Other than possibly the support part, none of what you said really has to do with open source. Making a big change in your IT infrastructure, regardless as to whether you move to or from open source, will be met with the first two issues you mention. The second issue, I'd argue, is actually slightly easier to solve with open source. The support part really only matters if your IT guys are downloading packages from sourceforge/github (which I'll admit means support will suck). If you buy proper support (say from Novell or Red Hat) you'll probably get as good, or better, than what you'd get from a closed source competitor.

A better way to phrase that first sentence (which is probably originally what you meant):

If you were standing in Antarctica, and looked up I doubt you'd see Russia. ;-)

I think Russia is more than four kilometers "below" Antarctica...

This problem isn't unique to Java though. On my current-generation iMac, clicking "Help" in Xcode results in at least a 2-3 second wait for the menu to come up. Maybe it's a bug but it's awfully annoying to wait that long to get to the documentation window.

For some reason I just can't shake the idea you think Slashdot would be prime for this....

You're describing how the "cloud" should work. Unfortunately for Google, a lot of the core apps for cOS don't have an offline mode. Until web apps get to the level of only using your connection to sync with local storage, we're still in the "cloud == internet connection" stages.

I agree that the Google Apps definitely all need 100% working "offline mode" to make the CR-48 useful for the few periods when you don't have internet (and if you spend more than a small amount of time offline then cOS is definitely not for you). I don't have a device but I'd assume when you lose connection, Google Docs reacts about the same way as it does on any other OS/browser. The textbox remains editable and you can keep typing into it (unless the textbox suddenly becomes read-only or something crazy...). I realise it's not safe to keep working on something if you don't know when/if you can save it though, which is why offline mode is badly needed. I suppose the issue with the article's writer was that he didn't have the document open, then realised without internet access he couldn't open it. But the same issue would occur with any OS/browser that didn't have internet access.

Considering the Cr-48 is just a device Google is giving out for free to get user feedback, I don't think the structural integrity of the machine matters much. Google may sell them later on as developer machines but I hope nobody buys one to test whether it survives the kitchen sink falling on it.

Google is just as much to blame because they're making cOS pretty easy to lock down. Let's just hope they keep their word on the "evil-locked-down-mode" kill switch.

By "Google's customers" I meant the hardware vendors, not the people buying cOS notebooks from companies like Acer. Anyone who buys a cOS notebook and finds that the distributor is not abiding by the terms of the software distribution licenses (whether they are GPL or otherwise), absolutely have the right to cause a stink.

Exactly. What the GoS (geeks on slashdot) dislike is that Google has the right to make cOS however open/locked down as they want. They never promised us a commercial version of Linux that was going to allow us all to buy cheap netbooks and be sure the hardware works with any distribution of our choice. As many comments here have noted, people were hoping to buy a cheap device with Linux-supported hardware to wipe clean and install the latest Ubuntu (or whatever distribution). Sorry to burst your bubble, but Google's customers don't want that.

cOS devices will always be a user experience entirely within the browser. I guess a lot of people just don't believe an OS with only 1 running program can work (and maybe it can't) but Google wants to give it a try. In exchange for having to use the web for everything, these devices will probably be pretty cheap since the hardware needed inside won't have to be very beefy, and most companies selling the devices will also be selling a 3G/4G/whatever data plan at a monthly rate.

Alternatively, if you don't want to use an OS that's "just a browser", you could buy a normal computer.

Which is also why Google wants to take your data out of your hands. Take it off your "insecure" device that could potentially be stolen/steamrolled/bricked at any time and stored securely on their servers where it can be duplicated over the RAID, etc. Let them manage keeping it secure, backed up, and consistent. How far you trust them with it is a whole other matter. But in terms of the safety of my data I'll take the cloud redundancy any day over managing my own backups. I think for the vast majority of computer users in the world, Google's servers are a safer place for storing important files.

True, but how often do you have to reboot per day to really take advantage of say, shaving 15-20 seconds off the boot time of Ubuntu.

Even if you reboot hourly in an 8-hour day, you'd gain at most 5 minutes by Ubuntu dropping from a 30 second to 10 second boot. You could even take those 5 minutes to get up, stretch, grab a coffee...

If you need to reboot more often than that and you really feel like Ubuntu is wasting your time to load your desktop, go buy another machine. Or run one of the OS in a virtual machine.

I've never understood the obsession with insanely fast boot times. On instant-on/mobile type devices, sure. But on your desktop? Yes, I want to still boot faster than Windows (for geek reasons of course) but we're already way past that point and acting like the boot speed of Linux is a problem just seems like a waste of time.

You could also collect 10 000 Kurzick Faction and try Eternal Grove instead. As others have pointed out, you need to split up a bit and protect trees instead of turtles but at least the trees aren't walking off somewhere. As others have mentioned, it's not a lot easier with heroes/henches though.