>built on a standard Linux foundation. Instead of ChromeOS or Android as the base, treat them as subsystems for compatibility.

What Google is planning for the Googlebook is about 1000 times more secure that the "standard Linux foundation" you refer to.

I'm writing this on a standard Linux desktop, of which I am a happy user. It breaks my heart that so many people put so much work into building such a comfy software environment on a foundation with a very severe flaw: namely, it would prove so difficult to secure it to the standards required by our modern heavily-computerized society that it will be easier to start over on a different foundation. Android Open Source Project strikes me as the best candidate for that new foundation now that Google has decided to do a lot of work to adapt Android to desktop-style workflows (large displays, pointing devices, detached hardware keyboards).