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The Role of the Operating System In the Future
liteswap writes "Linux geeks love Linux and Windows mavens won't quit Microsoft -- but will we really care that much whether a machine is running Linux or Windows in future?
As Sun announces Solaris support for Red Hat Linux applications, the need to specify the OS for a particular application will fade away, and the application and the x86 platform become the critical things -- at least that's what this Techworld feature argues..." Maybe a long time from now this will happen - but I don't see it happening RSN.
I've been contemplating the OS situation for years (ever since I first tried to run a multinode BBS under DOS' DesqView) and only recently has a possible endgame become visible to me: emulation.
.SYS driver like we had in the DOS days that basically handled everything.
Software needs an OS layer, the OS layer needs an abstraction layer to hardware, and the hardware needs a communication layer to all the various mechanisms (drivers, BIOS, interface protocols, whatever). It isn't just a simple 16-bit
We've seen so many emulators (Macs running Windows emulators running Mac emulators) on so many platforms, but what has allowed so many to come to the market in such a short period of time? Processor speed, I'd say.
Now that processors are incredibly fast, we're likely to see little performance increases in the tasks that 90% of the world uses PCs for: displaying text on a screen, inputting text into a form, and sending that text to a printer. Sure, Vista will incorporate a new video structure and 3D-gaming and heavy-use databases will always need faster processors, but MOST users are still just text viewers.
The next step, I believe, is creating a more realistic "standard" emulation structure for software. I think the F/OSS market is awesome because you can generally cross-compile a lot of code on various operating systems, but they still need modifications to the specifics of the OS or the hardware you're running on. What I really think will be the next big thing will be a TRUE hardware abstraction layer in the OSes (H.A.L.I.T.O.S.es?). Is it possible? I'm not sure, but it makes me wonder.
Why do people bust their asses constantly updating WINE when the OSS community can work towards a more amazing result: a standardized implementation structure that lets you write software once, and have it run on any OS that has a HAL to translate that implementation structure to what the hardware requires.
I know -- that's what the OS is supposed to do, but it fails. Yet do MOST applications really need the extreme features we have in customization (different video cards, hard drive controllers, network interfaces, etc)? Or would MOST applications run just fine (on high end processors) if they can say "Write pixel at X,Y" or "send data chunk to IP address" or "Write this data to this store" etc?
Maybe I'm talking out of my ass (I haven't programmed anything significant since MajorBBS mods in C over 15 years ago), but it seems like that is where software has to head. A completely transparent "mini-OS" that offers all software written for it a very standard set of instructions for the most popular functions. You're not going to write 3D games in it, but that's not the target market. 3D games will always push the envelope and come BEFORE the hardware can handle it. We're talking about basic implementation of basic software, yet it is this basic software that we waste billions of man-hours of labor on trying to get working on various OSes and hardware combos.
Now that I think about it, wasn't NT supposed to be the magic system? What exactly happened there? (Don't just say "Microsoft.")
I really, really, really don't care what OS I'm running on any of my machines. What I care about is:
Right now, for me, the only OS that fits that bill is linux. I seriously don't care that it's linux, but for all the reasons above, it's my choice. (I know there are other candidates, I'm only speaking for my criteria.)
In the meantime, I am grateful for MS, as a steady source of income for me as I consult and help people keep those machines running.
And then work on the LSB. I'd like it if I could even just use generic "linux" applications on Debian as opposed to only ancient versions of RedHat.
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
The only development software that has come close to giving us platform independence are interpretative languages like Perl and Java, but that promise is still elusive. Java still seems to have stalled, and with projects like Mono, it almost seems like Microsoft may ultimately, though possibly unwillingly, get the upper hand.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Leaving abstractions aside, of course the choice of Windows or *nix matters. Because of Windows' layout and the way that certain applications are built into it (IE, Windows Help, etc) there are reliability issues that cause many more maintenance-related reboots than on Unix. When was the last time you rebooted a Linux machine because the Help system in KDE needed updating?
Also, there are certain OS-specific things which usually cannot be solved in hardware (assuming you're running on the best you can afford). Need an FS that handles massive sparse files correctly? Maybe that means you need Reiser on Linux, or ZFS on Sun... (I have no idea if this is true). Maybe Windows just CANT do this well, regardless of CPU power. Do you need to hot-swap NICs, CPUs, and add/remove memory and CPU power on the fly? You probably have to go to AIX then. Didn't we just read an article about how Windows takes 5x the number of CPU cycles to start a process?
If you consider the OS tightly coupled to the app, or the app requires specific capabilities from its OS, then app concerns will dictate the OS.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Yes, I really think it does matter which operating system is used, and it should matter to everyone: developers, purchasers, and--unless they are very short-sighted--end users.
I've heard about Solaris to Linux ABI for years. I dug this up from 2 years ago: http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/support _for_x86.html.
So is this something new or something that now works now that the Linux ABI has stabilized? Or is this easier now that Sun is shipping x86 systems or what?
Inquiring geeks want to know the point of running Linux apps on their Sun boxes.
I think the role of languages that don't rely on a specific platform will become much more important in the future. I write my software in Python and it works wherever Python works (well, not really thanks to GTK+, but its getting there!). As these languages and toolkits mature, I think we'll start to see less of a dependence on the OS
but will we really care that much whether a machine is running Linux or Windows in future in future?
I dont care what OS is running now, as long as I can read slashdot and look at pr0n!!!!
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
Right around the time Linus Torvalds announced his employment with Transmeta, he said something to the effect that the world already had a portable byte code, and that byte code was x86.
*'in future' repeated for emphasis
I read
How is what you are describing not the Java -- bytecode, JVM model?
Even if every operating system could run any application written on any developement platform, there would still be operating system preferences.
Performance, dependability, Security, Hardware requirements, and even things like boot time will still drive people to prefer certain operating systems over others.
What software an OS runs is generally second in consideration to me, as there are usually equivalent packages to perform the same tasks on other platforms.
... what did you expect, something profound?
You just listed 7 reasons why you really do care what OS you run. It is impossible to separate the OS from the factors that you listed. As impossible as separating Internet Explorer from Windows.
but the programming world has a serious lack of portability. Programmers refuse to attempt to write portable code, and they cite (with justification) the lack of any libraries which allow them to do so with ease. Microsoft, Apple and Unix have three very different programming APIs, and Microsoft + Apple continue to try to make sure their APIs diverge from each other. MS being the worst...they "invent" a new language all their own and encourage the use of it by mob force.
The nuts and bolts of the world are still in C/C++, and will be for the foreseeable future. C/C++ still lack any standardized support for GUIs and threads. C/C++ are still the most flexible languages (in a non-CS professor approved sort of way).(This is not a "my language is better than yours post")
For a long time we're going to care about our OS because our programs will only run on one certain one, even if we don't really care what OS we use.
"x86 platform become the critical things"
Why? If you are going to abstract the OS why not the ISA?
IBM actually has been doing this for years with the System38/AS400.
The came up with a "prefect" ISA. When a program is installed it is converted to the actual ISA of the machine it is running on. IBM went from a CISC to the Power ISA without a hiccup.
I have wondered why Linux hasn't come up with a similar system. When you install and RPM or some other style of package the system could "translate" from a perfect ISA to the native ISA of the system you are running on.
Sort of like Transmeta did but do it at install instead of runtime.
Think of it as a just at install compiler vs a just at runtime compiler.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
For the those clueless people, like myself, RSN does not stand for the "Royal Singapore Navy" or the Religious Science of Nashville but for "Real, Soon now" which to the initiate could alternately mean "Real Soon, Possibly Never".
I guess you need to be a science fiction fanzine fanboy or a regular reader of "Chaos Manor" to know this. Tribal Knowledge...
They will most likely suffer all from the same (protocol) bugs, be vulnerable for the same attacks and ultimately be virus compatible. Diversity is good. Lets just have two or three major operating systems in the future, probably running the same applications, but not on exactly the same code base on a nice interactivity layer.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
Our primary concern is to use software and not all software is going to run on all platforms so we choose the platform that runs the software we want, very redundant. Until this changes the status quo wont change. And a lot of people aren't going to move stuff to linux because it's not worth the expenditure, remember the nightmare ID software wrote about supporting a huge number of unstandardized distros/configurations and how problematic it was for them. Similarly a lot of stuff isn't going to be ported to windows for whatever the reasons. But you cant just use *any* OS and for the forseeable future that aint changing.
Whoever wrote this was obviously hallucinating. As long as Microsoft continues to make applications for Windows only, the OS will matter. It's called a monopoly: it's the key to Microsoft's success and they'll do almost anything to keep it that way.
Yeah... I think maybe you're wrong. When an OS uses device drivers, it's essentially creating a Hardware Abstraction Layer... and All software, and programming languages are moving towards more abstraction. The idea that a program will run across multiple platforms is a testament to the abstraction of the hardware, and the generic features of the OS (threading, file system, etc). Maybe the point is the UI of the OS is going to become more important, as we run out of features to abstract. Heaven knows we programmers wouldn't mind some things being simplified... (Asynchronous sockets anyone?) Don't get me wrong, I love c++, but the OS is getting abstracted away, and that's okay.
Thats exactly what Inferno (a plan 9 derived OS) does already.
Limbo code is compiled into architecture independent byte code which is then interpreted (or compiled on the fly) on the target processor. This means that any Inferno application will run identically on all Inferno platforms.
...which is why you will soon see MS doing things to intentionally break packages like Qt. MS knows it's coming too, and they will have no real way to fight linux then.
Right now, the only thing keeping most people with MS is software selection. Most industry applications are written for windows, non-cross compatible. As more and more companies start using portable windowing libs, we will see a take off in linux usage. It's really a no brainer: You need an os on 100 computers to run your application. Do you choose the OS with a price tag of 100 bucks, or the one with a price tag of 0, that's easier to maintain than the one with the 100 price tag?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
First, Java, while not as successful as Sun hoped (what is?) hardly "failed miserably." Prior to C#, what other options were there for object oriented, garbage collected high level languages? People used C++, which, while in some ways stronger than Java, is hardly comparable. Java (partly) filled a void that, hopefully, C# will fill in an even more convincing way.
Second, machine independent bytecode isn't really the crux of the issue, I don't think. I say this for two reasons; first, x86 is pretty much the standard at this point (I say this from a G4 Powerbook, but with Apple and Sun shipping x86 machines, the desktop, workstation, and much of the server market seems to be going x86); second, any language with cross platform libraries and compilers is "write once, run anywhere;" VMs are only interesting (in the context of compatibility) insofar as they are "compile once, run anywhere."
The OS is already a hardware abstraction layer; it allows you to ignore what kind of I/O devices someone has, what size their disk is, how much RAM they have, and so forth. The technology to write code that works across multiple platforms was realized decades ago, and we use it daily. The only reason we're still talking about this is essentially an economic one--while each OS is an implementation of a standardized hardware abstraction layer, there are simply multiple OSes, which means multiple standards. The obvious solution to this is to be able to a) run multiple standards on one machine (either by running multiple OSes or by an OS that is compatible with, or emulates, the syscalls and libraries of another OS) or b) use a higher level language (like Java) that has its own standard and its own abstraction layer for each OS it is compatible with.
In other words, standardizing platforms is easy; getting people to agree on a given standard is hard. Being compatible with multiple standards is a good bit less hard, and we've been doing that for at least a decade as well.
failed? how so, it's everywhere, from browsers to enterprise multi-tier architectures. sales of java-based application server infrastructure (weblogic, websphere, etc.) is growing at triple-digit rates each year. Of course, it's not the single one world standard Sun hoped for, but its sure not dying or stagnating. Sure, in the small and mid range scripting langauges are popular as a simpler way to get stuff done, and I hope that new virtual machines for these langauges in the future pose a real threat to java/j2ee. What else is there, CORBA (stagnating and dying for sure)? dot-net ?
Then over here, we have the one bad, sulky operating system. Who is this making these horrible noises and faces at everybody else over here in this dark corner? Why, my goodness, it's Microsoft! What's the matter, Softie, don't you want to play nice with the other systems? Oh, I see, you want all the other systems to *DIE* so you can be all by yourself. OK, I guess that's a "no". Well we're going to go on having our little party together and maybe you'll get the hint and just go away...
But I still don't see it real soon, even if MS suddenly does a Grinch and grows it's heart three sizes bigger and decides it's going to play nice after all. Witness the fragmentation even within an OS's community (distro vs distro, desktop vs desktop, editor vs editor), and I don't think you'll get the vi/Gnome/Debian bigot and the Emacs/Fluxbox/Slackware bigot to say "Eeeeeh...what's the difference?" But then again, my crystal ball *is* due for a polishing...
The operating system will continue to become less and less important as modern operating systems become closer and closer to being mere variants on the underlying Unix design that has taken over the market.
When an OS is made with some feature that Unix can't duplicate, while retaining security and stability, operating systems will again matter.
It seems to me that, until we can make document file formats (think MSOffice versus OpenDoc) not matter, talking about the whole OS not mattering is a bit premature. We live in a time when we discuss at great length file formats and the future readability of Word documents. Solving *that* problem (any word processor can figure out any other word processor's file format) would appear to be a much simpler problem than abstracting the OS. Walk, then run.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I just purchased a nice cs101 book for java 5.0.
Why?
Because my computer science department wants to standardize on java in addition to c++. Why standardize on Java? Because its the most sought after language in business.
Don't believe me? Go to www.monsterboard.com or some job site and look at jobs in your area. Java is the most sought after language with c/c++ second, and perl third.
Java is essential for any big ecommerce servlet. Php is not there yet and neither is c#.net in terms of scalability and maturity.
Java is a success.
http://saveie6.com/
you may not care which OS you are running if the apps you like run everywhere, but someday,somehow, for some reason, you will want to be able to get to the source code - you will want to not be locked into choices that some corporation makes for you, or at least to be able to read over that code to make sure its doing what its supposed to and not too much more.
if you really hate some choice Linus makes, go fork off your own branch -- if you don't like a choice Bill makes, or Steve makes, well, you're sort of stuck.
-- Talk is cheap. Supply exceeds Demand.
Talk is cheap. Supply exceeds demand.
``As Sun announces Solaris support for Red Hat Linux applications, the need to specify the OS for a particular application will fade away''
...) binaries for ages. Has that taken away the need to specify the OS for applications? Java promises to run the same binary on all major platforms. Has that caused applications to not be bound to any particular platform?
Oh, come on, don't be ridiculous. Don't pretend you don't know that GNU/Linux and Solaris are _very_ similar to each other, compared to Windows.
The BSDs have been able to run Linux (and SCO, and HP-UX, and SunOS, and
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Read ALL of the first page of links
http://www.google.com/search?&q=what+is+the+diffe
please.
Java has nothing to do with JavaScript ant the J in AJAX is JavaScript
--meh--
The OS matters and MS is making big headway in that front. They are doing it right in the face of all their naysayer's, and the irony is those self-proclaimed geniuses are missing what's happening right in front of their face.
For example, the Apple crew touts being first to market with features like indexed searching as reasons why they will beat MS. All the while MS is quietly getting XP Embedded in ATMs and Cars. MS can ad a search in an update (e.g. Vista), but Apple isn't going to power any BMWs with OSX 10.5, but MS already does with XP Embedded.
MS is diligently working with GE (one of the worlds largest companies, 1st or 2nd place) to advance home automation, and integrate with household appliances. Home automation is the FUTURE of computing, period. MS is working hard to penetrate the Home Media market (media center, Xbox, IPTV, etc.), the phone market, and many other fronts. You can say they won't make it, but they are doing a hell of a job to date. Look at the next generation of television, IPTV. MS is starting to get so far ahead of everyone else it's getting sad. Take some time and watch the demos, they are very impressive. The zealots keep saying it isn't true, but they have been saying this since Windows 95. They were wrong then, and are wrong now. Apple and RedHat don't have any big exclusive deals with Verizon or SBC to power IPTV, but MS does. Those deals are getting fiber brought to everyone's doorstep. IPods are cool, but they are a novelty device and they aren't going to power the home of the future, but at the current rate, MS will.
Phones: Mobile 5 blows the doors off of all business class phones today with the exception of RIM's. With the exchange integration, RIM won't be able to compete... MS phones will support Push with more then a 100,000,000 people overnight. RIM is struggling to top 5,000,000. Linux phones are a nice idea, but they don't offer push, and the ones at present can't hold a candle to Mobile 5. Then there are PDAs. MS has crushed Palm, and Nokia's hail marry is neat, but won't beat Mobile 5.
The bottom line is if you like MS or not, they are growing in many areas that aren't being publicized. The naysayers are a sleep at the wheel. The platform of the future isn't going to come from Google, Sun, and certainly not Apple. MS is getting in at the ground floor of these industries and they have far more money to fight off the others.
The platform matters. I know so many of you are out of your mind pissed at me for writing this. I'm sure some of you will have some wiki-pedia posts to try and make your case, or some blog of an anti-ms zealot. And to you I say; it doesn't matter if you use a Windows computer for surfing the web or not, you aren't going to be escaping MS powered operating systems anytime soon. History will prove me right.
Its hard to express how little enthusiasm I have for this. I mean, the various BSD's have had Linux binary compatibility layers for what, 5 years or more?
;-)
So Sun's mightly Solaris is finally catching up to a dying OS? Ouch.
The Jargon File explains many of these terms, has some interesting notes on hacker culture, and is sometimes plain funny.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Folks are going to think this comment is rather blue sky, but the only thing which matters is your Information and *Access to your Information*.
A catchy term for this could be called "Info Spaces". (I didn't invent that.)
Imagine you have a computer tucked away in your basement which only exists to hold any and all information you have ever referenced or created. (Or you could use a public utility.)
Computers in your house let you access your Information, as do wireless laptops, networked screens, and PDA's..
As does your cell phone or PDA when you are away from home..
As does a screen at the library, work, coffee shop, or school.
As does an Info Room at home, work, the airport or hotel (full video conferencing.)
As does a regular POTs phone at the street corner (If any still exist).
The application really will be a slightly important thing as it provides an interface to the information you wish to manipulate. As all data in this world will be Open Format in this fantasy world (with translators for outdated closed formats.) You will have your choice of interfaces [applications], including fetching your favorite program from your home server written in universal executables (or even outdated binaries) which are translated on the fly to whatever terminal or server your are accessing your Info Space from.
The whole Computer, CPU, OS, Network, Application thing is utterly meaningless.
Only your Information and it's context are important.
What IS required for this to exist is a secure, reliable, failsafe, private, non-IP encumbered way to blat these Info Objects and their relationships all over the globe without exposing anyone to invasion, risks, or corruption of their INFORMATION.
I guess you'll also need the ability to perfectly identify an individual as well. (Oops.. there goes privacy?)
I do realize that is an unattainable goal and against the corporate and even government interests.
But it is an interesting goal nevertheless.
Now please do tell me exactly why I'm wrong...
Slashdot is clearly behind the curve on this one.
Point #1: Embedded devices
Do you know what "OS" is running in your digital camera? Your DVD player? Your MP3 player? Your GPS system? In the majority of cases, the answer is no.
Point #2: Web applications
Google search, Google reader, gmail, Flickr, etc. They look the same to me whether I'm running Linux, Unix, OS X, BSD, etc.
Point #3: Cross platform apps
Python coding and development feels the same on Windows, Linux, and OS X. Makes no difference to me. Ditto for editing with vim. Quite a few other languages and applications are identical, too: Inkscape, The Gimp, etc.
Yes, Java-the-platform is in a way its own OS, but on the other hand, Java sits on top of whatever native OS. How about thinking about it this way: I don't have to clean format my hard disk and get all new apps if I install Java. Java may be its own API on top of an OS, but not only is it not tied to a particular native OS, it doesn't whine, fret, or threaten if it is not your exclusive API, and it plays with the other kids.
I can have Java, Python, Ruby on Rails, and even Mono coexisting in the same partition on top of the same OS. They can interoperate through files. While this is not always politically correct from SUN's way of thinking, I can also interoperate Java and C++ in both direction (Java calls C++ or C++ calls Java) using the JNI. I can interoperate Python and C/C++ and on Windows I have Python hosting ActiveX controls to do visuals which in turn can call Java signal processing plug-ins -- it is sort of like the Far Side Cartoon of the cops who find a man swallowed by a crocodile in turn being squeezed by a boa (perhaps a python?) and are required to sort that mess out.
While there is a thing such as "Internet time", I think there is a 10-year rule in effect for the maturation of major pieces of software. From the time of Windows introduction in the mid 1980's to the time of Windows 95, COM, and ActiveX, when Windows acquired the features that made it what it is today was about 10 years. Java is around its 10th anniversary in 2005. Maybe Java/Swing has acquired enough features and enough performance enhancements to be taken really seriously.
It is just a really crappy emulator. The reason that you don't see multitasking in the JVM is the same reason you didn't see it in DOS. Everyone is compiling their code to run in machine language (Yes, Byte code.) The JVM is following in the footsteps of the "IBM PC". An increadably crappy design that after years of manpower, and millions of dollars is finally getting to a point where it is good. (If you haven't looked at it in a while, it's time to reevaluate)
There is no reason that an OS couldn't be written for Java, and that OS could support multi-tasking. One thing to keep in mind is that the target audience for java, and the limitations of Java don't lead to the kind of enviroment that would encourage a company to write a full OS to run on it. Besides, since the platforms that have JVMs on them can load multiple instances of the JVM, what little incentive is left disappears.
Shortly after Java was introduced, I would always laugh about the whole write once run anywhere claim. Java was a crappy emulator that was inconsistant across platforms. One program would have three different outcomes on three different platforms. At the same time you could get something like a C64 emulator that would run on 20 different platforms, and get exactly the same results every time.
I believe the biggest hurdle to Java compatibility was that they wrote the emulator first, and then tried to make the processors after. This meant that when one implementation behaved differently than the other, you could not point to the physical reference platform and say, "look, this is how it runs or real hardware." Not suprisingly the Java processors never took off
This is a pipe dream. The OS will continue to matter as long as there is money to be had by locking customers into a specific platform. As odd as it sounds, many customers WANT to be locked in to a specific vendor.
.NET. Despite the propaganda from Mono, .NET is a Windows-only platform, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Mono is merely the Wine of the .NET world: you'll hear stories about .NET apps that will run on it, but try as you might you can't get any of the ones you need to run under it. What good is a crossplatform backend when the front end GUI is still inextricably tied to one OS?
Platforms will matter because your applications will remain platform specific. The big push in corporations right now is to migrate everything to
If major web sites and applications are still coding for specific browsers, my hopes for a cross-platform world where OS doesn't matter are very very slim.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned