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A Free XML-Based Operating System
Dotnaught writes "For the past five years, Xcerion has been working on an XML-based Internet operating system (XIOS) that runs inside a Web browser and promises radically reduced development time. To provide developers with an incentive to write for the platform, Xcerion's back-end system is designed to route revenue, either from subscription fees or from ads served to users of free programs, to application authors. Think of it as Google AdSense, except for programmers rather than publishers. Is it absurd to think this poses a threat to Google and Microsoft?"
I don't know if it's absurd or not because there is absolutely nothing to look at on that web site whatsoever. What is an XML-based operating system? XML is a container format.
Let this be the thread for all "So what?" posts, please.
By TA's own admission, it's not an OS, just an abstraction layer on top of a real OS.
"Is it absurd to think this poses a threat to Google and Microsoft?"
Yes.
The command line is very friendly:
a rg>stuff</arg><arg>*</arg></args></command>
<command><command-name>grep</command-name><args><
If XML doesn't solve the problem, use more XML.
Considering they use javascript for the basic hyperlinks on their website, it seems they lack technical knowledge. That doesn't bode well for a company doing a web OS and if they're doing it using XML why does the W3C validator throw 103 errors on their (non-XML) home page?
Personally, I don't see these guys as a threat to anyone except themselves and their investors.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww .xcerion.com%2F
Those guys can't even put down proper HTML, I'm not sure i'd trust them to write a whole web-based "OS" in XML
As subject. How is this meant to change the world or "threaten" Google or Microsoft when you need an OS (probably from Microsoft) and a browser (probably with Google as the homepage, both if we take the most popular)?
Once you wanna do something in this "internet OS" you'll fullscreen your $179 copy of Internet Explorer on Windows Vista, and fire up an app which probably uses some Google API internally. World changing? Or just another layer between you and them that serves yet more adverts?
Back in the late 80's when I got on the net we all had a pretty good idea what "the internet" was. Now, 20 years later, the internet is almost synonymous with WWW. I'd like to see good solutions taking advantage of the internet, but why does it always have to require a web browser?
How the hell did this make it on Slashdot?
So the requirements of this new hot XML based operating system are at least to have a operating system and a heavy weight web browser.
Why do I need an operating system to run an operating system?
Oh... you mean it's nothing more than an application framework (just like the millions of others around there).
Internet Explorer 7 has experienced and error while running script:
XIOS
Would you like to send an error report to Microsoft?
Send Don't Send
How is this meant to change the world or "threaten" Google or Microsoft when you need an OS (probably from Microsoft) and a browser
Presumably becuase that OS could be Ubuntu, and that browser could be Firefox. Or OSX/Safari, or Suse/Konqueror, or.....
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
I like their front page message: Software should be free(TM)
Wow, it's like they snuck into Slashdot's secret headquarters and stole the root password... to our hearts!
But then, it's not that long ago that Google was just two guys doodling on scrap paper.
A few problems have to be overcome including internet latency and the tendancy of everyone to cache stuff they should not be putting in caches (If your PC's memory cache worked like Internet caches do, you'd be lucky to get a Solitaire hand dealt before the PC crashed.)
And I doubt this is a threat to Google because they will do the same thing it if it works out.
My impression is that what's good about this specific scheme is that only data is sent over the network, so the annoying latency issues many of us have with Google spreadsheets and Writely should be less of a problem.
What's bad is that the data is stored on someone's servers. Security will be an issue. So will availability. And loss of data. And ...
Another problem is that networked "OS"es may not be acceptable for a lot of users because they are just plain too damn slow. A few years ago I slapped together a networked application running on a server here at home for keeping notes together. Worked, sorta. But even though I owned the network and the application was built into server code, not run via CGI, it was too slow to be usable. The problem looked to be latency, not slow processing.
The few serious attempts I've seen at using HTTP/browsers to do real jobs varied from awful to marginal. IMHO even things like SAIL suck. I'd rather update the /etc files directly. Hell, even ed/EDLINE would be faster and more satisfactory.
Maybe the problems can be overcome with brains, technology, and money. Maybe they can't.
Back on topic. Is this stuff a threat to Microsoft? You just bet it is. MS makes most of its money off OK, but overpriced, products that do way more than most customers need (Exception--Xbox which may eventually be a real, money making operation with a bright future). Furthermore, adding more features and charging more for new versions of Windows/Office is probably an unsustainable strategy. We're already seeing geeks and a few organizations walking away from Microsoft. I think that is only going to become more common and some of them may well go to schemes like this.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
I thought it would be kind of neat to check it out, but the only way that I could access the button to send my information to sign up was to view it in another window. I thought it was because I was using Firefox, but the same thing on IE, and on the page that has their "Internet Services Strategy" there is a line that goes through 2 paragraphs!LOL Not very professional, and if this is the level of service that they are going to be providing, then what can we expect from them for their OS??? And they stumbled right out of the gate!lol
It also shows very poor use of XML, sadly. For instance, wouldn't it make more sense to have stuff*< /filespec></cmd>? It's not only shorter, but more future-proof, and more clear.
Still not short enough for me though. XML is OK for interchange, but it sucks as a human-readable markup language, even when used with forethought.
Furthermore, I'm not sure it makes ANY sense to have commands in XML. That's what programming languages are for -- it's the one thing they excel at. What's wrong with cmd(argname="val") or cmd(arg1, { a, b, c="10" })? It's complex to parse, sure, but that's why you make a parser once -- the point is, it IS parseable, without a human correcting the syntax before the computer can understand it.
How about developing an OS on top of TeX?
This way we would live in the best of the worlds, would we not?
Moreover, this would threaten Google, Microsoft and the great scientific publishers.
Actually, we could make it work on top of an emacs session. Pity that you need another OS to run emacs, but
**it is emacs**, you know! and TeX, of course.
Anyone joining the project?
For a while it was this huge buzzword about the wonders of XML. Then when people look into it they realize it is not a programming language or scripting or formatting language (per say) that everyone was touting it to be. But just a Text File standard for holding data, like Comma separated values or fixed space delimited. Granted it handles treed information much better then the previous types but in reality it is not that big of a deal. Oddly enough I have never found an XML Parser that I am happy with either and I never really prioritized myself to make my own.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Man, it sounds both stupid and brilliant, which is to say "uselessly novel."
Nevertheless, I decided to sign up just to see what the fuss was about, but immediately I was told my email address, my perfectly-valid-been-using-it-for-years email address, was invalid. My guess is they have snippet of bad javascript regex code they use to "validate" email adresses, but they either nabbed it off the internet without bothering to see if it worked or they just don't know what they're doing.
Think I would trust them after they immediately screwed up something simple?
OK, but it's still an OS inside another OS inside...
It all sounds like a spot on a lump on a log in a whole in the bottom of the sea.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It runs inside a browser, probably is a collection of javascript and dhtml script piles. It's not an OS. It's maybe an application suite, a framework, a collection of javascript application libraries, whatever, but it's not an OS. Putting the "internet" word before it doesn't help.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
A UK company, Oceanworks Ltd., already has a web based OS in place.... and even a freebie version... perhaps google should look at that company and buy them out.
Here's a link to their freebie one.
http://affinitygofree.com/
--- http://www.keything.com
and that browser could be Firefox. Or OSX/Safari, or Suse/Konqueror, or.....
Not until their own webpage fails the validation checks.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Users can run software from their local account without installation and more OS installs have a telnet client than web browser.
What a web browser provides is a convenient way to do a GUI. We could hook common layout engines to different software entirely - and this would make more sense than current hacks atop HTTP **cough** AJAX **cough**
Botherment, another web "OS". I was hoping someone had finally seen the light WRT storing OS settings in XML. That would make it easier to search for settings (no more 1000 files in 100 directories or a crappy registry editor), use non-ASCII characters (UTF rules) with only three escape characters, and avoid syntax errors.
I love the fact they trademarked that phrase.
This is supposed to be the site where we laugh smugly at people who use the word "internets" or who call an application in user space an operating system. What happened?
It's really not in my intention to troll, but has the definition of the term 'Operation System' changed recently? Have I been living under a rock?
This OS is just as much as Windows 3.1 was an OS - a graphical environment maybe, but not an OS as I still need Windows, Linux, MacOS or BeOS installed on my HDD to get on the web or to open a file.
The sad part about all those web based "OSs" is that they show that the real OSs pretty much completly failed to keep up with the demand of the users. Maintenance of a real OS has become such a huge issue that at least some people prefer to stick with a Javascript/DHTML hack of a thing that runs in a browser who never was build to be an operating system or run applications in the first place and the irony is that those apps indeed often run better, build in version tracking, easy group collaboration, fast search and other things often work out-of-the-box in those web OSs while they can be a huge pain to get up and running with a real OS and a real application.
Now of course a web OS can't replace the low-level stuff of real OS, the browser after all has to run on something but in terms of higher level functions, like GUI and such, web based OSs really do quite a good job, which really is sad, since a real OS should be able to do all those jobs a heck of a lot better, but they simply don't in practice. Real OS development has pretty much staled in the last ten years from a users point of view and everything that was broken back then still is (version tracking is non-existant, no proper undelete, manual save, no quick search, hard to clone a OS onto another machine, etc.).
Because most people can surf on a URL to the Browser, but very few can use the icons on the desk which are "programs" and is not "internet".
I hope you understood me.
I will go back the the support guy to ask why the printer on the grey thing on top of the paper I'm writing is gone. I wish every program was as simple as google.
Well, someone must have redefined what an OS is.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
http://outcampaign.org/
Xcerion is merely jumping onto the XML bandwagon and doing some nimble marketing around it.
.NET, but their success has been more limited in this area, although some of them have found other uses.
In fact, we have an OS-independent XML-based layer, and it's called xulrunner (Firefox, Mozilla, and Thunderbird are popular applications written in it). It's getting a more powerful language with JIT support soon (ECMAScript 2.0).
Microsoft has already caught on an has been trying to develop their own, proprietary alternative, though they aren't as far along.
There are also some other attempts at this with slightly different perspectives on the same problem, like Konfabulator, Dashboard, Java, and
As everyone's already pointed out, this is no more an operating system than it is a flight simulator.
Secondly, what does "XML-based" actually mean in this context? Last I checked, "XML-based" only makes sense when talking about documents or data. What does it mean for an "operating system" (or, more to the point, a web-based application framework) to be "XML-based"?
Le français vous intéresse?
I've been doing professional active content web developement since the late dot-bomb days. Looking at the site for 15 seconds tells me this is probably nothing other than a scheme to fool investors. The things people put out for 'the next big thing' when they discover that JavaScript is a PL and runs in every browser amazes me time and time again.
... blahblah ... the way people/the world thinks about computers/the web/whatever' is allway a dead giveaway that they don't know the troubles involved in building a good web product. There is no free lunch. Even with technologies around or around the corner like Laszlo, Adobes Flex (a Laszlo rippoff), Curl, Eclipse RIA, AMF, JSON/JDON, XUL/XUL Runner - all of which are basically free (all beer and mostly speech) and cream of the crop, building a working RIA that runs on every OS and doesn't bring your new 2 GB RAM Dual Core Turbo PC to a grinding halt is extremly hard work and a very tricky task with bucketloads of tradeoffs to evaluate. I do this every day, the possiblities are growing but the task itself isn't getting any easyer. And the pipedream of emulating a desktop in a browser has been implemented by many, and the best at it admit it's turned out more like a kind of experiment than anything usefull.
There are some points about RIAs one should learn as fast as possible to avoid wasting everybodys time:
1) JavaScript is nothing new. It's been around for something like 10 years. DTML/Push-Pull JavaScript/Ajax/[Fill in own buzzword of choice] is nothing new. Many people have tried it, many have given up and even the best in 'Ajax' have stepped down again from using it in anything but the most tried and true situations and use cases.
2) RIA is nothing new. Plugins are nothing new. There are entire landfills full of potential competitors to Flash and Java. Most of them failed. A few remain in niches where others can't reach. The only one I would care to mention is curl, and they are having a hard time and only manage by patiently working away at their tool for x-plattform RIAs.
3) The big boys Adobemedia / Sun / IBM and some promising others are currently involved in a giant hack & slay fest over the best and most prevailent rich client / server integration. Joining them with some obscure cross-funded project with bad buzzwords, a crappy website and nothing to deliver than something worse than the most half-assed Ajax kit is like showing up on a Knights tournament riding an aged donkey, armed with a cardboard kiddie helmet, a broomstick and a toothpick.
4) 'We will revolutionize
Bottom line:
This isn't news and it's not the bits worth it takes to transmit it. Move on. No one needs yet another bunch of silly goofs who try and tell the users/clients that they've discovered something new and everything will change if only you run with their buzzword ridden half-assed vision of an untested product that apes things others have finished years ago - and people don't know about for a reason.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The next obvious step will of course be a XML-native processor !
...but obviously not slogans(TM)
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Their tagline is "Software should be free"
Which they've trademarked...
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
I wrote this years ago (requires trunk Gecko, e.g. Firefox 3 or SeaMonkey 1.5)... somebody else also did a much better looking one years ago here. Granted, neither have very useful APIs...
My server
Writing my own "OS" as they say.
Basically i wrote some stuff to manage files on my computer and make it alot easier to integrate files and the web.
Long-story short, i gave up due to not having much time the past few months.
And there was some issues of how to actually get it to update files automatically and so on
I'd need some program that automatically scans folders and so on...
I even tied it in with Auto Hotkey so i can pop-up menus that dealt with whatever file objects i clicked on (Photoshop with images, or paint, or whatever else and so on)
I'll probably get around to it again, or if this goes well, even use it.
Mmmm... I think you meant "Not as long as "...
OTOH, since you posted a little earlier than me, then pardon my nitpicking. The issue has already been fixed...
My 0.02 cents
Really really absurd.
I personally love the message on their homepage "Software should be freetm"
TM?!
"You're not balancing your internal energy with the environment." -Gary Busey
I'm a venture capitalist that has had the opportunity to see Xcerion's software. It really does do what they claim, from a technical point of view. There are a couple of other projects out there trying to do similar things, such as EyeOS (www.eyeos.org) that don't come anywhere close to the richness of the Xcerion environment. Their office apps are pretty usable, one of which gives a very credible powerpoint-type experience.
It is definitely not an OS, as it contains none of the defining features of an OS (memory management, process scheduler, file systems, device drivers etc.). Operating environment might be a better description.
I'm sure that it does what it claims to do, and hey that's great, but they should be putting their best foot forward don't you think? First impressions and all...that was my main point that I obviously didn't get across. I'll be more clear next time.
I believe all the validation errors on the Google front page are there on purpose. It lacks some elements that are required by the spec but aren't necessary in practice. It uses unencoded ampersands to save a few bytes.
It seems to me like the front page is the minimal amount of bytes that will make the page render correctly in all major browsers, without any regard for standards compliance.
Xcerion has been working on it for FIVE YEARS? That's as radical as Windows Vista.
-- I don't see any of these mentioned in the comments, aren't they important anymore?
My documents on someone else's computer.
My documents at the mercy of someone else's employee.
No Physical Security.
Didn't pay your data rent this month? No resume for you!
"Sorry we had an employee who was acting badly, he sold your
'checkbook database' to the highest bidder"
This sounds like a shell to me. You can use a browser as a shell. That's essentially what MS did when it incorporated IE into the OS. At least, they re-use a lot of browser components. It's probably trivial to write a shell for Windows that uses IE itself. Haven't Gnome and others done similar browser-based shells?
Anyway, I'm usually not into pedantry, but these people really need to learn the difference between an OS and a shell. An OS, among other things, provides a layer between hardware and software, and controlls processes. A shell runs as a process on the OS. Note, when I say "these people", I'm referring not to just this particular case, but all the other "browser OS" projects out there and "flash OS" projects out there.
Now, if they've hacked the browser to load as the root process, load drivers, load and schedule other processes, and provide a shell... then I apologize.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
OMG, look at their front page. It says:
Software should be free(TM)
Note the trademark logo.
Haha.
I just glanced at their homepage and just about puked. I'm making a list:
Really, they could be onto something great, but this is just what I've seen cruising through their webpage and Slashdot comments. I don't want to imagine how horrible it'll be once I'm actually inside their "OS".
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
XML is at the top of my list for AVOID.
Firefox 3 should offer apps access to an offline cache. Were Google to add some code for this, Google Apps could run offline. Mozilla developer Robert O'Callahan in an interview indicated: "If Google, for example, were to implement it, Google Docs & Spreadsheets would be available offline."
=S
Who cares what OS you run it on? Microsoft won't be unseated by an XML "OS" like this. If they could be, then nobody would bother running Ubuntu, or OS X or SuSE either. Google won't be usurped.. because their main asset is a great search engine, then their mail and maps services.. all basically for locating information. Will Google suddenly die because you can use a word processor based in Javascript and XML? I doubt that.
Great list, although I think you have too much time on your hands. :) That said, re the trademark, note the "TM" is just a trademark claim that doesn't require any kind of registration. If it's registered, then they can display an (R) symbol instead. However, I have my doubts about whether they could register "Software should be free" as a trademark.
Wow, this'll work great with my new cheese-based router. Idiots.
There's a 'trend' running amock that inflicts people with this odd kind of insanity. Apparently they want a Visio like UI to build networks and virtual farms with.
Anything that gets released that helps keep track of containers with meaningful text descriptors in containers that have very complex parent / child / dependent relationships, I'm all for. That's just less boring stuff one has to muck with to satisfy a client's web 2.0 fetish.
I don't see this as very novel at all, nor really useful as a whole as its intended. What I do see is a bunch of possible cool parts I can throw in something else. Will withold official judgement until they actually release something.
Could just be vaporware too.
Is it possible to bundle XML parser (SAX?) into Linux kernel?
Slashdot = Sarcasm
.. not merely making it usable for the last few thousand people in rural [country] still on 33k dialup, but more to the point fixing the *real* mainstream problem google apps currently has - the huge proportion of people who use computers for daily work who use laptops and who are intermittently connected. nice - thanks for the link.
Given that www.xcerion.com looks like it was designed by a blind 6 year old with a 0.1 megapixel camera using a wind up laptop via a satellite connection, I'm not going to hold my breath.
"Programming applications on XIOS is orders of magnitude easier to program than, say, C++ or Java."
Visual Basic 6 is an order of magnitude easier to program than, say, C++ or Java.
You get what you pay for.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Note that Xcerion is not an American company, they're Swedish.
Thanks for mentioning Curl. I've been at Curl for several years and would like to add a little more info about what's been happening.
Curl has been pretty invisible in the West for the last 3 years, but it has actually become a real presence in the Far East (specifically, Japan and South Korea), where there are now 300+ customers using it. We're now looking to bring Curl back to the Western world too, and we'll be at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco next month to start doing that. We hope to earn a more prominent place in the RIA discussion soon.