Update: Google OS Will Be Linux Based

Okay, I can officially state that Google's OS will be Linux based, open sourced and developed using an open source community model just as it should be. From the official Google blog:

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel...

We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision.

One interesting thing, if you read the whole post and know anything about Ubuntu's future goals, Google and Ubuntu basically have the same goals over the next sic months. The main features and users thay are targeting are the same: Fast boot time, netbook and ARM support, very web-centric, and very light weight. In fact, one of Ubuntu's main goals is to port Google's Android. Hmmm.

Maybe there is nothing to this but I wonder if part of the "open source community" Google hopes to work with includes Ubuntu.