Chrome OS and Android OS -- do they benefit Linux?

Does Android and Chrome benefit Linux community? I read here and there how 2013 is a great year for Linux because of Chrome OS taking off, but how does it really benefit my openSUSE that im running right now?

For example I don't really see Android benefiting the Linux community. Heck their open source operating system is extremely hard to fork.

So it seems like Google uses Linux as a basis for their new operating systems but doesn't really give much in return.

Or am I missing something here?

 

At best it warms people up to the idea of running something other than Windows. The problem with this logic is you could say the same about Apple's operating system, which hasn't does much of anything except pull people towards a different closed environment. I would agree though, that this doesn't do a whole hell of a lot of encourage a windows user like myself to run OpenSUSE or any other Linux derivative for that matter, IMHO. If anything, it reenforces the idea that open-source can never compete with a proprietary operating system backed by ease of use and creative ad campaigns.

 

I'd say there's a bit of benefit. I reckon though less than 5% of people who are aware or use Chrome OS and Android OS know that they're using Linux.

My own informal survey I'll chat up strangers using their Androids. I get around to asking if they have used or know about Linux? This is where I get my reckoning of less than 5%. They have no idea they are using Linux.

 

Have you seen how many third party roms there are all forks of the AOSP code base ?

Off the top of my head (may be inaccuracies, not got time to fact check it all):

Google is currently the 8th biggest contributor to the kernel.

Probably not obvious, but when you start digging you will see Google has contributed kernel features, kernel bug fixes, bug fixes to file systems, network manager, bluetooth utils etc, providing new sub systems for the kernel such as mtp. Their surface flinger has been inplemented as one of the interfaces to use with wayland.

Then indirectly Google contributes to Debian (used on their servers and compute engine) and various other open source projects thought things such as Google Summer of Code ($7mil a year).

Google pays for developers in the Git Project, Python language and others.

Google has developed a few technologies that are now adopted/being adopted such as their SPDY being the basis for HTTP2, and contribtes to DNSSEC webrtc and others.

Google sponsors various projects such as KDE and Gnome, has sponsored the Wine project in the past and funds a huge amount towards the Mozilla foundation who Develop Firefox (via sponsored search).

In total Google is right up there with Redhat in terms of $$ and time invested in Linux and related open source projects.

 

Thanks for the informative posts. I didn't know Google contributed so much.

 

Didn't immediate consider these perspectives, but I agree companies would benefit from Google's R&D programs and even other initiatives such as their programming boot camp. Who better to educate future programmers and to lead by establishing standards. This also begs the question whether this is honestly a positive benefit. Articles that I've read suggest the new spdy protocol is a nice security improvement, but a blow to privacy. The details are outside my knowledge area, but it wouldn't surprise me.