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."

Comments

Amoeba

[oyving]

Tanenbaums Amoeba is way ahead of the game then.

Futurists are stupid

[SirSlud]

I'm so sick and tired of what the next 10 years will bring us. Howabout OSes that dont crash? How about hardware that won't lock up your computer? How about open standards, a generally more cautious approach to computing that will allow us to stabilize the developments that occur? Nah .. of course not. Lets take this overly complicated not-so-realiable thing and throw a transparent layer of 'self-healing' autonomy to it. I know thats what I've been looking for ... yet another reason why I have to explain to my boss that computers ain't perfect. I can hear him now: "But they're supposed to heal themselves! Why didn't the OS dial up our energy provider and ask why the power went out?!"

Re:Futurists are stupid

[SirSlud]

>"For that you need a language that blurs the distinction between data and instructions"

My point was that instructions are data. But I challenge you to illustrate that in order to solve a problem, you can provide data that does not encompas the intrucstions. "My house is on fire" is data that will instruct people to run out of it, but only because they were previously programmed with a 'fire' trigger. Escape it when it's inputted into your system.

So neither english nor C can go outside of it's own contextural setting. English is just so more complicated with so many more possible branches of execution based on data that it's difficult to compare the two without either belittling humanity or getting 1984ish about technology. C /can/ change itself via function pointers and, lets say, random data to throw on the execution stack. But brute force only works when you can test a result within the programattic bounds of the inputted data, including instructions. I mean, really, humans are just wildly complex computers, which is why our data-exchange set is so much more advanced. :)

"Why are we here?" has multiple answers, so you can really only validate successful self-programming if you already think you know what the answer is. And for that, you depend on previous data entry ... etc, etc, etc ..

A vision of OS future : tiny reliable components.

[chrysalis]

IMHO, future operating systems will tend to something like the ErOS operating system . This OS is based on multiple tiny extremely reliable components, within a strong capability model to provide a high level of security.
It's definitely a good approach, although ErOS is still quite experimental yet.

As long as...

[BoarderPhreak]

...This software isn't like Office X from Microsoft on the Mac where it scans your network for anti-piracy measures, but in the process opens up your machine wide to the Internet by opening several ports... Worse yet, not tell anyone about it!

Grumble, grumble...

Scalability problems, anyone?

[mblase]

The target environment for [Microsoft's] Farsite is an organization in 2006 with 100,000 computers, 10 billion files and 10 petabytes (10,000TB) of data.

Surely there will be major scalability problems with something like this, a la Gnutella?

The potential pitfalls of 100,000 computers trying to access each other across the same network gives me headaches just thinking about it.

Re:Scalability problems, anyone?

[Salamander]

Surely there will be major scalability problems with something like this, a la Gnutella

That's why it's research. I've met and talked to Bill Bolosky (Farsite project lead); he's very clueful wrt scalability in general, and well aware of the problems that networks like Gnutella (an unusually naive protocol, BTW) have run into. However, like the folks working on OceanStore or CFS or many other projects, the Farsite folks have a fairly formidable arsenal of innovative techniques they can apply to the problem. The details are still being worked out, of course, because that's what research is all about, but the people working in this area do seem to be making real progress toward solutions that could scale to such levels.

OS's will be so smart in 10 years.....

[8string]

Farsite is just one of several projects at Microsoft Research and other labs around the world that will render operating systems all but unrecognizable in 10 years. Farsite embodies several characteristics--such as fault tolerance, self-tuning and robust security--that will distinguish operating systems of the future.

So, Bill is finally going to release a version of windows that will automatically simulate pressing ctrl-alt-delete when it blue screens.

Many people would say it's MS's customers that have been fault tolerant.
<rimshot!>

Hmmm...

[dghcasp]

Oh, you mean something like Plan 9 from Bell Labs?

I predict that there will never be a revolutionary new operating system until we break free of the chains imposed by Posix compliance. Until then, we're stuck with files that have to be streams of bytes, ugo-style permissions, non-wandering processes, incompatable RPC calls, &c.

And the real pain is there have been OS'es that have had simple & elegant solutions to problems that are hard under unix (Aegis, Multics, VMS, TOPS, ...) that were pushed aside by the steamroller that is Unix.

But to be fair, many of the forgotten O/S's are now forgotten because they weren't as general purpose as Unix. Unix is the great compromise. But it's hard to strive for the best when you've already accepted compromise.

So what's so special?

[dfenstrate]

Farsite, while ingenious, looks more like a fantastic file storage system than anything else. Is it possible that they've tweaked the UI that most of us are accostomed to the point where any more upgrades are aesthetic, feature or reliability driven, and aren't fundamental improvements on the current desktop analogy?
Will the majority of the computer using populace still be double clicking, dragging and dropping, and 'opening' folders and hard drives 10, 15 years from now?

Could be. Could be.

Druthers

[r_j_prahad]

I don't need a self-healing computer nearly as much as I need a self-painting house and a self-mowing lawn. And my wife could sure as heck use a self-fueling car.

The future belongs to Plan 9

[kfg]

Don'cha just love it when people "predict" what's already nearly available? And without even mentioning its existence in the article.

And don'cha just love it when MS "predicts" that they'll "inovate" by duplicating it under the MS banner?

Anybody care to "predict" the havoc that might insue when such OS's gain wide public use? I'd be leery of using such even in my isolated from the internet home network until it was proven to be absolutely secure, something today's less interactive computer nets can't even manage.

I'm happy that people are looking forward to, and researching, the future.

Would it hurt if a few people spent a bit more time making the present work worth a shit?

KFG

Borg Time...

[PHAEDRU5]

Let me see if I've got this straight:

1. /. story about Microsoft getting legal permission to take over your computer, as part of a EULA.

2. ComputerWorld story that includes a line about how Microsft sees the computer of the future as one giant logical system with many small partitions.

Is anyone else joining the dots like I am?

Seems like a good idea...

[Arcanix]

I assume Microsoft will be releasing the source code and freely distributing Farsite so I support this project.

Brrr...

[sharkey]

...operating systems...and they'll collaborate with applications...

Windows Inheritance: "Psst. You crouch behind j.user's legs and I'll give him a push."
Clippy 5000: "OK"
*SHOVE*-splat!
Software: "Have a nice trip? See you next Fall! Muahaha!"

The #1 Rule of Network Security

[Guppy06]

"Imagine computers in a group providing disk storage for their users, transparently swapping files and optimizing their collective performance, all with no central administration."

Whoever thought up this pipe dream apparently doesn't understand the Zeroth Law of Network Security: If you want information to be secure, DON'T PUT IT ON THE FUCKING NETWORK!

Seriously! As if most business OSes don't default to the least-secure settings already! Why would you want to run important apps on a system where the default is to share anything and everything with any computer in listening distance?

Beware emergent behaviour

[AJWM]

This OS is based on multiple tiny extremely reliable components

Unfortunately that doesn't necessarily make the OS itself reliable. The emergent behaviour of a system is different from the behaviours of its components.

After all, all software is based on multiple tiny extremely reliable components (F00F and FDIV bugs aside)-- the processors op-codes -- and look how flakey most software is.

Sure, you've got to start with reliable components, but you have to combine them in just the right way, too.

Computers still haven't changed

[pmz]

What was they hype ten years ago? Twenty?? Then, why am I still using UNIX??? And why is UNIX still the most powerful OS commonly used????

I think there hasn't been a new idea widely used in computing since the '70s! What gives?

Re:Computers still haven't changed

[markmoss]

Because Unix wasn't designed as an OS that came with all the functions you would ever need (until next year, when you had to replace it), but rather a framework for adding in whatever turned out to be needed.

Re:Mod Me Down If I'm Wrong.....

[Salamander]

The idea of my files being stored on some Iowa farmhands computer does not sit well with me...
...The only real security is hardware security, which is to say, my files on my machine, your files on your machine

The first statement above makes perfect sense if you consider the second as axiomatic. However, the people working on these types of systems don't accept that axiom. Instead, they believe that cryptography-based security is just as strong as physical security...the odds that someone will factor a couple of hundred-digit numbers (or accomplish some equally difficult mathematical feat) are no higher than that they'll break into your home/office and steal your hardware. If they're right then there should be no problem with storing your files on some Iowa farmhand's computer (so long as you also have other replicas elsewhere for availability purposes), because Iowa Farmboy still can't access or modify your data without the right keys.

That's a big "if" you say. Well, yes it is. But if you want to make an argument that hardware security is the only real security, you'll need to show that cryptographically based systems aren't as secure as skilled and experienced implementors of such systems seem to think. Good luck.