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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.
YouOS is just sounds like a rip off of eyeOS.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Am I the only one who doesn't understand what an Internet OS is supposed to be? I mean, you've got to have an OS to connect to the Internet in the first place...
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Oh, and another thing, I don't see why these so called "online OS" projects don't just use existing X infrastructure to create an easy way to access standard X windows applications and run them remotely over SSH. It'd a) eliminate the need for a whole new friggin' OS b) retain the privacy of users c) leverage the massive existing library of software that exists for Linux and X and d) be as easy as PISS to accomplish technically, with only some work needed to make it easy for the average user.
I hate printers.
I hear those point, but I believe they can be addressed in other ways. Thin clients have their place, but I don't believe that they should become the norm, as it robs the users of flexibility. How would open source flourish, if our PCs were designed to only run software that was sent from HQ? Which is the eventuality that *would* occur.
Look 10 years ahead. Good succeeds with this and we're all using some GoogleOS or YouOS or whatever, delivered from the Microsoft of the day. Do you relaly think they'd not do everything they can to hinder the growth of projects that competed with their products? You need look no further than SCO to see *exactly* how they'd behave.
I hate printers.
The problem with X11 is it wasn't designed to be used by the average home user over the average home network connection. In fact, it's barely usable over anything less than Ethernet.
Put something that boots fast like Damn Small Linus on a USB key, and do web-restores and internet-apps and voila you have a practical portable OS.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Pffffft, yeah, right.
Until the big telcos are going to make good on their 6 year old promise of 45+ M/bit sync fiber connection; this idea won't even get off the ground. The thin client idea may be good for some, but not all people. I prefer running server grade hardware, not the consumer grade POS stuff you can buy at Frys. I want my power and files at home, not someone else's server.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
Ahh, the annual discussion of Thin Clients again. Every year some company gets a hare-brained scheme to reintroduce some variation of thin clients. You can almost set your watch by it. The average buyer can pick up a barebones XP machine for a couple hundred bucks at their local big box electronics store. Who is demanding "Internet Operating Systems"? What's the draw? What can they do that a PC running a web browser can't?
It's probably never going to be a replacement for those of us who do gaming, or photo/video editing etc. But think of how many people you know who basically have a computer for email and IM. Pretty much any PC on market these days is overkill for these people, and it's definitely not worth paying for windows. Anyone can install some flavour of Linux and at least get a browser working, but a lot of the software they want is either unavailable or lacking in its Linux incarnation. So what if all you needed was that working browser.
Actually, there might be an Internet operating system.
I assume you read this as "OS running on the Internet", which is, of course, impossible. But I read it as "an operating system for the internet".
So, basicly an unified layer that allows to create applications running "on the Internet", accessed by thin-clients, abstracting the worries about underlying hardware, connection & login from the client, "traditional" OS, and other stuff. To paraphrase wikipedia : A software program that manages the hardware and software resources of a network. So the concept is not stupid in itself.
The buzzword, however, is stupid, as nobody really knows what it means. Definitions seam to reach from
just "Some internet based apps with remote storage (i.e. Remote Shell - NOT an OS)"
over "An app-server farm offered by a single vendor (Google) allowing remote execution and storage (somewhat an OS)"
to the "Ultimate Grid-Computing where (almost) every machine (or every server?) on the internet is just a resource used by "the Internet OS"".
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof for my post which this sig is too small to contain.
Not sure if you use it, but Gmail goes down enough that I wouldn't use it for anything crucial. MSN messenger and Gtalk more so. Not only that, there are hundreds of points inbetween me and Google which could fail, 503 was just an example. When I have to tranpsort documents, I tend to put them on my server, use a USB pen and send them via Gmail. Each one has had issues at some point or other.
One of my ISP's routers could go down. It's happened before and left us without internet for over a week (small ISP, no choice). If one of my computers goes down, then I move onto the other one. If that goes down too then if I really need to I can take out the hard drive and pop down to a friend's house. So far there has been much more time that I haven't been able to access Gmail, Gtalk, MSN messenger or even Google than there has been time I haven't been able to access my computer, however you could argue that my computer is more stable than the average user's.
In terms of kernel level stuff - there aren't many changes because the vast majority of work is done. We have a kernel that works, in a productive way, it's pretty much now a case of maintaining it with new features.
In terms of what I would call "userlevel" we've been done a long time. The shell and commandline utilities have been nearly done, or entirely useful for a decade.
However, in terms of graphical user enviroment, we still need high level GUI stuff (the kind of thing that grandma interacts with). Windows is pretty good at this part (though, in my opinion, it isn't nearly good enough). Free Software is mediocre at this. Some things are easy to do, some aren't. We're at a reasonably workable standard nowadays, but we need improvement in order to gain acceptance. This doesn't mean copying a Start Menu; this means figuring out ways to bring out GUI to a level where it is as-good-as Windows and OSX, and then being better.
You're touching on a very important point here. Besides the need for a fast connection, etc, etc. Moving BACK to the big server thin client model is the wrong direction. This is essentially a consolidation of resources. I wonder why we still havent' learned our lesson about this. The military already knows not to geographically co-locate resources since it makes you too vulnerable to attack. One bomb takes more shit out. In NYC we see a similar affect. One plane destroys one big giant building. We need to be applying these lessons in computing also. Disperse things. Technologies like peer-to-peer, distributed computing, etc. are the right way to go. Having everyone's data stored in one place is not just insecure, it's flat out stupid. One fire and lots of people are wondering "where's my work?". I don't see this as anything more than "look what we can do with javascript". Ya, we know. you can make windows move around with javascript and html layers. google showed us that over and over and over and over and... it's become soo cool that there's even a new buzzword for it.
Yes, I am quite happy with my account at cosmopod.com "internet operating system" - a full remote KDE desktop delivered from UK to CA with NX protocol. It is faster to use KDE or firefox this way than locally on my 6 years old machine. There are tradeoffs related to privacy, but those may depend on the country you live in. Sometimes your data are safer when physically located in a different country than your machine at home.