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The Future Might Be BIOS and Browsers
An anonymous reader writes "Few in the open source community have welcomed online applications like Google Docs with open arms, but Keir Thomas claims he's found a way forward — and it's one that involves exclusively open source. He reckons BIOS-based operating systems are the future, because they will alter the way users think about their computers. FTA: 'The key breakthrough is ideological: BIOS-based operating systems demote the operating system to just another function of the hardware. It breaks the old mindset of the operating system being a distinct platform, or an end in itself. The operating system becomes part of the overall computing appliance. This allows the spotlight to focus on online applications.'"
computer users, but when the network is down all bets are off. No matter how good the experience normally is, one lightning storm is all it will take to send johnny user off to computers are us to buy a full functioning pc.
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Depends on how they implement it. I'd imagine for at least 80% of the unwashed hordes who just want something to boot in seconds, and then to surf the web and check their gmail, this would be great.
I've wanted it for a long time for PC gaming, but it's certainly a lot of work. A bios-based browser framework would be much simpler, and frankly it would fulfil the needs of a great many PC users. I know I'd like it for those times when all I want to do is get on the web. Boot should only be a few seconds before you're browsing slashdot. ;)
Think about it though, for gaming (if someone would ever do it). Basic OS + gaming specific API = leanest gaming OS possible. Consoles basically use this concept, and get a lot more out of less hardware than PC games can, because PC games have much greater overhead.
My thoughts, anyway.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
If all applications are on a server -- someone else's server -- it doesn't bode too well for my freedom. This is a fine model for a lightweight system, such as a thin client or terminal, but I think these will complement the personal computer rather than supplant it, and will only do so to the extent that bandwidth and ubiquity permit. Emerging devices like netbooks and smartphones do seem to point toward this model gaining in popularity in coming yearss, but I think a lot of people will still find having code that executes locally, and which they can own and control, to be valuable -- too valuable to discard entirely.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
No thanks, I would actually like to be able to execute native code. Javascript or ECMAscript or whatever they call it nowadays is a pretty poor substitute for any of the dozens of much better programming languages in the universe. Plus it's write once debug everywhere to a much greater extent than even Java.
Why do you think there was such a kerfluffle over iPhone application development? Apple initially said you could just roll a Web 2.0 app that looked native to the iPhone, and exactly nobody was satisfied with that.
I have no doubt that browser devices will become more popular over the course of the next few years, but they're never ever going to replace native code.
So, no OS. Browser becomes OS. Then browser adds features to do things that BIOS doesn't do.
So congratulations, you've taken "OS", moved it up and now call it "BIOS", the you've taken "browser" and now call it "OS". You've taken "applications" and called them unnecessary. Then you've taken "online applications" and called them "applications".
So all you've done is to throw the OS into the hardware, and you've changed the programming language into an internet-delivered language. Oh yeah, and you've put the browser into the position of controlling the system.
And now you're going to say that internet explorer isn't a fundamental part of windows? No, you're going to say that windows isn't a fundamental part of online applications. except windows doesn't exist anymore, and all applications are online applications, and internet explorer is now the entire operating system.
So you've said notihng but juggled around terms.
And then, in five years, when firefox decides to support downloadable fonts, stateful connections, when "cookies" become "files" and there's access to a "file system" for these online applications to use, and some kind of "active control" to interface with other hardware like printers and scanners and cameras, then you'll simply have virtualized an operating system again.
Congratulations for saying nothing. I can do it to. Watch this:
"Computers are relying more and more on the Internet these days. Someday, more applications will begin online, instead of client-side. Oh, and your hardware will do more work than it used to." -- me, 2009
It's going to be at least 10 years before this is feasible to the masses. We're not streaming live high def content in real-time. If we were, then a central gaming server could stream your screen to you and your computer would just have to be strong enough to play it.
However, until that happens, gamers won't move to it. Until gamers make it usable, the general public won't move to it. By time this is possible, won't storage and processing power be so compact and powerful that it'll just be a silly argument anyways?
I can see virtual systems with the drives stored online and cached locally, so you can take your computer to any terminal and immediately pickup. But pure bios machines, no. This just isn't feasible for the masses currently, nor will it even be the best choice once it is.
Smells of DRM
I would hate to have the BIOS as the OS especially if I could not replace it.
This is my thought also. Everything hardwired right into the silicon including DRM, TPM, unique ID hashes for tracking, and plenty of government/law enforcement back-doors. It would also take care of all those pesky open source operating systems and enable lockout of "unauthorized" applications. Nice, safe (from the governments' and big-corps' view) computers for the masses.
Not for me, thanks.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Didn't Ellison and McNealy try to sell us this pig in a poke years ago? They got nowhere with their initiative, and the current "cloud computing" nonsense won't replace local apps and data any time soon, either. What stopped this tired old notion before was lack of bandwidth - lots of people were on dialup, and it would have been painfully slow for them. Nowadays most are on broadband, but how much bandwidth do we REALLY have to play with? Not all that much, according to the Comcasts, Rogers, Bell Canadas and Verizons of this world. Do we really want to rely on online access going through an ISP which is counting every kilobyte of traffic and choking it off as it sees fit? Not to mention spyong on its customers on behalf of various shadowy government agencies.
Also, isn't the browser itself becoming another big choke point in all this? Security vulnerabilities, remote exploits, memory hogging, reliance on add-on technologies like Flash and Java with their own security problems - and of course, all this is built on the shaky foundations of browser scripting, which can never be made completely secure.
Forget it, boys. This turkey STILL won't fly.
Apart from the issues of control over your data, access times etc:
One of the nice things about today's OSes is that they've forced applications to become reasonably consistent and interoperable. All my applications have similar UI, and the services offered by the OS mean that the apps can talk to each other.
Degrading the OS to just a host for the browser means you give up these services, and once again every application is a kingdom unto itself. The state of online apps today is similar to the less-functional, less visible OSes from 25 years ago, including the horrible and inconsistent UI, the lack of flexibility (no scripting, for instance), and the total lack of communication between apps hosted on different sites.
And this time, because the apps are hosted on different sites, there's no OS vendor that can enforce consistecy and interoperability.
"This allows the spotlight to focus on online applications."
Who has been asking for all these online applications? I keep reading about the freakin' "CLOUD!!!" and am just not impressed. I wouldn't trust anyone's Cloud platform with my company's data.
As many people have mentioned, once the network goes down, no more online anything. I want my apps, my data and my work all under my control on my local machine/network. There are uses for online applications but to rely on them for business, private data or to store anything that lack of access to would cause a work stoppage is a bad idea.
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
Maybe I'm just getting old, but to me, the "online" is just the communication channel, not the content arena.
When it comes to content I create, I want to create it and store it on my computer, not on someone else's computer.
Yes, I love the internet and the ability it gives me to send and receive content (which I then, again, store on my computer). And yes, the utility of my computer is greatly compromised when I can't access the internet.
But I don't want to rely on someone else's computer to run applications like Office, or Email, or games, or...anything I can think of right now.
I don't want to rely on someone else's computer to store my data.
The reason why I don't want these things is
1) There might come a reason at some point where I can't access the data (they go out of business, internet is down, I can't afford internet access anymore, etc.)
but mostly:
2) I don't trust that the people who so graciously store my things online won't use them or cripple them in some manner not in my best interest, but is instead in someone else's money-making interest.
Having been involved with computers since the days of the TI99/4A, what seems clear to me is the future of computing is about CONTROL OF DATA. So the fundamental question becomes, do YOU want the control over your data and applications, or are you going to give that control to someone else?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I can see this catching on a little bit, particularly with people like my parents. The whole idea reminds me of WebTV (MSN TV), but better. With wider availability of high speed internet and an appreciable offering of "cloud" services, e.g. Google Docs, this might not be half bad for a certain market segment.
We repeat the same lessons every generation, don't we?
We have our own terrible business languages, our own non-relational databases*, our own stupid development fads, our own overwrought RPC protocol, our own profoundly ignorant ways to "disable" things for the user, our own wasteful incompatibilities, our own locked-down propretiary platforms, and the same casual disregard for proper security.
This industry has no sense of its own history. Instead of benefiting from the innumerable hours past programmers spent solving universal problems, we ignore and reject their work, and with only a few exceptions, we spend countless hours solving solved problems.
By the time we work through the mess, another generation of programmers will have rejected our work, and will be well on the way to repeating the cycle. It's depressing as hell.
(Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever written a post that offended so many software developers simultaneously.)
* RDBMs systems didn't come first; people started using them over navigational databases for good reasons that still apply today.
Agreed. The thing about this OS as BIOS (or is it the other way around?) sounds like a good idea until you start thinking about distro hopping and realize you've got a 50/50 chance of bricking your computer as soon as you decide you want to give OpenSUSE a go. Might not be vendor lock in, but it's too close for my comfort.