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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."
Tanenbaums Amoeba is way ahead of the game then.
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.
{{.sig}}
Grumble, grumble...
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!>
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.
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.
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
Let me see if I've got this straight:
/. story about Microsoft getting legal permission to take over your computer, as part of a EULA.
1.
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?
668: Neighbour of the Beast
...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!"
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
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.
-- Alastair
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.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
>"For that you need a language that blurs the distinction between data and instructions"
/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. :)
... etc, etc, etc ..
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
"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
"Old man yells at systemd"