Don't they use Linux a lot internally, too?

It's really awful that companies such as Box, Google etc are not supporting the Linux desktop, especially seeing as desktop linux is actually a really attractive option right now - better memory management than OSX and installable on pretty much any device, and Windows is pretty much a joke for non-.NET development or unless you game.

Fuck, their Android platform is based on Linux yet they don't support Linux desktop? That's pretty shitty.

Not having a Drive client for Linux (yet) doesn't mean Google as a company does not support Linux at all. For example, Chrome is supported on Linux. We don't know - Drive for Linux may come further down the line. The reality is that a relatively small fraction of consumers use Linux at home or work. If I were releasing a new product, Linux wouldn't be one of my top priorities either.

Agreed, but the "techie" crowd tend to be the early adopters for products like this and help drive others to use them. It's not totally crazy of Google not to support Linux out of the gate (for the reasons you and others noted) but it is a little surprising, nonetheless.

It's a shame though, you think they'd support it.

Think of everything Linux has done for them.

I'm assuming it's in their best interest. If they plan on ChromeOS getting big, having GDrive built in will be a big plus.

I completely agree, huge company, huge resources, lotsa money. With all that, making a Linux client would be super easy, any highschool kid can go ahead and just build it, but with their resources, they can make a just-as-good Linux client very easily.

Damn, this pisses me off, seems like a great product I just can't use. Ubuntu One and Dropbox seem like the best alternatives now.

Also, Google Earth on Linux is indeed a joke, I think it's Wine.

"any highschool kid can go ahead and just build it"

What high school did you go to where everyone was an expert on multithreading, network io, disk io, bidirectional synchronization, and state persistence?

Google Earth on Linux is not Wine, Picasa is. And it works great.

This is where Dropbox has a major edge for me

"You can install Drive on your Mac or PC"

Of course, if this pushes Dropbox to add more (useful) features and/or drop their price, that's cool too.

If it's an open API, couldn't you make an open source client for linux/bsd? Or is the API not fully featured?

(iCloud to FUSE would be cool, too)

The API only supports webapps that are installed through the Chrome Web Store.

There is a Google Docs API[1] that allows you to upload and download arbitrary files from Google Docs; depending on exactly how the Docs / Drive integration works, that might allow you to write a desktop Google Drive client.

[1] https://developers.google.com/google-apps/documents-list/

as always :) they are first going after the big fish. But they will come. I'm sure. Chrome, Google Talk for Gmail everything follows this path too.

Not everything: http://sketchup.google.com/ http://picasa.google.com/

Also add the linux version of Google Earth - it's a joke

Google Earth has always been a farm for practicing features in preparation for a move into Maps. Earth was never a respected product.

Earth has many features that Maps don't. When is the time you tried Earth? Viewing old imagery, the flightsim, more layers, it even has street view integration now.

Both of those were acquired from external groups and were written before Google had their hands on the source.

This just in, apparently - the Linux client is "coming soon..."

http://www.slashgear.com/google-drive-for-linux-incoming-252...