Actually, the problem on Linux is also PGO.

I'm a Firefox developer.

This is slightly inaccurate. We aren't running out of memory to link Firefox, we're running out of memory to run Profile-Guided Optimization (PGO) on Firefox.

PGO looks at what is actually executed during a given workload and optimizes based on that. It can be a pretty big win — 30% in some workloads —so we work pretty hard to keep it going.

Unfortunately, PGO needs to have not only all the code, but all the intermediate representations and other metadata about the code in memory at one time. (That's why we're running out of memory.)

Unfortunately, MSVC doesn't support producing a 32-bit binary using their 64-bit compiler.

(FWIW, Chrome has *always* been too big to use PGO.)

Imagine the extra traffic they would get if there were millions more desktops that didn't default to MSN/Live search/whatever they call it these days and instead defaulted to Google's search?

Of course. Because when Microsoft does it, it's anti-competetive, but when Google does it, it's OK.

Imagine the extra traffic they would get if there were millions more desktops that didn't default to MSN/Live search/whatever they call it these days and instead defaulted to Google's search?

Do you really think that the kind of people who would run a Linux-based desktop operating system aren't ALREADY using Google?

Heck even if it were the case where a user had to make a choice the first time and not default to any single one, more people would choose Google than currently do.

Hrmm.. kind of like, oh, I don't know, IE7, which requires you to choose the first time you run it (which Google sued them over originally, FWIW)?? The first time you run IE7, you have to choose a default search provider, and if you don't, it "guesses" one for you -- and the data show that 75% of the time the one that it "guesses" is _NOT_ Microsoft (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/02/10/529950.aspx).

But your assertion that the chance is zero is ignoring the revenue they could get from it.

Where is this magical revenue appearing from? Please state how Google is making money from this. Did you read any of what I wrote previously?

Also why would they waste money on a flashy ad campaign when all they would have to do is release it and ride the wave of free press.

I didn't claim that they would run a "flashy ad campaign" -- the idiot that I was responding to did. It's also funny to see the claim that they wouldn't need an ad campain since they could just ride the "wave of free press" -- yet more evidence of the fact that Google walks on water as far as the press is concerned.

If it's really good and polished, it wouldn't need an ad campaign.

Yet again -- why is Google going to spend money to make the OS polished when they're not going to make money on it? Being "polished" is precisely why Linux falls on its face on the desktop. Linux may be good at a bunch of things, but being "polished" for the end-user is most certainly not one of them. Microsoft and Apple spend millions of dollars to accomplish this, so I just somehow fail to see how Google's going to make a similar investment (at cost) to make absolutely no money.

I doubt they'll do it, the chance that it will happen is just not zero.

Well don't tire yourselves out waiting with baited breath -- you might be waiting awhile.

Couldn't you just use E=mc^2 to derive the kilogram from the joule?

The start page for Firefox isn't the default Google page, but rather a customized page with the Firefox logo. But you're right, there are localized versions of that available as well:

Google Firefox Netherlands

Google Firefox France