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."

Comments

Forget it

[BadDoggie]

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.

Anyone RTFA?

[MyLongNickName]

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

Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[DrSkwid]

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".

This article is one big troll.

[Vellmont]

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.

Worst Article EVER

[pyite]

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?

Re:The Point?

[Tim Browse]

I think this is the kind of attitude that people are annoyed by. Receiving criticism with "Yeah, I make mistakes, but that's because I'm so 1337z0rs that I type at 89wpm!" is not really going to cut it. Because if nothing else, if that's the case, then, hey, guess what, you can't type at 89wpm! To paraphrase Gerald Weinberg, I can type at 120wpm if I don't have to get the words right.

And they're not English instructors - some posters can just speak English and find mistakes glaring and detract from the message (see Marshall McLuhan). But go ahead with your arrogant responses. It just makes it easier for the rest of us to filter you out.

People will mostly accept honest mistakes. When the offender instead tries to make out that their mistakes aren't mistakes at all, for whatever reason, when clearly they are, this is what tries people's patience.

This article misses the point.

[nesabishii]

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.

IT Phone Home!

[Paraplex]

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.

InternetOS

[JWSmythe]

    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?

Re:You need to do better than that

[Ex-MislTech]

Likewise subsistance farming (there's not enough land for each person to farm enough for himself).

The rest of your point was good, this part is horribly wrong .

The majority of US farm land has been idled due to the low cost of foreign food,
and the influx of huge Corporate farms like ADM(Archer Daniels Midland).

During Depression/World War II the people were told to grow a garden in there back yards
to deal with the situation .

My Grandparents still had this habit when I was growing up as a kid thru the 70's and 80's .

We had so much food we canned it, froze it, and gave it away .

The large cities of the east and left coast this is not practical, but there are large
patches of land throughout the mid west that were crushed due to Globalization and
Willy Nelson and Friends held a series of concerts called Farm Aid for all the farmers
whose families and lives were ruined by the globalization of food .

http://www.farmaid.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ab outus_history

While it is good and great that we help the poor outside our borders, it is bad
that we make our nation vulnerable to shipping embargos and eat food from countries
that do not have the same pesticide rules as we do in the US .

Soil and water pollution levels in these countires are not monitored like they are here .

The taxes on land, the equipment, and the fuel are not on equal footing either, so the
US farmer cannot compete and a large number of small farms went broke .

The cost of living is higher here, as is the cost of doing business .

Outourcing our food will be something that will come back to haunt us in the future .

I was born and raised on a farm, and I dare say you were not .

Ex-MislTech