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Slate Speculates on Internet Operating Systems
Slate features a discussion of possible internet operating systems, a Google OS foremost among the potential contenders. The author views the fledgling YouOS as a proof-of-concept that an Internet OS is feasible. He dismisses the idea of a Google-built thin client, arguing that Google would rather build a service available from any Internet-capable device. Google's already-fast service would theoretically translate easily to other web-based applications. From the article: Dollar for dollar, network-based computers are faster. Unless you're playing Grand Theft Auto or watching HDTV, your network isn't the slowest part of your setup. It's the consumer-grade Pentium and disk drive on your Dell, and the wimpy home data bus that connects them. Home computers are marketed with slogans like "Ultimate Performance," but the truth is they're engineered to run cool, quiet, and slow compared to commercial servers. The author compares Eric Schmidt's denials of a Google OS to Steve Jobs's denials of a video iPod. However, he notes that potential obstacles to a Google OS adoption include: the desire to own things; the requirement for fast, flawless networks; and, the trust-deficit when putting personal information on web-based applications.
This is utter crap. It sounds like Google planted hype to try to push the idea of "software as a service", Which is a stupid, unworkable and untrustworthy way of computing.
So the guys at Slate thinks that the combined computing power of Google's umpteen million users is less than the power of their server farm? Unlikely, even for Google's impressive data centers. If its the case that as a general rule commercial servers were more powerful than the sum of their users' machines, we could do away with all those supposedly obsolete distributed computing efforts.
Home PCs are far more powerful than the average user needs. This has been the case for a long, long time. Even Microsoft is having trouble saturating medium end computers that dell sells for the $900US mark. 2.5ghz with 1gb RAM, and you're trying to tell me that my broadband link can deliver application with faster response? I think not. And I like the way they FUDify the "cool n quiet" marketing campaign as well, utterly misdirecting its purpose.
I'm getting really sick of this "software as a service" crud, but at the same time, I'm also getting scared that companies might actually convince the mainsteam to use it. It would spell the end of privacy and anonymity for users and massively increase the power of already too powerful corporations and governments. "Software as a service" is the ultimate spyware. Today we complain that Sony puts rootkits on their CDs, yet there's no real complaint that our entire OS can not only report to base, but runs from there entirely. Forget keyloggers, this thing will record your keys, mouseclicks and input from webcams, scanners and microphones in realtime.
I sincerely hope that the tool that is the personal computer doesn't get taken away from the masses and replaced with drone terminals that could only be used in the way proscribed by our corporate rulers, and observed by their minions in dark rooms.
Oh yea, feel free to call me a tinfoil hat wearing Google hater, because I am.
I hate printers.
I think a lot of people don't trust the internet enough to put their entire computing lives on somebody else's server. People like knowing, even if they don't understand the technology, their files are in that box somewhere. It's a privacy issue to. I still know a lot of people who won't use Gmail because they don't trust Google to read their messages. And what about copyright issues?
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
An internet operating system may be possible... but do we need it? The last thing I want is "503: Service Unavailable" when trying to print a document for a deadline. They may well have backups, but what use is that when I need it *now*.
An internet linked desktop environment has all the advantages of the internet - updates, blogging, social stuff - with the advantages of a more traditional system - you actually have your documents stored locally, you're not subject to some company suddenly suspending your service and deleting your account (WGA is another matter...), and things load up quickly and run fast.
YouOS
:P
Too Many Users Online
I just experienced a good reason why it won't work
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
You have some good points regarding privacy of data, but I disagree that "software as service is crud." There are a number of pro's to software as a service, here are a few:
1) No need to install, low end user maintenance. This is important for businesses.
2) Access to applications and your own data whether at your own PC, in the library or at the airport across the country, without carrying around a laptop.
3) Increased ability for software to offer interaction with other services.
What's happening is exactly the same process which made factories economically viable during the industrial revolution... That, is the bandwidth of the transport system. We're at the point where it's far far cheaper to have the computing in a BFO data centre and decent bandwidth to the home.
How many weavers, potters, carpenters do you know? Well, today's equivalents are programmers, system administrators etc.
Things like VNC just make it easy.
Deleted
Alright, so thin clients are nothing new. Let the server do the work. Save money on the desktop.
Across my infrastructure, which typically has a gig fibre backbone, and 100mb at the desktop, this isn't a mean feat. Hell, I've got it running across the wireless as well.
But to run this across the internet? Gimmie a break. To support my 450+ machines, I would need a rather serious pipe. Which will have a serious cost attached.
Maybe there is a market for home users doing this, but the scalability is going to kill large scale adoption. And since people use (I generalise here, true) Microsoft at work, are they going to learn a new OS at home? Considering the market penetration of the other free OS', I doubt it.
Apologies for sounding negative, but I don't think we'll see this for a while yet.
1) The thing slowing down the PC isn't the local hardware.
2) The network pipe has to be well in excess of a gigabit per second to be faster than the hardware.
3) The author has NO clue about what he's really on about.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I think it was written by a windows user who never built a gentoo system from scratch and therefore doesn't understand the (not so) subtle differences between the terms "kernel," "operating system," "windowing system," and "desktop environment." The idea probably has some potential, but calling a bunch of AJAX apps an OS is just silly, especially on slashdot.
Everyone is born right-handed; only the greatest overcome it