Slashdot Mirror
Operating Systems of the Future
An anonymous reader writes: "'Imagine computers in a group providing disk storage for their users, transparently swapping files and optimizing their collective performance, all with no central administration.' Computerworld is predicting that over the next 10 years, operating systems will become highly distributed and 'self-healing,' and they'll collaborate with applications, making application programmers' jobs easier."
...we slashdotters see this as complete worthless bullshit because MS Research is spearheading this effort? This is actually quite a novel idea, but the due to the general 3771ism of /., it will be made fun of and dismissed out the wazoo.
Yawn.
The Apollo workstations did this in the 80's on a Unix variant. On that system, it was hard to tell where the computer left off and the network and began. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that my user directory and applications were actually on another machine in another building. What was missing however was the self healing aspect, although I think that could have been dealt with.
I remember when the Mac went from 24bit to 32bit. Microsoft was at Windows 3.1 16 bit. Microsoft spent a bunch of time trying to convince people that 32bit was overhyped and that 32 bit didn't matter. Once Windows 95 came out, they completely reversed course and told everyone that your word processors will no longer work as well because they weren't 32 bit.
Microsoft has downplayed the value of Unix for years. They suggest the value of some of Unix'es virtues as irrelevant. Then as they add the feature, it become the greatest thing since sliced bread. I.E. terminal services...
I'm certain that in 10 years when Microsoft "invents" and patents this, there will be a concerted effort to convert us all. Maybe Passport is the first step.
Michael
And what is it exactly that this paradise is supposed to do for us and what exactly is "healing"? We've been hearing this sort of crap for years esp from Microsoft and what has happened in the meanwhile? The operating system has become larger and relatively slower (given the increase in computational power) with no increase in functionality that I can see over something from 15 years ago. I'm talking OS now- not applications.
Microsoft should have had to pay for advertising space to have this article printed.