Slashdot Mirror
Saying 'No' to an Executable Internet
Dylan Knight Rogers writes "Applications are constantly being ported for usage on the Internet - either for a viable escape from expensive software, or because it's often helpful to have an app that you can access from anywhere. Operating systems that run from the Web will be a different story."
What a submission! This is Sunday morning on Slashdot at its finest.
Wasn't UNIX designed to run off a main frame with network terminals connected to it?
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
We gave up on the idea of centralised systems a long time ago with good reason. I remember coding COBOL on 3270s which had to connect to some computer center elsewhere. Can't connect? Can't work.
Local apps give us a lot of freedom. It might be nice to be able to also have such a centralised system available, but even with access on planes, there are always times and places you'll be cut off.
woof.
Why say no? I really enjoy the freedom I have with my web based OS. I use Affinity - http://www.oceanworksuk.net/products/affinity_cust omer_relationship_management/
It's a nice web based "os" of sorts. I have access to email, task list, calendar, IM, newsfeeds, contact list, and much more. They're currently integrating a nice VOIP client into it.
Screen shots:
http://www.oceanworksuk.net/news/show_story42.htm
Sheesh. This was more a "Microsoft Suck0rs, Linux RULZ" article. Very little in the way of actual content and analysis. How did something like this make it on Slashdot? Ooops never mind
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
We all know "no" means "yes"... Yes... you.. dirty filth... yes... daddy like... daddy like...
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
"We gave up on the idea of centralised systems a long time ago with good reason."
Sez you
plan9 boots across the internet since forever, the networked file system is delightful, none of this NFS idiocy.
I was horrified when I went back to set up networking booting in Un*xville, yes, horrified. "These people are dumb, not the terminals" is about the most polite I could be about the state of "the network IS the computer".
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Basically, his point is that Lunix rulz and Microsoft is teh sux and such will continue to be the case with AJAX apps. That doesn't make sense even if you concede all the author's idiotic premises.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Are you truthfully denying that OpenBSD is more secure that Microsoft Windows? I would seriously hope not.
It's important to take a look at their two development models. OpenBSD puts a massive focus on security. It's paramount to them. Their coding practices are one of the main benefits, which helps to ensure that insecure code often isn't written, and that it does't enter their source tree if it is written. Not only that, but their audits help to ensure the high quality of their code. It also helps that they audit external software that is widely used, such as Apache. Overall, proper design and a good implementation process lead to secure software.
Anyone designing a networkable operating system needs to adopt a similar development process, else risk the creation of an insecure operating system.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
Which is fine is the service doesn't disappear or go evil.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
filled with Pro-BSD, anti Microsoft garbage
that's exactly how.
Strangely I thought I was going to read an article about operating systems that run from the web (whatever that means). So I happily click on the article and start reading, wondering what an internet executable operating system is. Ok, history of windows, vast over-simplifications.. read read read.. but yet still no content. Turns out, there really is no content.
Taco, you should be embarrassed for posting the article. There's nothing here but a bad rant about how Windows is a terrible OS, and microsoft sucks. You may agree or disagree with that statement, but rants against Windows aren't news.
AccountKiller
I read through that article and it just sounds like one pretentious blogger's disdain for Microsoft. Let's run through all the things that got this fast-tracked to Slashdot:
This is pure Linux-user elitism, the sort of smug "Our Opponent Just Doesn't Get It; We Do; and We're Smarter Than You" attitude that loses political battles and makes the arguer only look like a pretentious fool in the eyes of the skeptic.
I dislike Microsoft as much as the next Slashdot user but this article is awful: it simply slams Microsoft as the Big Corporate Machine with quotes like "Microsoft does not publish all their security vulnerabilities because other executive stockholders, whom are also ignorant would become worried and eventually begin to question the platform's security." If I wanted to hear ramblings about the willfully ignorant I'd listen to a David Cross album.
* Intentional typo used to point out how correcting grammar on Slashdot usually leads to a spelling error, or vice versaFor more information, click here.
Windows sucks .executable internet...something...something...
Linux rulez
and , oh..
If implemented properly, over-all, I think things like this really add a lot to the functionality of PCs. Eventually, it wouldn't matter what Operating System you ran in terms of what applications you'd be restricted to run.
Security? Well, that's why I say "If implemented properly,"
Nobody's gay for Mole-Man.
Okay, let's analyze your post.
Such a system won't necessarily be insecure. But its level of security will depend heavily on how it is designed and implemented.
Wow. Security depends on the skill and proces by which it is implemented. I just crapped my pants at the insight.
It's no different that what we have today. Systems that aren't very well designed and poorly implemented, such as Microsoft Windows 98, are horribly insecure.
Okay, we reitterated... if it isn't designed well, it won't work well. I'm still impressed.
On the other hand, systems with a solid design and an effective development and testing process will turn out to be very secure (ala OpenBSD).
Okay... we have now established that if it IS designed well, it WILL work well.
Damn. I am humbled.
I watch crap like this get modded to +5 over and over. I am actually laughing right now at the fact that you are alreaddy modded up to +4.
However, all being said and done, I admire the way you get the sheep to follow... you should go into politics or religion.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I'm going to go back to work now ... and then watch a stupid movie. Especially, if this is going to be the quality of aritcles on /. today.
Sure, other OSs, linux and BSD and what not, are a little less secure. But there's "a little less secure" and then there's "made by Microsoft".
The very first iteration of what eventually became Unix was a simple task switcher to allow a game to run at the same time as actual work. Technically it wasn't multi-user, because there was only a system console.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Damn'it my access to the internet OS comes up as Jan. 1 1980....
And what exactly do you contribute to the conversation other than constantly complaining? Honestly, if you don't like this website leave and don't come back, nobody is forcing you to come here. This site would be a much better place if people like you would simply stop coming here.
Electricity, sewage and oil only work efficiently in huge, centralised systems and aren't feasible in small scale. Likewise subsistance farming (there's not enough land for each person to farm enough for himself).
There are few apps which can't run locally. They might run faster on the massive centralised hardware but if you can't connect, you're fucked. Anyone who can't afford to be fucked by the loss of a connection to any centralised system (like, say, a hospital) has a localised back-up already in place. It's not efficient but it keeps things working.
And you're also ignoring the cost. You'll pay for usage, either flat rate per time period or per-minute. Microsoft's been talking about working Office into this sort of model for more than five years now. Clearly they believe it would earn them more money.
woof.
The article states that microsoft has ingnored gaming consoles, and portable music devices. Ever heard of the Xbox? Or playsforsure?
Um, Can anybody say "XBOX"?
What is Microsoft's advertising revenue? I see many M$ adverts all around, but have yet to remember seeing the competition advertising. I think I don't want more M$ advertising thank you very much. Funny how they're doing such a good job of it without paying attention whatsoever!
This blog article is screwed. I stopped reading at this point. Next Slashdot article please ...
don't usually apply to software in the same way they apply to physical processes/things.
Thanks.
Where users were controllable and things worked properly because WE managed things.
A user doesnt need any more then just a terminal. Anything else is waste of resources.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The idea of web based applications is actually very handy, and offers access to the program from a variety of locations, which is good.
Unfortunately, a huge majority of these applications are going active-x or other proprietary format, and are limiting users' access on a more fundamental level - they expand the coverage range but limit you by your access point. Our ticket system has just gone to an active-x system. Now I cannot access it from my laptop anymore. So instead of making things more flexible for me and being able to access the system from any of the 200 machines in the building that I used to be able to use, I now can access it from less than two dozen machines, only one of which I have convenient access to.
Wonderful, just wonderful.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
soooo, isn't teh whole point of .net that of internet based application development?
I'm glad you're already aware of what I pointed out. You likely read one of my other posts in which I've pointed out such facts, and thus were already in the know.
Good for you! I'm happy that you might have a clue as to how to write solid, secure software. Indeed, it is true that we can all use OpenBSD as a development model to emulate. Doing so will help us write secure, quality code. And if we run it on OpenBSD, all the better!
Now if only Microsoft were to wake up to the benefits offered by a development process such as that used by OpenBSD. They are getting far better, we have to admit, but there's still a long way to go before they rival OpenBSD's level of security.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
This is the worst article ever linked to on Slashdot. I'd tell you read it and see for yourself, but I really don't want to put anyone else through that experience. Can I have my five minutes back?
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
Don't forget the fact that he "signed" his post with his username... in case you couldn't tell from the title of the post who had written it.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I just wanted to thank you for writing that article. I know you have taken a lot of flack because of it, but I enjoyed it. It brought up serious issues that we need to consider these days.
The front page story before this one focuses on how a hospital suffered a network failure because of spyware. That just goes to show that we do need to take your points about security and the Internet very seriously.
But as that story shows, apparently those who are designing mission-critical networks aren't using software that promotes security. Why they're resorting to knowingly insecure software for such applications is questionable, especially when alternatives like Linux, OpenBSD, Solaris and Mac OS X are so prevalent (if not free).
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
This site would be a much better place if people like you would simply stop coming here.
That won't happen any time soon. Ever since the addition of the Games section, a lot of Microsoft users have flooded this site. Most gamers don't give a damn about freedom or about the threats that M$ poses to computing. And why should they? Their entertainment depends on a vibrant Windows and Xbox platform.
In reality, the Microsoft users' mod points are the real problem at this site. Windows-critical posts are generally modded troll or flamebait, while Windows-friendly posts are almost always modded up. (You can spot them when they say "Why are you Slashdotters always picking on Windows!!11! *sniff*") Zonk doesn't help matters much with his numerous Xbox-pimping articles and generally corporate-friendly bias. So I guess we can just grin and bear the endless Microsoft fanboy posts, because they're pretty much here to stay.
i have seen some shell scripts in my SeaMonkey's Cache directory, i am not sure what they did so i made a shell script to delete the cache files automatically...
it may be nothing but on the otherhand it may be an Evil shell script, next time i find one i will examine it closer...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Oh wait...
even tho its a lil' hasterating. i like it.
let them invent their business. let them fetch new coward targets.
the net and the way you use it is still your thing...
so stop whimper - you'll still have fun
Bandwidth on the WAN side is too expencive for anything more than what we have now - for Christs sake, a T1 is nearly 500$/mo. The baby bells are screwing us, they promised us hundreds of times the bandwith of today at a fraction of the price if only we "pay it forward" in user fees in the 90s, we did, they didnt keep their end, so no...cant happen.
First let me point out a few odd statements in this article:
"factors that Microsoft paid little to no attention to and still don't today would be gaming consoles..."
The X-Box and the X-Box 360? Microsoft put billions of dollars into those gaming consoles.
"As experience tells us, 'easily used' operating systems such as Windows are notorious for poor security..."
What about Apple's Unix-based OS X? That's often considered easier to use than Windows for new computer users.
"resulting in a poorly designed operating platform and ignorant users who don't know the difference between WEP and WPA..."
It seems like he's arguing that the users of an operating system determine the quality of that operating system.
Really, I think this article misses the point. Internet-based OSes will not be feasible now or in the near future, I agree; however, that has more to do with bandwidth limitations, and the enormous variety of hardware out there, than security flaws in Windows (Live?). Security will always be a big issue--especially when distributed to a network of hundreds of millions of computers--but the hardware and infrastructure issues will derail the process much earlier and more severely, IMO.
Tired of Political Trolls? Opt Out!
Congratulations - your content-free post, peppered with ersatz macho bluster and spelling errors, has been rated even higher. Does this prove your theory that crap gets rated highly?
The original point the poster made warrants discussion - he actually attempted to address the question, unlike yourself; you seem to be obsessed with the Slashdot moderation system, frankly, who cares if his post gets rated high or not?
The design of such a system is important, and the people who brought you net send possibly aren't the ones you want to trust in creating a global network. Good design is important, and admitting that is the first step towards producing secure networks. Yes of course this is common sense if you've thought about the subject, but unfortunately most people haven't. Shame the original article is such a one-sided rant with very little factual information, because it could be an interesting discussion.
PS
I don't think anyone advocating BSD can be accused of getting 'sheep' to follow them - most of the people reading this page are using Windows to do so.
Wireless, GPRS, 3G etc are all pushing us back to the centralised model, it's cheaper, simpler and more efficient than fully distributed.
Mark my words... Google VNC servers... You saw it here first.
Deleted
Darn it.... For a second you had me thinking you actually had a point.
The problem isn't the OS, even under the best applications.
It ultimately is going to come down to a matter of giving the user the trust to run an application that they download from the internet. And the level of trust that the software accessing the internet will be able to actually identify or moderate the downloading of software for the user.
Today you have dumb people downloading bad programs all the time in forms of bots. None of them will run on my Linux machines because they aren't coded to do so. Similarly, none of my users have any kind of access sufficient that they could cause the machine to be rooted, barring any local security holes themselves. Under this construct, even with an application that is executable on Linux, the execution of that code should or could be considered secure.
Given that is the case today, I think it would suffice if the internet accessing software (ie: mozilla) would guarantee that anything written to the disk is written with a umask (default 022) to prevent anything being downloaded from being arbitrarily downloaded with executable permissions. This isn't a gaurantee but it makes the downloaded applications such that the user must consciously execute the application.
I will never consider the internet secure if there is the possibility that an arbitrary user can unwittingly download and execute application code. That's stupid.
Judging by all the negative comments, the flaming article has been pulled.
Probably perfect for the world you live in. But there are many worlds - designers with their fancy OSX workstations, software developers running Linux and Windows, secretaries using Office, etc.
Windows is definitely not appropriate for all real-world organizations, it just happens to be ubiquitous. But so us *nix, in the web world.
And for the record, if the only thing you can make out of an OpenBSD installation is a firewall, then you deserve to be stuck on Windows. OpenBSD also makes a swell webserver and mailserver, and runs many, many sites.
O lord, bless this thy holy hand grenade, that with it thou mayest blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.
So it's at least a little hard to follow the story right now.
Suck a lemon?
AI Algorithms already exist to turn the Internet into a global thinking Artificial Intelligence.
This type of model can be inherently secure as most of the processing, policies and intelligence for these types of applications will be in a central data center. The main difference between this new world and the old is the ability to access the compute resources from anywhere or virtually any device on any network. So if we use a lot of the lessons learned from the "olden days," we can create the best of both worlds.
--- RFC 1149 Compliant.
Mirror for TFA.
Some think the Internet is a bad thing. I just think that AOL is a bad thing.
frankly, who cares if his post gets rated high or not?
Four words; signal to noise ratio. Lets cut down on the superfluous karma whoring, please, so the more interesting stuff (that makes slashdot what it is) has a chance.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.
Sure told them!
EvilCON - Made Famous by
No.
Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/7557de839a5ddfdc3 c7cc58ef2009982/index.html
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Being the author of the original piece and the guy who submitted the summary, I'd expect him to have a fairly good grasp on how to summarize it. However the summary reads as if a Web based OS would be a bad thing, yet he states in the blog post:
So do you think it's a good idea or a bad idea?
Also, why is the Slashdot summary focussed on the idea of a web based OS when you only mention the term once, and refer to a 'Web Windows' one time?
I've seen you use this example over and over again: OpenBSD is secure, Windows is not. Do you ever offer any insight at all?
Everyone knows this. You are just repeating facts that you probably don't entirely understand. It's not just because they audit code, there's far more to it than that. Checking for errors doesn't help is the system is poor by design! OpenBSD have made a number of design choices as they have created their OS (some of which have been made by the projects they have forked from); for example, they have everything organised in a logical and orderly way.
Many GNU/Linux distributions do not have this (including the one I use, in fact). Generally, this is less common on the GNU sections (with the exclusion of Gnome, which breaks every rule in the book) and is very common on sections written by others. Some distributions have tried to work at this, with varying degrees of success (Debian has a very standardised set of interfaces).
On some areas, there are sections that actually specific to the kernel that do not fit with Unix in general (eg; why the hell is it "hda1"? I would make more sense to use numbers, and to start from 0; like grub now does - hd(0,0)).
Overall, GNU/Linux is my prefered OS for workstation computers, for other reasons, but as an OS, BSD is currently far more advanced than we are. We should listen to what many of the BSD projects are saying: Linux is broken, and in some areas, very badly.
Well we all know that only assholes have opinions (which leaves only assholes to make decisions.. great) but I thought I'd throw in my two cents
Gmail updates whether I like it or not. I'm always using the latest version, so now i'm stuck with a fking IM client for a mail host.
Hamachi doesn't run online, but phones home constantly and nags you relentlessly to "update to version X.X" every time they release a minor bug fix. When you give in and click "update" the thing is riddled with new bugs the previous version didn't have.
iTunes is similar. I never wanted all the bloat the latest versions give me. Thank christ its not an online prog. I can run the version I choose.
I spent $99 on HalfLife 2 and *cannot* play it anymore because of the very poor "Phone Home" code in steam that refuses to contact the server.
I got locked out of *my own* computer once for a day after an XP update. That wasn't cheap
I'm desparately trying to swap to linux to avoid the Vista DRM hell.
I love accessing my software from this computer remotely (using hamachi at present, but this seems to be an under developed tech) & would love to use a web interface to access info & software from my home PC from any device at any time, but I would like to retain the power over what runs on *my* pc & where that info is stored.
Rich Gentlemen Hide - The Existential Comic
Ummmm...
Can't you run thin clients (of some variety) over the Internet? Like the variety that consist of a boot disk (floppy, CD, or boot ROM) and pull the rest from elsewhere?
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Four words; signal to noise ratio. Lets cut down on the superfluous karma whoring, please, so the more interesting stuff (that makes slashdot what it is) has a chance.
So perhaps you could stop posting off-topic replies with 'Karma Bonus' enabled, or, even better, actually add some ideas to discussion rather than dismissing statements in an ego-massaging way which adds no depth to the discussion.
Best regards,
Working through existing wireless networks in real time for serious apps. It's one thing to move a little bit of data here and there but the entire application on the server. THeres so many problems with that.
Hmmm... Pie...
Blogger
Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.
Home | About | Knowledge | Help | Developers | Gear | Privacy | Copyright © 1999 - 2005 Google
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
the guy's had his website torn down by blogger. roflmao
_ In Egypt Networks: Network Solutions with a Twist
I keep getting "not found" errors. I finally Googled "dylanknightrogersblog" and was able to read the cache, but no evidence of the TFA on executable internet - obviously the page was indexed prior to the post.
What about having the network augment the user's computer? I mean, there are a lot of idle CPUs out there, right? What if your apps were designed to run on your own system just fine, but could tap into free CPU time as needed, SETI@home-style?
Now even to a non-computer person like me, security is obviously an issue here, but it seems like this could work pretty well on a company's in-house network, or over a LAN in your house, or whatever. Assuming the bandwidth was there in the network connections and the software could support it, couldn't you sort of turn your desktop and laptop into a dual-CPU machine - at least partly anyway?
And what about all those idle GPUs out there? They could be put to use in the same way too.
Just a thought.
A-Bomb
Nobody forces you to refer to the first partition on the master disk on the primary IDE channel on a GNU/Linux system as /dev/hda1. Just rename the device file if you want to. Linux doesn't care. Some poorly written application may throw up when it doesn't find the device node it expects, instead of allowing you to tell it which device node to use, but all Linux cares about is the major and minor numbers on the device node used.
With udev, it's getting trivially easy to implement whatever naming scheme you want for devices. Don't like the usual Linux way? Use something else. All you need to do is add a bunch of lines to *one* configuration file, which can then be propagated to essentially as many systems as you like. That's it.
If it's not open for users to install their own programs, then everyone here will complain that it's a proprietary interface trusted computing bla bla bla.
If it is open for users to install their own programs, then everyone here will complain that it's a huge security risk and will lead to the death of the internet bla bla bla.
The previous has been a secret message to my comrades.
My fear is not the idea of a subscription based OS, or even accessing your apps online. Thanks to KRUD we have a subscription based GNU/Linux distribution, and thanks to ZeroInstall we have a system of on the fly internet apps in GNU/Linux. I just really doubt that the windows version will be that nicely developed. With ZeroInstall I keep my local copy of my apps no matter how long I go without internet access, and with KRUD I still have my OS if I stop the service I just don't get any more updates.
I really can't think of many benefits of doing something with ActiveX when browsers are so rich now. It suggests to me that someone is just lazy now.
So what? Why does every anti-MS article need to reflect that? MS didn't think the internet would be a trillion dollar industry. Not many things turn into trillion dollar industries.
Apparently even the writer realized how lame the article is :)
I'm no fan of network centric computing being used everywhere eiither; one of my favorite quips to use against advocates is: "I can't use my word processor, the network is down".
That said, I think it would be foolish to ignore the potential. Common sense applies. Obviously a web browser is an inherently network-oriented app. Anything DB-driven, where the DB is updated frequently and is too large to store locally is also a candidate. The word processor could even pull modules from the internet--as long as they were cached locally for when the network is not available.
Common sense and good design can give us the best of both worlds. It's just a question of finding the time, and the brains with the common sense; but isn't that always the problem.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Yes, but why should he have to go through and change this by hand?
/dev:
... and the list goes on.
If I take a look at a linux system's
audio1, audio2, audio3
dsrp1, dsrp2, dsrp3
eda1, eda2, eda3
fb0, fb1, fb2
fd0, fd1
hda1, hda2, hda3
hdb1, hdb2, hdb3
ippp0, ippp1, ippp2
isdn0, isdn1, isdn2
isdnctrl0, isdnctrl1, isdnctrl2
loop0, loop1, loop2
I don't know about you, but what I see is most number systems starting from 0, a few fucktarded ones starting from 1 and a lettering system used to number drives just to spice things up.
In my (not so) humble opinion, that is fucking broken. There is no reason a user should have to go in and fix that. If you Linux guys really want to number starting from 1, at least be consistent and number _everything_ starting from 1.
It's shit like this why I hate Linux and love BSD. BSD feels designed. BSD is consistent. Linux feels slapped-together in the way that everything does something a bit differently than everything else.
*dons flame-resistant suit*
ND
According to these pages: http://www.osnews.com/user.php?uid=2668 , http://jenett.org/ageless/1990s/ Dylan Knight Rogers is 16 years old. That would explain many of the criticisms in this thread. Both his site and his "blog" are now giving 404 errors so I can't even read the article myself.
rooooar
Someone forgot to run his - I'm getting a 404 Error on his blog lol.
Something to keep in mind on these security ratings is that there are certain features required such that, if missing, the OS cannot be certified at that level, regardless of how secure the OS actually is.
For example, I believe tagging objects as something along the lines of "Secret" and "Top Secret" (seriously) is a requirement for some level (C2?).
The percentile you desribed as 'smart' is IIRC the same percentile you have to score in to be allowed as a member.
But if we are going to have those people do all the actual work, what shall we do with the rest of them? maybe store them in some cubeville office and have them look at pr0n on the their tellies all day?
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
rm -rf /../*
what's above root dir? Does anbybody know?
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
/*Wireless, GPRS, 3G etc are all pushing us back to the centralised model, it's cheaper, simpler and more efficient than fully distributed.*/
First of all, the majority of solutions you've described are nowhere near fully deployed. 802.11b/g is spreading, but you're still tethered to within a 100ft. or so of the nearest access point (discounting the few places that have city-wide wi-fi). 3G/GPRS are being deployed in a select few cities, but, again, is nowhere near providing full coverage. The big cities may get the fancy broadband wireless, but what about the boonies?
Secondly, there's still no guarantee that these technologies will be robust enough to provide guaranteed bandwidth in all areas. I see this everytime my cell phone loses its connection as I step into the basement. Its one thing to boast of providing 100Mbps at 100m across a clear field, but quite another thing to pull it off when there's buildings, cars and other electronics providing interference.
Third, even if you can get to 100% coverage with 100% bandwidth, you're still losing scalability by switching to a centralized system. Cell phones and other mobile devices are becoming more powerful every year. It'd be a huge waste to treat these devices are mere dumb terminals. Ideally, distributed applications would be best for this sort of an environment, as there'd be spare CPU cycles all around for you to use.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Enterprise applications have centralized data and applications (database, stored procs, servlets, etc.). You can't easily escape this fact and thus centralized computing will continue to thrive for the foreseeable future.
The backlash against the mainframe had more to do with the niche of applications that did not require the data center. Word processing, spreadsheets, etc. where the data can be local for X amount of time before being shared with others in the enterprise.
Internet applications are the current direction for a few reasons:
1) Centralized apps are still a must for multi-user, shared transaction processing.
2) Maintaining client applications on local computing resources is a logistical problem with zero gain. It's a drain of time and money.
3) The browser is the standardized client that is ubiquitous, no need to worry about whether the client is loaded with 3270, 5250, telnet, etc.
I'm not a M$ luser and I don't give a damn about "freedom", that is your kind, that says "free yourself from this other kind of restrictive software license and ensnare yourself with my kind of restrictive software license." Freedom is not swapping types of bondage, and then adding a religion.
Censorship at its best! that sure did not last long
Okay, your application did, but a "huge majority"? I work in the technical field, and I don't get that sense at all. Any stats to back up your "majority" claim?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
We didnt screw up, we just didnt adapt fast enough ( didnt take the PC market seriously ).
Not having control does intefere with users productivity, since they are incapable of doing it themselves.. The only way to regain that state of productivity is to go back to the old model, and take the 'comptuer' away from them so it can be managed properly. Then they can get back to actually doing THEIR work, and not pretending to be an admin.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Perhaps it is the reverse of what the article is suggesting, but often times one wants to be able to distribute web apps as EXE's that work just like older-style apps where you install EXE's and other do-dads all the in same directory and just run the main EXE.
More tools are focusing on web app techniques instead of traditional GUI's, ao it makes sense to have ways to distribute web apps for individual machines.
Table-ized A.I.
this is the most boring post ever.
as far as remote applications go microsoft allready has a solution.
Vista and windows server 2003 R2 = remote applications.
They run off the server act as a normal application on your desktop and allow you to save your files on the server or localy.
so yeah...microsoft is way ahead here.
The X-Box and the X-Box 360? Microsoft put billions of dollars into those gaming consoles.
But how many yen? Microsoft has catastrophically failed to win over the part of the console gaming market with allegedly the most mone¥ spent per person: Japan.
Sorry I didn't waste my time gathering stats for you, you'll need to go find them yourself. I'm merely relaying personal experience, like you just did. (I didn't see any "stats" from you to support your experience?) Not having a windows XP machine here I am fully aware of all the things that can't run without active-x. You probably use quite a few of them without even knowing it.
Try disabling javascript for a week and see how your web browsing goes. Same efffect, though admittedly on a larger scale. It appears that every little startup that's trying to publish a web-based internal company tool is using active-x. It's hard to find one that isn't using active-x. It's not a bad idea in concept - you get to push your program to the host machine with no installation (short of active-x anyway) and have a wide degree of fredom and tools at your disposal. Updates are centralized. Unfortunately this means you have a high degree of control over the client computer, and are highly dependent on it having active-x (proprietary) installed on the client. You can also easily waste a day browsing all the active-x security problems. (patched and unpatched) The spyware authors must just looove active-x being installed on so many machines.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Disclaimer: didn't RTFA.
So:
I'm going to be able to access not just applications in my browser, but a whole OS?
Gosh, think of the security implications - where are my files being stored, blahblah.
FUCKING DYNDNS, APACHE & a JAVA VNC CLIENT
Although the rest of the posts seem to suggest that the article actually has sweet F.A. to do with anything.
As an aside, I have heard it mentioned that it is possible to pay for a subscription to slashdot, is the posting of this article some kind of incentive?
"There is nothing nice about Steve Jobs and nothing evil about Bill Gates." - Chuck Peddle
Nice try, but I'm running Safari on OS X. ;)
And not to disrupt your screed, but email trojans are by far the most used tool of "spyware authors". Second seems to be buffer overruns aimed at ports, and third is bad data contained within theoretically benign files (images, movies). ActiveX is pretty far down the list.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Wasn't the decenteralization of computers (from dumb terminals and mainframes to desktops) a reaction to the bottlenecks of processing power, in that it was cheaper and faster (performancewise) to stuff a processor into the terminal, than to add more processing power to mainframes? I would think in todays atmosphere, this would be just as big a problem. At this point, we are at a wall in terms of processing power. Current processors are as fast as we can make them without melting (using current tech). In fact, we have to resort to multiple processors on one chip as a workaround. I would think that internet based applications owuld have the same problem with getting enough processing power to handle 1,000's of users into a small and economical space. For this reason, I can see things like MS word being web based, but Photoshop and Windows itself? I don't think so.
what article? -- looks like it's missing to me, but this is /. so reading it is actually a secondary requirement.
That throws the basis of Shadowrun's Matrix! Now get me an excalibur cyberdeck and let's try to hack those fraggin telco companies...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
If someone could give me just give me one good example of this. Are we talking "netcentric" software and API's? Are we talking proprietary or open source? Are we talking Google OS? I'm sure we/they are not talking about Plan 9 (which still needs a floppy disk to install), so what are we talking about?
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Microsoft prioritises compatibility. As a result, they have an OS that actually runs the applications people want to use...
Everything in this is true, except for the connector you use.
Windows running all the applications has little to do with Microsoft prioritizing compatibility, and everything to do with Microsoft's jealously (and illegally) defended monopoly position in the OS market.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
The submitter appears to be 15, maybe 16 years old.
Here's to hoping Slashdot forms a content partner alliance with LiveJournal soon.
a parasite shown to alter the brain function of rats, inducing them into behavior that benefits the parasite but is suicidal for the rat.
I thought we called those "chromasomes in an XY arrangement."
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Best regards,
Oh fuck off you passive aggressive latte sipping pederast. I shit bigger than you.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Many major airlines, for example, are still almost completely driven by centralized computer systems (with many of them still running on traditional mainframe platforms), and that includes software in almost every area from reservations to flight planning to aircraft parts inventory to payroll.
Yes, there are web-based front-ends galore, and a number of less critical systems have been broken out into clusters of smaller servers from a single large one over the years, but in the end you're still talking about a traditional centralized server design.
Distibuted systems work well in some areas, but they aren't a good solution for everything, and there are a number of reasons why centralization has advantages in a number of situations.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]
(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.
C:\>C:\>start "Look, I'm online!" "C:\Program Files\Accessories\Teh Intarweb.lnk
"
'C:\' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
C:\>
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
OSQ (Obligatory Simpsons Quote) "Worst Slashdot Article....Ever!"
Post apocalyptic gaming goodness
Thanks for proving that you're a retard.
By that measure, since pretty much every networked and/or multiuser OS in existence has an equivalent to 'net send', who could you trust ?
Not quite as illogical as it looks. The HDD partitions are numbered from 1 for consistency with the partition numbers.
/dev/null0 and /dev/null1 ... !
The use of letters (hda,hdb...) isn't necessarily logical, but it does, I think, make it easier to make sense of. Eg "hda,hda1,hda2" are clearly the same device. Whereas "hd0,hd00,hd01" as you seem to propose would, I think, be harder to follow.
As for things like dsp and audio, these do essentially begin from 0, but the 0 is often omitted. That's probably due to the original assumption that no sane person would ever need more than one soundcard. Of course, nowadays, multiple soundcards are a reasonable proposition - but for illustration, consider having
On Space Giants they turned into rockets!
my bet was it wouldn't work.
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
ln -s internet serious business
How else can you still RTFA?
c 58ef2009982/index.html
http://mirrordot.org/stories/7557de839a5ddfdc3c7c
StarTrek.org Free Webmail
ActiveX control, anyone?
Seriously, when is someone going to make a non executable GUI language for doing this stuff with? Can it be that hard to make a VM that's constrained to drawing in one window?
I for one think our new internet overlords should consider that most people either are or soon will be equipped with an arsenal of software designed to foist attempts to take over a browser window in the kind of way this sort of thing will require.
That's more than 2c, but I'm feeling generous today.
It's OK Bender, there's no such thing as 2.
Try ls -d /../*
See?
He was right, the root dir parents itself.
And the question is... did Adam parent himself?
The parent says that the granparent is excessively dismissive of network computing, and ignores the cost, effort, and risks involved with maintaining and using one's own computer system.
The parent uses a device called allegory to make this point.
Yep, at my place our major document repository is... browser based, bugzilla does our bug tracking (albeit on a closed server in our comms room), our test case database is web based, our system model has a web version for read-only use, our expenses and time card system is web based.
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
The offtopic isn't fair; the referenced article isn't even really on topic.
Seriously; I can understand if the readers don't read TFA, but shouldn't the editors?
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Windows NT 3.5, Service Pack 3, running on one of three specific PC configurations with no external communications (and no floppy drive, as I recall), reached C2 certification. NT 4.0 managed to get C2 certified running at Service Pack 6a with a special C2 update, again only on certain configurations. 3.51 was never certified at all. To the best of my knowledge, no Microsoft OS ever achieved or even began the process for B2 certification.
If you want more details, look at the C2 evaluation reports.
-- Old Man Kensey
That's probably due to the original assumption that no sane person would ever need more than one soundcard.
These kind of assumptions are part of the problem. Don't make them. Start from 0, and don't use letters.
I agree that the soundcards ought to be numbered /dev/dsp0 etc. It wouldn't be that hard to do so if needed, since udev can allow you to make whichever entries you like! /dev/dsp is by convention - and anyway, alsa has a new design altogether. I think that the special devices (null,zero,random,stdin,stdout...) can remain unique. But I disagree about non-lettered HDDs.
hda1 is much clearer to me than hd00. Besides which, things like hd110 would be ambiguous: is it hdb11 or hdk1 ?
Grub labels drives as (hdX,Y). X being the drive number (starting from 0) and Y being the partition number (starting from 0). This ends up making my /boot dir (hd0,0).