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Blake Ross Working on Parakey Web OS
prostoalex writes "IEEE Spectrum is running an article on Blake Ross, creator of Firefox, and his new project called Parakey, which will bridge the gap between Web and desktop operating system. From the article: 'As he describes it, from a user's point of view, Parakey is "a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do." Translation: it makes it really easy to store your stuff and share it with the world. Most or all of Parakey will be open source, under a license similar to Firefox's. There are differences between the two projects, however. Although Ross plans to incorporate the talents and passions of the free-software community, he's building Parakey around a for-profit business model. And he's leading the charge with a simple battle cry: "One interface, not two!"'"
How is this an OS? An OS manages the hardware and software resources for a computer. Is this just a virtual filesystem?
I've always thought you should be able to write interrupt handlers in Javascript.
Why must we have tools that try to do everything?
I remember hearing about some guys named Brian and Dennis and uh I forget the third guy's name - it was back in the 60's - trying to write an operating system based on the idea that each part should do one distinct thing, and do it well. I don't know if anything ever came of it, but I thought that it sounded like a good idea.
There is a major distinction between MY computer and the rest of the world. One is mine; the rest belongs to others. I treat them differently. I want my desktop to reflect it.
There are already too many people who seem to forget that my stuff is mine - spammers, politicians, cold callers, door-to-door salesmen, etc - and that I might want it separate from the rest of the world. I don't want my OS forgetting this too.
Anything that makes it "really easy" for me to move/save/delete files while online from any computer means that unless you're amazingly careful, you're also making it that much easier for someone else to do it for you.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I have yet to see *any* vendor, be it closed source or open source take enough time and care with their code to write something that doesn't have gaping security holes in it.
What's going to happen when what was a simple browser problem becomes a file system problem? Drive by downloads that wipe your machine.
I wonder how this project will manage to give a "web os" more power over hardware while not simultaneously throwing our security in the "web recycle bin".
IE had too much power over the OS and it caused problems. Firefox and IE7 do more to put some distance between the os and the web for good reason.
I'm well aware that a "web operating system" would not fulfill the same functions as a true web operating system, and I'm as tired of the "WebOS" rhetoric as anyone else. I did explain this to Spectrum, and it seems the magazine decided to leave the mention but explain that it's only an "operating system" from the average user's perspective--which is difficult to prove either way, since my mother probably thinks an "operating system" is some kind of surgical device.
As for the "how is this different from XXX?" comments, I understand that it may be difficult to differentiate Parakey based solely on the description provided in this early article. Rather than chase those sorts of questions here, I'd rather continue working towards putting the product in your hands so you can decide whether it's different and, ultimately, whether it's worth your time. Thanks everyone.
The quote in the article is not correct. Parakey will be open source, as the article does say elsewhere ("Most or all of Parakey will be open source").
I am indeed primarily a Windows user. If you're going to make software for everyone, it helps to use the same computing environment as 95% of the world, so you can understand their problems better. However, my partner Joe is primarily a Mac user. There is no primary development platform; we develop on all platforms.
As for the business model, it's a new take on an old idea, and something we likely won't divulge until launch.
And finally, we are not offering any release dates at this time.
Thanks for your interest.