Canonical has confirmed that it's been collaborating with Google on Chrome OS.

"Canonical's Ubuntu developers have been working with Google's Chrome team since before Google announced its netbook operating system plan in July 2009... in a Canonical blog posting, Chris Kenyon, Canonical's VP of OEM Services, revealed that 'Canonical is contributing engineering to Google under contract,'" writes PC World's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. "Canonical insiders were not at liberty to say how many developers were working on Chrome, but they did say it was a major project."

"In theory, Google could just grab any old Linux code to do these things," writes InformationWeek's Serdar Yegulalp. "But from the way Canonical talks about this partnership, Google's clearly interested in more than just a respin of what's under Ubuntu's hood. They want good minds, too, like the folks on Canonical's design team. And one great mind is better than any hundred thousand lines of code."

More here from GigaOM ... and more here from Ubuntu Geek.