No Google, I Will Not Be Renewing My Drive Subscription...Here's Why.

Google's rates for off-site storage via Google Drive are fairly decent.

Decent enough for me to be able to afford a 200 gig account.

Google contacted me yesterday and asked me how I wanted to handle my renewal.  My subscription would end in 30 days and they wanted to make sure "I wasn't without my important files". 

The polite thing to do would have been to tell them their services were no longer needed.

I wasn't in a polite mood. 

In April of 2012, in the product forum for Google, Julio G. Alvarez pretty much told the Linux community to chill.  A native Linux client for Google drive was forthcoming.  You can read the specifics here along with a new petition to get them off their backsides.

16 months later, we are still without a native Drive client for Linux.  They aren't even bothering to send someone from out behind the curtain to talk to us.  Their position seems to be "let them eat Insync cake".

Which pretty much sucks from any seat in the house since The Dynamic Duo of Advertising had their road to riches paved by Linux.

By the way boys....it was us that bought you those Gulfstream G5's.

Tell me how there would be a Google today without the absolutely free code that built their initial server farm.  Go ahead, tell me....I'll wait.  Oh that's right, you can't.  Google would not exist even as a shadow of what it is today without Linux.

It appears that a Drive client for Linux isn't a priority for them.  

So Google, here's the deal:

I am in the process of copying my files and/or moving them to my new Amazon S3 storage

account.  Their prices are on par with yours (with my Amazon Prime membership) and their sync tool installed on my computer and was working in less than 5 minutes.  They not only support the Baby Buntus, but most of the others as well.  The .deb file downloaded from their download page and gdebi drove the rest of the way home.

Oh, yeah...I forgot. - Linux is a major nightmare to install software on.  

And I don't want to fail to mention that the great Reglue sponsor Dediserve has donated us 300 gigs of storage for our backup files.  We can't serve files from there like we can the Amazon account but that storage solution was for just that.  Storage of critical files.

I've been a big fan of Google for years.  And I honestly have a joke I made up that involves Google.

@truestory

The Good News? - I bought Google when they were 84 dollars a share.

The Bad News?  - I only bought 10 shares.

So I'll just say this to make you feel better Google.

"It's not you, it's me.  We need some time apart."

I'm not giving you another dime of my money or my organization's money until you get right with the Linux Community.

And yeah, you aren't obligated to do so.  I know that.

But I also know it's the right thing to do.

And so do you.

All-Righty Then....