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Mozilla Labs Introduces the Webian Shell

Posted by timothy on from the everything-that-rises dept.

kai_hiwatari writes "Mozilla Labs has introduced its concept of a desktop replacement called Webian Shell. The Webian Shell basically consists of a browser which will replace the traditional desktop, and web applications are given more importance than the native applications. Right now, the prototype of the Webian Shell is nothing more than a full screen browser with a dock which holds the tabs and the clock." The project's blog offers more about the ideas and underpinnings; there's even more on the home page of developer Ben Francis.

26 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. I Like it! by Fri13 · · Score: 2

    I must say but I like the GUI more than what "Chome OS" GUI is. I did not read the article (yet) but I hope that is possible to get work on other OS's than just Linux. With that, even HURD would have a change to be successful operating system so GNU people would be happy!

  2. Active Desktop by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    a browser which will replace the traditional desktop

    That idea is so 1990's. There is a reason the dot-com bubble burst.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re:Active Desktop by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This kind of shit really has me concerned for the direction browsing is going in, in general. I just want a browser that is efficient and does lots of cool things that make the browsing experience more productive. I don't want social-fucking-everything, branded tabs, branded browsing applications, a dedicated interface for every dipshit hipster social service and integration with a fucking smart-phone and mood ring. Just a fucking browser.

    2. Re:Active Desktop by Lisandro · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I just want a browser that is efficient and does lots of cool things that make the browsing experience more productive.

      IMHO, Opera seems to be the only browser nowadays walking the fine line between features and bloat without falling to either side.

    3. Re:Active Desktop by erroneus · · Score: 2

      Those two sentences do not belong in the same paragraph and likely not even in the same comment.

      Both are true but they are not connected in the slightest.

      Active Desktop did not catch on because desktop widgets didn't really catch on until Vista/7. Machines and the OS they ran on were underpowered and the concept of the Active Desktop was not implemented fully.

      The reason the dot-com bubble burst had nothing to do with Windows9X/XP in the slightest. It had everything to do with businesses buying and "investing" in things they did not understand. (Not that this is anything new... the sub-prime loan securities people can attest to that.) Personally, I saw it coming as people continued to buy and invest in technologies and manpower that simply had no long term use or purpose. The bubble burst when ROI was extremely bad and it was plain that over-investing in IT did not yield magical results.

      So I have to ask, what did Active Desktop have to do with the dot-com bubble? They were both in the 90's, but then my sons were born in the 90's... were they also responsible or connected to the dot-com bubble? I don't think so.

  3. Installation in 4 easy steps! by RagingMaxx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To install Webian Shell:

    1. Launch Firefox
    2. F11
    3. ???
    4. ... oh wait there's no need to install Webian Shell.

    1. Re:Installation in 4 easy steps! by sourcerror · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Pretty much.
      All these WebOS-es are seeming to remove features, not adding them.

  4. Oh, nice, more bloat. by Lisandro · · Score: 3, Insightful

    First was Gnome 3 using JS for scripting and now this. Wasn't this a bad idea when it was known as Active Desktop?

    1. Re:Oh, nice, more bloat. by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 2

      Yes!

      Now, if only someone could convince browser vendors that the reason it was bad was more than "computers were too slow at the time."

      Although, to be fair, consider that most of Firefox (and indeed every other major Mozilla product) is made out of Javascript, CSS and XML files bundled up in a ZIP archive. It's not exactly a speedy design in the first place. So they're kind of losing the race out of the gate here.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    2. Re:Oh, nice, more bloat. by Lennie · · Score: 2

      No JSON is the new XML.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
  5. Re:Oh wow . . . by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 2

    So we've come full circle back to IE again?

    Sounds more like a death spiral than a circle...

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  6. Didn't work out for MS by roman_mir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Computer is not for web only, I know, it's amazing to think otherwise, but some of us actually work on them, and most of the work is not happening on the web, though reading /. you won't be able to deduce this fact.

    Anyway, I always wanted my shell to take all of my RAM, overbook the CPU, run the fans on full throttle just to refresh the clock on the background.

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
    1. Re:Didn't work out for MS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Computer is not for web only, I know, it's amazing to think otherwise, but some of us actually work on them, and most of the work is not happening on the web

      The introductory video in the article agrees with you. It calls Webian a shell for computers which don't need a desktop. The narrator then goes on to say "If you're anything like me, you'll find that most of the stuff you do on your PC these days happens in a web browser".

      I really hate the idea of Webian because like you I'm not a browser addict, but this really seems to be selling itself as a system for specific circumstances, not something to totally replace the desktop of old.

    2. Re:Didn't work out for MS by yarnosh · · Score: 2

      I do webdevelopment and network- and Linux/Unix system administration. It is that I've not had time yet to it up and try it out but I think I could actually move over all my work into a webbrowser if I wanted to. I've actually been wanting to try it out as an experiment:

      You're not a real web developer or admin or you'd have very specific requirements of your terminal and editor. Either that your you greatly underestimte your requirements to get real work down. Ultimately, you have to ask yourself "what is the point?" I mean, just because you could theoretically move your work into the web browser, that doesn't mean you should. Is there any benefit? It looks like that terminal you linked to requires that you run a local server..??? So it isn't like you could use that anywhere.

      http://www.cloud9ide.com/ [cloud9ide.com] (open source webbased programmers editor with git version control and offline support is almost ready)

      So.. um.. how do you actually build/preview your project? Do you have to deploy your changes every time you want to see the results??? I can't see how this could possibly work. I'm a web developer and I have a specialized Ruby on Rails development environment including local daemons like memcache, mysql, activemq, etc. A "cloud" based editor woudl be totally useless to me.

      I'm not an Office user however and I don't know if Google Docs or similair open source webapplication would be good enough for me, I do know I would want to have one that atleast supports HTML5-offline use. But as I understand it a lot of people already use it, so it probably satisfies their needs.

      Google Docs are good for sharing documents and allowing multiple people to edit simultaneously, but I can't imagine using it as my primary Office program.

  7. Minimalist trend by Lord+Lode · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This is not fully on topic, but I'm worried about the minimalist trend going on in GUIs these days, such as the disappearing of the URL bar in browsers, hiding things behind clicks instead of immediately visible, removing the minimize and maximize buttons from windows, etc...

    I like having status bars, lots of indicators, toolbar buttons, menus with many options and customizations, having as much mouse buttons with a useful feature as possible, etc...

    Do you think the minimalist trend is temporary? Or should I really be worried?

    Thanks!

    1. Re:Minimalist trend by vlm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Do you think the minimalist trend is temporary?

      Three societal / cultural trends / beliefs / needs across all areas of human endeavor:

      1) Talk down to the noobs. "Hay n00b U R dum so ur UI will B 1 button". Its a public display of profound intellectual arrogance. "The average gutter dwelling noob could never understand the rarefied nobility and intellectual challenge of the maximize button, so I, as their superior, as a shining example of Nietzsche's overman, will take away that dangerous option from them for their own good"

      2) Everyone gets a participation trophy, so we must drag everyone down to the noob level. There must not be a learning curve or the people at the bottom of it might have hurt feelings. If that means the entire population must only be given tools equivalent to lincoln logs and playdough, the frustration of almost everyone is inferior to the feelings of one individual.

      3) Eternal September has finally sunk in, around a decade too late, and now completely obsolete, and its going to take a long time to get rid of it. People that have not already had their "eternal september" moment years or decades ago are either about 5 years old or are socially and economically irrelevant so there is no need to pander to them, unfortunately people still insist that "everyone knows" that 99% of the population has never clicked a mouse. Its an meme thats obsolete and just won't die. Maybe when the Gen-Xers have all died of old age and the Gen-Y finally get it pounded into their heads that there's no one alive on the planet that was born before facebook... but that could take decades...

      In other words, expect to be held back for quite awhile.

      --
      "Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
    2. Re:Minimalist trend by Cthefuture · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's just a fad. It's very similar although not exactly the same as "Not Invented Here" syndrome caused by developer inexperience and naivety.

      Although this has happened countless times the primary example I like to take out is Java. Java tried to be minimalistic and "simple" by leaving out all sorts of useful functionality (eg. generics, etc). Now look at it, everything they left out in the beginning is shoehorned into the current versions and it sucks because they failed to account for the functionality in the original design.

      What will happen is these products and projects will start out very minimalistic but will then slowly grow into a bloated, poorly designed pieces of shit as the developers realize that some features exist for a reason and are actually needed or just plain useful.

      Then there will be backlash against the "idiotic" minimalist approach and we will start to get over-designed, over-complicated, inefficient, bureaucratically designed, and slow to implement bloatware which will slowly shrink into buggy poorly designed pieces of shit as the developers realize that you can't start giant designs and implement the whole thing at once.

      Then there will be backlask against the "idiotic" over-complicated software so... (this is what is happening now)

      Repeat ad nauseum. Einstein had it right: "Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler." You need to start with a solid flexible, possibly somewhat complicated design but with the intent and proper planning to only implement a simple subset of the design at first. Then it can grow into the full-blown design over time.

      --
      The ratio of people to cake is too big
  8. Re:Is this a joke ? by Inda · · Score: 3, Informative

    Your delivery and punch line needs some work.

    You have to create a situation in the audience's mind - the set-up - then you deliver the punch line. Certain pauses throughout the joke will add to the hilarity.

    Q&A jokes are the bread and butter of many a stand up comedian, but it is often the comedian people are laughing at, not the joke. Everyday events work well. Puns are funny, but not cool. Topical subjects must be delivered shortly after the event. Racist jokes can be funny in front of the correct audience and the same can be said for making fun of the handicapped.

    Your punch line "Useless!" failed in every way, although it had potential.

    --
    This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
  9. Re:Oh wow . . . by itsdapead · · Score: 2

    So we've come full circle back to IE again?

    The difference this time time is it will use open, cross-platform standards that haven't been "embraced and extended" into a proprietary system by Microsoft. It may also have something resembling a security model.

    The alternative, in a world where productivity apps (at least) will increasingly be expected to offer tablet & online, cloud-y versions, is to continue to need multiple incompatible codebases for application front ends.

    God knows, there should be better choices than HTML/CSS/Javascript for writing GUIs, but the Real World has spoken and, for better or for worse, it is the emerging standard for platform-independent GUIs and already runs across OSX, iOS, Windows, Android and various *nix flavours.

    --
    In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
  10. Can't wait for someone to come out by Shivetya · · Score: 2

    with a new project introducing a stream lined browser which has a small foot print and is fast.

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  11. Re:Oh wow . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I bet in a decade or two we'll be seeing a flood of so-called "native" or "local" applications and UIs that run 100 times faster than regular applications. They will be called Apps 2.0. Also, entertainment content like movies will be delivered on portable, physical media that doesn't exhaust your sparse download quota. Those will be cutting edge innovations! How exciting!

    Death-spiral indeed ...

  12. Re:RagingMaxx Multiple Desktop (TM) by RagingMaxx · · Score: 2

    The VC guys and I have already cooked up a name for it: Porn Shell.

    Is this a patent application yet? Where do I collect my money rake and monocle?

  13. Re:Jolicloud, is that you? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And you can watch a steady (if small) stream of Jolicloud users departing because their latest launcher fails to integrate desktop apps with web apps, so you can't launch them all from the same place. I'm subscribed to the thread about it so I get email notifications of those who actually bother to post, which you can assume to be a small slice of those who are departing.

    Be interesting to see how they solve THAT problem.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  14. Sounds like what X-Window System was about.. by Banekartr · · Score: 2

    right? History repeating itself with faster computers? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_Window_System

  15. Re:Oh wow . . . by green1 · · Score: 2

    I was thinking more like an old ISP we used to have around here about 15 years ago. I believe they called themselves 3web, and thy provided you with a dialup client that opened a remote desktop session where you would run a browser, or FTP, or IRC, or mail client on their computers with the output being streamed back to yours through the dial-up connection. They claimed it meant you didn't need a powerfull computer to run such intensive apps as netscape navigator... The catch of course being that at the time, the bottleneck was the dial-up modem, not the processing power of your computer, so this resulted in a very painful web experience...

  16. Why, oh why? by macraig · · Score: 2

    What's wrong with the desktop I have now? Is it interpreted code? No. Is it slow? No (mostly). Is it unresponsive to user input? Sometimes, but that's the fault of the kernel and other processes, not the shell per se. Could the desktop metaphor be improved? Maybe... but what's wrong with just changing the existing code/resources?

    WHY do I need my desktop in a Web browser? How will shoehorning my desktop into a browser actually improve any of the few problems my desktop does have? "Integration", you say? Pffft! The browser is ONE CLICK and a few seconds away. WHY do I have to have my entire desktop inside the browser just for 'integration"? Preload the damned browser code instead, for gosh sake. I already do that.

    Leave my fucking desktop out of the browser, please, Mozilla. A more intelligent integration MIGHT be to merge Web and file/document browsing; they're both browsers intended to locate stuff, after all, eh? Maybe you could then integrate (Open|Libre|)Office into that integrated browser, so that it could then locate AND open both Web and other documents?

    Why don't you tinker with that instead, Mozilla, and leave my freaking desktop out of it?