The new "Google Chrome OS" is a nifty instance of branding, we'll give it that. But stripped of the marketing talk, here's what Google just introduced: A distribution of the Linux operating system, plus a "new windowing system" and a copy of Google's Web browser.

In geek parlance, Google built a "shell," not an OS. The kernel and, almost certainly, a large chunk of the "userland" programs that make up an OS come from elsewhere.

But it's in Google's interests to puff up its new technology. The press loves a nice, simple fight between tech industry giants; Google's branding is thus sure to generate loads of free buzz for Google's "operating system," as programmer and longtime tech pundit Dave Winer has pointed out. Winer:

Let's be dispassionate. Before yesterday's announcement: 1. Chrome ran on Linux. 2. Linux was an operating system. 3. Linux ran on netbooks. However, most people want [Windows] XP on their netbook, not Linux. That was true yesterday and it's still true today.

Maybe Google will eventually develop its new system into something truly revolutionary. Or maybe it will fall by the wayside like Google Base, Google Notepad — or the version of its last operating system, "Android," which was to run on the netbooks now targeted by Google Chrome OS.

No matter what happens, at least one group of users will be thrilled: The press. (Talk amongst yourselves!)

Even as Google launched its own browser, it's continued to funnel millions of dollars to Mozilla, the nonprofit maker of Firefox. Almost 90 percent of Mozilla's revenues — last reported at $75 million in 2007 — have come from a search-referral deal in which Google pays Mozilla when Firefox users perform searches in the browser's toolbar. Shortly before Google launched Chrome, Mozilla and Google renewed the deal through 2011.

But a Google-eyed tipster tells us that Google is looking for ways to cut its support of Mozilla sharply. This has top Mozilla engineers spooked, and several of them have popped by the Googleplex to interview for jobs there.

It makes sense that Google would want to support its own Chrome Web browser. And yet bullying a nonprofit would seem to clash with Google's "don't be evil" motto. Perhaps "don't lose money" has become more important.

I have been a great admirer of Andreesen since the mid '90s. He is no doubt one of the fathers of the modern internet. But really, he should can it about people using "his" ideas. He of all people should know that the internet abounds with ideas. Everyone has an idea.

Ideas are overrated and rarely original. The know-how to implement ideas, and to know which ones are good, that's where the real genius comes in.

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I've edited down Om Malik's report on the talk.

• “Any desktop application that has not been implemented in the browser is now going to be implemented in the browser.”
• Chrome's speed, especially its advanced JavaScript engine, will push Firefox and Internet Explorer developers to make massive upgrades to their own products. “Microsoft can build good products when they want to."
• “If JavaScript gets any faster, then developers will question if they should develop in Flash or Silverlight."
• “Super interactive browser that sits atop a super-fast connection…now interesting things will happen over the next 5-10 years."

(Photo by Joi Ito)

"I have gotten none until now," he replied. "Which makes this one the worst by default."

The press corps may have forgotten Zawinski, but fans of his screensaver for Linux and Unix systems, XScreenSaver, haven't. One suggested that Google use Zawinski's Pipes screensaver for Chrome's "about:internets" Easter egg, which displays a series of tubes. If you don't get the joke, you probably don't remember who Jamie Zawinski is, either.

Product manager Brian Rakowski:

Engineer Darin Fisher:

Open-source evangelist Chris DiBona:

(Illustrations by Scott McCloud; Chrome Team photo by Wired/Joe Pugliese; Chris DiBona photo by Alexander V. Royne)

The terms of service for Google's popular email product Gmail contains the same language as the Chrome TOS mentioned above, but it's also got this Orwellian gem tucked in it:

Google reserves the right (but shall have no obligation) to pre-screen, review, flag, filter, modify, refuse or remove any or all Content from any Service.

Not that Google is actually going to stop you from sending that dirty email about sex and drugs to your dirty friends, but they could.

Facebook is the Internet's most popular photo-sharing site. Which, according to Facebook's terms of service, means Facebook could be a very profitable stock photo firm if it wanted to be.

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

The terms of service for YouTube also say that uploading anything onto the site gives them license to do whatever with it. More obnoxiously, YouTube also says that even after you delete content from the site, they're allowed to keep it forever:

You understand and agree, however, that YouTube may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of User Submissions that have been removed or deleted. The above licenses granted by you in User Comments are perpetual and irrevocable

My favorite obnoxious terms-of-service clause is in the license for AOL's instant messenger client. You're only allowed to use AIM for lawful purposes, so no pinging your friends about smoking up or scalping tickets. Also, turns out you can't say dirty words or obscene things over the service, which probably means most people can't talk about their bosses, last night's overtime loss, or that girl in fourth period:

You May Use the AIM Products for Lawful Purposes Only. You may use AIM Products for lawful purposes only. You may not post on or transmit through community areas (e.g., message boards, chat, e-mail, calendars, instant messaging products) or other means any material that (1) violates or infringes in any way upon the rights of others, (2) is unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, vulgar, obscene, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable, (3) encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, (4) gives rise to civil liability, (5) violates any policies posted in any community areas or (6) otherwise violates any law. You also may not undertake any conduct that, in AOL's judgment, restricts or inhibits any other user from using or enjoying the AIM Products, including without limitation the community areas.

Both Mozilla's terms of service for Firefox and Microsoft's EULA for Internet Explorer 7 don't have these weird clauses.

News.com reporter Stephen Shankland ran tests suggested by the Chrome team. Google's browser trounced the rest of the field:

Faster browsers will, in theory, be good for online commerce. Years of tests and server logs have proven that faster page performance leads users to hit more webpages, whether they realize they're doing it or not. Now if only we had more money to spend online.

The trick was we knew it was going to launch sometime in early September, and we wanted to be out with it as close as possible. That meant the story had to close in late August when it was still a huge secret. Both Steven and I had made considerable promises that it wouldn't leak from us. We pledged that we could be trusted with this information in advance so we could produce a long-form magazine story on a monthly cycle.

Cohn set aside space for the feature under a codename, "Go Lego" — an obvious anagram of "Google," but also a plausible topic for Wired to cover. Files were saved in space used for the September issue, because "no one ever looks back at the old issue," says Cohn. Then, Cohn told staffers the fake story was cancelled. "We told people that we're going to pull that story for ad sales reasons, but we're going to keep it on the map for bureaucratic reasons," says Cohn. Those in on the secret prepared a fake table of contents and even a cover.

"Only 8 or 10 people knew — not because we don't trust people, but because I and Steven had pledged it would be very closely held," says Cohn. (Wired has a staff of 49, according to the masthead.) "Normally the staff sees the entire magazine. I sent out an email this morning letting people know. A lot of people came into my office surprised there was a story they didn't even know about, words on the cover they hadn't read."

Did it ruffle feathers? Perhaps a little, says Cohn: "This morning an editor told me about a story he was working on, and then he said, 'And there's a secret story I can't tell you about.'"

What's telling about this episode? There's more at work here than the standard negotiations for a fly-on-the-wall feature, I think. Google's workers are so fervent in their do-gooder convictions — that their viewpoints are reasonable, that their requests for secrecy are normal, that their cause is fair and just — that they can't help being a bit infectious. Google Chrome has a feature that puts the browser in an ultraprivate mode. Here's the question: Can Googlers ever turn off their own secrecy switch?

Mainframe terminals, or keyboards and monitors attached to a big piece of iron in a subbasement somewhere, probably built by IBM or DEC. While proponents of what until recently was called server-side computing have now opted for the friendly-sounding "cloud computing" moniker, let's not forget that Google has built some of the biggest iron around, fulfilling an even more ancient prophesy from the days of punch cards and vacuum tubes: that someday, computers would grow so large they would require their own warehouses, and require so much power, you'd have to build them next to dams.

It makes sense from a business model angle. Google can give away open-source browser code all it wants — while keeping its search algorithm and Web index behind doors firmly locked with key cards and biometric scans. When you're not passively paying Google by paging through independent tabs looking at ads, you'll be actively paying Google by using its suite of office productivity applications. The browser is just another loss leader, as evidenced by Google's history of paying everyone from Mozilla to MySpace for traffic acquisition.

Microsoft's model predicated on proprietary code distributed in paper boxes and intellectual property restrictions writ in byzantine end user license agreements has been dated for some time now. By tethering hardware to software and upstaging everyone with design and branding, Apple has done well by maintaining manicured gardens for the wealthy. But it has clearly ceded the business market by shifting focus to consumer devices, and derives much of its hipster cache from vapid anti-establishment rhetoric. IBM, the company that Apple wanted to smash? Doing quite well selling big iron and giving away open-source code, thank you very much.

That's because the cloud computing worldview is one that has much to recommend it to large institutions, and IT guys at large corporations, research universities and in the government all understand it implicitly. Access to the highest level, or root, of a really big system is an awesome power. You can mete out shares of computing resources, invade people's privacy in all sorts of heinous ways and otherwise torment the poor plebes typing away at the terminals like a true autocrat. All those computer science Ph.D.s and technology researchers Google has hired have mainframes in their blood and ambitions far beyond two measly processor cores.

Google is familiarly setting the stage for later dominance: From earning money from Web applications built for Chrome that lease computing power from Google App Engine to providing the very electricity to juice up these massive mainframes. Meanwhile, the faster you flip from tab to tab, the more advertising inventory you create for Google through their sites and through third parties. Hundreds of clicks and impressions in a day from every Internet user worldwide, from when they wake up to check email through their day at the office to when they come home and look up American Idol highlights, whether they use Chrome or not.

So while much innovation has clearly gone into the design and architecture of the new browser, Brin's ideas are nothing new. The practice of running applications and storing data on a centralized server is actually older than operating systems for personal computers. And the dream of vertically integrating all levels of a trade network — of creating a monopoly? Even older than that.

(Photo by AP/Paul Sakuma and Alex Handy)

John Lilly, the CEO of Mozilla, has said he's "not worried" about Google Chrome. That's classic PR-speak. Mozilla and Google are financially intertwined; Firefox makes money for Mozilla by referring users to Google's search engine; that traffic, in turn, generates advertising revenues for Google.

But Mozilla has shown some signs of independence, signing a deal with Yahoo for search in some parts of Asia. And the larger Firefox gets — its browser-usage share has reached 20 percent, according to some estimates — the more leverage it has over Google.

Sure, in theory, Microsoft can tie its Internet Explorer browser to its Web search and mapping services, generating traffic. But that's been the theory for years. Can we say it? Microsoft's online services just aren't very good, which is why users avoid them and they're losing money hand over fist. A new browser won't change that.

So Firefox, not Internet Explorer 8, is the real strategic problem for Google.

Of course, it's impolite to say so. Firefox, as an open-source project, is beloved by geeks, even though its executives are well paid and the project is gushing cash. (Mozilla Corp., a for-profit corporation, is owned by the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit; the company's profits can thereby flow up to the foundation without violating its tax-exempt status. Neat how that works, eh?)

Google would also face an all-out rebellion in the ranks if it came out and said it's taking on Firefox. But there's reason for the Googlers behind Chrome to start a grudge match.

Several key engineers — Ben Goodger and Darin Fisher among them — devoted considerable volunteer time to Firefox before joining Google's browser project. An article posted on the Truth about Mozilla blog in February says Mozilla's CTO, Brendan Eich — a veteran of Netscape — removed Goodger as a Firefox "module owner" in September 2006. Being the "owner" of a module, while a volunteer position, carries considerable cachet. Goodger subsequently removed himself from the Firefox project, as did colleagues like Fisher and Pam Greene.

Wired now reveals the motivation behind Eich's move: By June 2006, Goodger and others had created a prototype of Chrome. If Lilly wasn't worried about Google's browser, why would Eich take Goodger off Firefox? In any event, removing Goodger played into Google's hands, making him all the more willing to take on Mozilla.

The infighting between the browser maker and the search engine shows the limits of open source's "sharing is caring" ideology. Open-source projects can be just as political as proprietary code — and as vulnerable to twisting for corporate priorities. The bottom line of Google Chrome's creation? The bottom line. Google was worried that Firefox was making too much money, and Mozilla was getting too independent. Mozilla had to be stopped — and the true Firefox believers at Google had to be cajoled into doing Larry and Sergey's dirty work.

(Illustration of Ben Goodger by Scott McCloud)

that is what you get for not hiring phd's in the mailroom.