Informative)
*Once Opera Mobile 9.5 ships.
Re:Not feature complete (Score:5, Informative)
Google's development methods are quite different than other companies. Many of these beta services and products they release are not something the company is using to make money, but are the individual projects of the engineers. Each engineer gets 20% of their time where they must work on their own thing. A lot of those "things" eventually get tossed out for the public to play with, usually as betas and often as OSS projects. Sure, Google could pay engineers to work on this full time, but it isn't clear that is really going to make them money. Linux on the desktop improvements aren't exactly a goldmine. Rather, I think it is nice they let the engineer donate this code to Linux and let people help him integrate it into Linux.
Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc. (Score:4, Informative)
Apache license 2.0 ftw ;) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not feature complete (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Google gadgets? (Score:5, Informative)
And, honestly, you could make this argument for any piece of open source software. Why do people make their own? Because they can. One of the best things about OSS.
Re:What about Opera? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What about Opera? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Gagdets, Widgets, etc. (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperKaramba [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDesklets [wikipedia.org]
Re:Google doesn't really port to linux (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Google gadgets? (Score:2, Informative)