Thread

Google breaks promise to provide 10 years of updates to Chromebooks

355 points · 156 comments · speckx

jezzamon · 1790860299 · focus · HN ↗
Discussed a lot here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49893653">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49893653
Seems to be more reasonable than this title suggests?
Some comments: "So they have introduced a major change and said any older Chromebooks bought going forward will only get 8. So its not a retrospective reduction for existing customers." (Edit: actually I think this comment is wrong, if you bought a Chromebook 1 year ago, you'd only get 9 years of ChromeOS updates)
"From my understanding of the article, it sounds like ChromeOS support is getting pared back for those devices, but the devices themselves should still be supported, albeit via a (planned but not yet in existence) migration path to GooglebookOS."
1. wongarsu · 1790863591 · focus · HN ↗
  Reasonable would have been to deprecate support in 10 years, not 8.
  Saying "yeah, we promised you 10 years of support, but if you just bought yours the last two years of that will only be supported if you switch to a completely different OS. But happily some of our devices have a direct migration path (if that's not yours, deal with it). Better hope the features you need will be available in our new OS by then, because right now they are not" is a major rugpull and not reasonable at all
  1. skybrian · 1790864590 · focus · HN ↗
    “Completely different OS” might not affect the user experience all that much, though, since these devices are for running Chrome and it will still run Chrome. (And be better at other things like running Android apps, presumably.)
    We don’t have any details about what the upgrade path will look like and it probably hasn’t been implemented yet, so this is all speculative.
    If they didn’t do an OS change, they could still evolve it a lot over 10 years. Chrome could evolve too. You’re trusting the vendor to not screw up your workflow either way.
    zdragnar · 1790868395 · focus · HN ↗
    The downside to the user experience, so to speak, is that the newer OS will be more powerful / featureful, which will require updating a lot of managed policies for places like schools or locked-down businesses. They'll have to evaluate whether they want to deal with that and continue on the new OS and commit to it in the future, continue with it for a very short time then start all over again on windows or something, or just give up the time they were promised.
    Of course, I don't think any schools are getting 10 years out of a chromebook, but some businesses might be.
  2. Zigurd · 1790870529 · focus · HN ↗
    Not that Google has done anything to make it more obvious but ChromeOS, the OS on GoogleBooks, and an obscure Linux you can put on random old PCs, are all related in interesting ways if not derived from the same project.
    The practical issue in this case appears to be that GoogleBooks branding is meant to indicate they are good at running Gemini and other Google AI technologies. Chromebook aren't.
    I doubt the entity called Google is of one mind about any of this.
    edoceo · 1790871334 · focus · HN ↗
    Which obscure Linux?
    a1o · 1790873193 · focus · HN ↗
    It used to be Gentoo but not sure it is related anyway nowadays

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