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WebOS Market Review
ReadWriteWeb writes "A number of small startups are trying their luck building a WebOS, which is a software platform that interacts with the user through a web browser and does not depend on any particular local operating system. Current WebOS contenders include XIN, YouOS, EyeOS, Orca, Goowy and Fold. There's also a bit of crossover with Ajax homepages like Netvibes, Pageflakes, Microsoft's Live.com and Google's start page. The key difference from Ajax homepages is that a WebOS is a full-on development platform. Indeed for developers, a big benefit is that a WebOS theoretically makes it easier to develop apps that work cross-platform. DHTML and Javascript are the main tools to do that, but not all developers think they are suitable."
Oh the humanity, a submitted link that links to a blog! This couldn't be a thinly veiled attempt to drive up page hits, could it? Lets see, a user called 'ReadWriteWeb', and its linking to a blog about 'WebOS' (stupid term, misnomer, buzzword-compliant). What's next a Roland Piquipaille story?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
1. WebOS is a misleading name. "Web Desktop" is a more appropriate term. I know that most users use the terms interchangably, but as techies we really shouldn't be encouraging them.
2. Most of these "WebOSes" are a mess. EyeOS just IFrames everything, Orca doesn't seem to work (at least not for me), YouOS is about at the XEdit and XTerm level, Fold is a fancy Portal environment, and XIN isn't available yet. These are nice starts to desktops, but they're a long way from fully featured desktop replacements. Right now, they're just fancy portals.
3. Google is not building a WebOS. Or at least, that's my opinion. There's no inherent advantage to building a windowing system in a browser other than the possibility of Web integration. Unfortunately, if the desktop isn't actually a real desktop (i.e. the only interface you see), then it isn't in any better position to provide Web integration than the web brower itself. Desktop development APIs are best saved for regular AJAX work until an actual need for a desktop arises.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Isn't that what Java was supposed to do? All this "Web 2.0" stuff is getting out of hand; It's trying to duplicate a technology that already exists with inferior tools. I would rather have all the effort go into improving something that already exists.
Love sees no species.
If people wanted to use an X terminal they'd buy X terminals. People don't buy $500-$2000 computers just to handicap themselves by running some web-based operating system and using their computer as a dumb terminal. We went through similar hype years ago with the whole network computing idea of using a dumbed-down network appliance box and accessing software from an online application provider. That fell flat on its face as well. How many times do these people have to keep trying to reinvent the same concept over and over before they realize that people LIKE having a fat client on their desktop so they don't have to be connected 24/7 to a network?
"applications will be written for the WebOS and won't be specific to Windows, OS X, or Linux."
Someone enlighten me because I thought that is what all the languages used on the web do right now. PHP, Perl, Javascript, etc. It doesn't seem to me that a WebOS will provide any greater benefit that coding in Perl (or pick one). They are completely platform independant.
The article then quotes a couple users who says that Java and DHTML + Javascript is a mess. Well, yeah, but what language isn't? All programming languages have problems that why there are so many of them. What am I missing?
Quality Hosting e3 Servers
How do I install antivirus on this OS?
What? Don't be silly! Why, in five years time, everyone will be doing it! They'll want their Office Suite hosted in Germany, their Calender in the USA, their Webmail in Australia, their CRM in South Korea and they'll store their data in China. Everybody will trust these companies and individuals to keep their data safe and secure (Who wouldn't?!) and none of these business will go bust and take all of your data with them, oh no. It's the Web 2.0, don't you know? Who wants to use a computer these days, when you can use a client instead? It's far cooler! As long as you ignore the latency and bandwidth issues. And the disproportionate differences in functionality. And the security implications. And the costs. And the total lack of control you'll have as a user. Can't you see how much better it will be?
Links to the various sites mentioned:
Xin
YouOS
eyeOS
goowy
Fold
Orca
...but I can't find the story. Anyway, I like JS/UIX. Wish I could be talented enough to do that.
Absolutely agree. Only people who have never used javascript and DHTML would even dream such madness. Or possibly fanatical Javascript zealots, if they exist in some cave somewhere. This is too painful to even begin thinking about. Perhaps a Web OS might have worked if the conceptual infrastructure had been put in place for it at the beginning, but instead we now have a crippled monster that has been built up by feature accretion and bastardization, all dictated by a heady mixture of spineless toady bureaucrats and greedy corporate raiders. We need a disruptive technology to fix this mess now, I'm afraid. We are not going to get there by evolution.
I couldn't agree more. What's the point?
If I wanted a customisable environment I could access anywhere, I'd make a custom install of a lightweight linux OS on a flash drive and carry it around with me. All my programs, anywhere - plus encrypted storage, plus no need for a network connection, plus no bandwidth usage, plus no latency issues, plus programs that I choose, customise, install and run myself, that I trust, that I can examine the source code of and compile myself if I choose OSS, plus no server downtime, plus less risk of my personal data being accessible by any one of thousands of users with read/write privaledges in an account on the same server that I use that happens to find an unpatched exploit.
The move toward a WebOS is another part of the "stupid user" school of computer education. Instead of actually promoting learning how to use a box properly, you just move all the sensitive stuff server-side. "Installing programs? We'll do that for you! Configuring system files? Leave that to us! Data storage? Backups? System Patches? Anti-virus? Malware detection? It's all on us! You don't need to know a damned thing, just sit down at your thousand dollar terminal, log in, point and click. Sports Broadcasts will resume as normal."
It's just another aspect of the great computer devide that's gradually starting. On the one hand, unix geeks who run their own systems and software, spec their own hardware, believe in open source, try to make personal backups of media, won't buy DRM and want control of their own boxes. On the other, the average consumer who doesn't give a damn about anything aside from getting a system that just works with as little management and maintanence as possible. For the second group, WebOS is brilliant. All you need to remember is a URL, a login and a password. Instant system wherever you are. You've surrenedered the autonomy of your box, but in return you get an easier system to manage. It's a dream for content suppliers as well - imagine the strength of DRM if the average media player is stored on a remote server, and the user has no access to it's program files.
OK, I'm extremely sceptical about this ever taking off because:
- It relies on an internet connection
- It actually increases the processing requirements of the client
- it sticks another huge layer of abstraction and source of incompatibility between my apps and the system
- It doesn't solve a user problem.
Can anyone give me an argument for why anyone would use this instead of a USB thumbdrive, or a laptop, which are pretty cheap these days?
A few years ago JavaScript was considered a toy language. Now that it's been "discovered" the pendulum has swung the other way, and people seem to think that JavaScript plus a browser is a suitable platform for writing a windowing system.
We've been able to do a remote terminal like this for years, using more appropriate network protocols and faster execution environments. If we rebuild it on a completely absurd applpication stack:
How does this bring any more value to the concept? The ability to hit the "Back" button and lose my entire session? Having two taskbars at the bottom of my screen?
It seems like this is an idea being pursued just becasue we can; because we're excited about JavaScript and the Web 2.0 hype machine is working overtime.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
All of these projects don't understand the medium. The web is not a desktop. The web doesn't work like a desktop, and attempts to translate the desktop metaphor to the web almost all suck hard. The web doesn't have milisecond response rates -- even with AJAX. You don't have a consistant set of APIs across browsers like you do on the desktop. You can't assume everyone has JavaScript, images, or styles on, and a smart developer will try to make sure that their users get a site that degrades gracefully through any of those cases.
You can't just shoehorn a "desktop" style experience into a system that isn't at all designed for it. The web is a unique medium from the desktop. It demands a totally different metaphor than desktop applications.
A desktop metaphor adds a lot of unnecessary cruft to the web -- trying to use drop-down menus, popup windows, crappy DHTML "controls" and the like degrade user experiences and make sites slow, frustrating, and buggy. Applications like GMail and Yahoo! Mail try to use the technologies in appropriate ways - they have some elements of desktop applications, but they're not trying to mimic a desktop application.
We have a great, if maturing, set of tools in XHTML, CSS, and the JavaScript DOM. You can do amazing things with those tools provided you understand what their limitations and appropriate uses are. Trying to use those tools to emulate the usability problems of a whole different medium is misusing and misunderstanding the technology. A smart developer looks towards what works for the web rather than trying to force the medium to match an experience that it just can't do.
Actually, I was just going to submit a link to my thoughts on my birthday party a week ago. /. and we'll meet here.
It was kind of lame since we had tapas, and if you've been reading my blog, you know that I'm not totally into the tapas. Not totally.
But I know it was an expression of love, and of gratitude, and for that I'm grateful. Colour me touched.
Then I saw aliens the other day. It's not my favourite (number 3 is), but I still think it's funny. Those aliens make about the same noise the darn neighbourhood cats do when they're getting it on somewhere in the vicinity. You can barely sleep in that noise. They mostly come at night. Mostly.
Today I haven't done much. I bought a ATA33 cable, this dude behind the counter was just staring at me, so, you know, I just placed my elbow on the counter and stared back at 'him and said, like: They are really hard to come by.
Since I'm here, I'd like to give a shout-out to my brothers and my sister, my mother and father, and just let you know that I miss you all and that life in the big city is not all that. And mum, I couldn't survive much longer on frozen pizza. Thanks for the food!
I still don't have enough cash for a vacuum cleaner (although I have ordered a small, USB-powered vacuum cleaner, but I don't have enough cable) so I suggest you do not come visiting just yet. My mail is down, but that's ok, just hang out on
Defining Statistics and Social Research
...is in a corporate environment.
I mean think about it, you have a ton of desktops that must be kept up to date, must keep running for someone to be productive, and shouldn't really be used for personal purposes. Boot them all off of bootable CD's (or maybe even RW's so boot CD's can be cycled and some money saved when doing 'updates'), have them login to a central thin-client 'server'. This has several benefits:
1) Users are 'sandboxed'.
2) Easily control what someone can and cannot do.
3) Only 1 central machine (or cluster, depending) to manage and keep up-to-date.
4) Far less likely that someone will fsck their box.
5) If someone DOES end up messing up their box, just reboot and re-login.
6) Big brother can even more easily track you (good for company, albeit bad for you).
7) Whats that you say, no HD's to purchase or fail?
8) IT staff reduced as some of the support required drops.
Thats just a few off the top of my head...
/* sig */
I don't think we need a new OS or a new Desktop, what we really need is for existing applications to be able share each others data effectively be it locally on someones home machine or from sources elsewhere and across different application groups regardless of who has developed it. Right now sharing calendar information from my website and integrating ti into my business calendars and having it available on my phone should be possible but for one reason or another isn't.
Aw, come on. You gotta admit that this UN*X-like OS in JavaScript thing is pretty cool. :)