Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Scientific American Article: Internet-Spanning OS

Posted by timothy on from the everyone-hold-hands dept.

Hell O'World writes: "Interesting article on Scientific American outlining what they call an Internet-scale operating system (ISOS). 'The Internet-resource paradigm can increase the bounds of what is possible (such as higher speeds or larger data sets) for some applications, whereas for others it can lower the cost.'"

5 of 233 comments (clear)

  1. Re:repeat? by Hal-9001 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, the exact same article was posted as a /. story here about three weeks ago (under almost the exact same title!) and I could swear it was mentioned in a comment in this story (posted by timothy!), although I can't seem to find that comment right now...

    --
    "It take 9 months to bear a child, no matter how many women you assign to the job."
  2. Sounds like Freenet II by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    In the 1999 paper [freenetproject.org] "A Distributed Decentralized Information Storage and Retrieval System" which formed the basis for the Freenet [freenetproject.org] project, the following future direction is suggested:
    Generalisation of Adaptive Network for data processing
    A longer term and more ambitious goal would be to determine whether a distributed decentralised data processing system could be constructed using the information distribution Adaptive Network [Freenet] as a starting point. Such a development would allow the creation of a complete distributed decentralised computer

    Guess there is nothing new under the sun.

    1. Re:Sounds like Freenet II by Wandering+Idiot · · Score: 2, Informative

      Heck, as far as simple file-sharing goes, it sounds like Freenet I. (I realize the article is about an operating system, but this discussion seems to be mostly about sharing files) As far as security goes, currently existing file-sharing programs allow you to *choose* which files you want to share, and which you don't, and other users can only request one of the files your computer says it has- no one has actual access to your hard drive*). I would imagine that any decent processor-sharing program would allow similar customization- setting the maximum amount of processor time used, how long the computer would have to be idle before it kicks in, temporarily disabling it, etc. As for wearing out your computer (as someone else mentioned earlier), come on! You'll probably upgrade the old components long before they burn out due to a bit of extra use. Most people run screen-saver programs that keep the processor busy during idle times, anyway. Might as well get some use from it. As for distributed Operating Systems, I agree with whoever said that bandwidth was a more important factor than the program itself. Until everone is connected at 10 Gigabits or so, distributed programs will probably only be used for large, slow things like number-crunching and file downloads - not OS's, which require an immediate response. Something to keep in mind for the future, though. *Barring potential glitches. Really, though, I haven't heard about many security problems in the current programs.

  3. Seen before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    Uh, you mean like this OS?

    Wow, 3 years on Slashdot and this is the first time I've caught a duplicate story before anyone else. What do I win? :) A free Kuro5hin.org account? :)

  4. Re:Modem users beware... by RyMon · · Score: 2, Informative

    People either aren't understanding, or aren't reading properly. All the computers wouldn't be spread out everywhere, only what people choose to put on the net. Your operating system, files, programs, etc. are still on your hard drive, but you can choose to sell extra space on your drive in exchange for some cash, and vice-versa. You can buy a gig of space spread out over the net to store some extra files on, and your files end up in tiny fragments on hundreds or thousands of other computers like yours.