Where Is Firefox OS?

adeelarshad82 writes "Microsoft's very simple yet graceful concept raises a very big question. The way Microsoft is planning out Windows 8, developers will be able to write one HTML 5 app which will run across every Windows 8 form factor, from desktops to laptops, to ARM netbooks and tablets. Given the concept, if you remove the operating system — or at least make it transparent enough that the browser becomes the platform — then suddenly every piece of software works across every piece of hardware which raises the question that why Mozilla hasn't considered a Firefox OS?"

Comments

Easy.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no Firefox OS because Firefox and Gecko are slow pieces of shit.

Re:Easy.

[icannotthinkofaname]

slow pieces of shit.

Well, that's no excuse. That didn't stop Windows Vista from being considered and released.

Re:Easy.

[fyngyrz]

Well, lets put it this way, then: Windows 8 will be a slow piece of shit. In addition, it looks like it will be incompatible with every piece of windows software currently out there, unless I completely misunderstand (they're telling us developers we can't use the old tools... so I take that to mean that the old tools won't produce usable code, therefore previously released code.... junked.)

The one thing of value Windows offered -- to me -- was long term backwards compatibility. With that gone, it's basically an entirely new OS, and you know what.. no thanks. I'd rather move to linux, which is very well established by comparison. Assuming my Mac somehow became dysfunctional.

Re:Easy.

[GigaplexNZ]

unless I completely misunderstand

You completely misunderstand. Even the official Windows 8 first look video shows running legacy applications (seek to 3:02). Where did you hear (from Microsoft, not rumours) that existing stuff won't work?

Re:Easy.

[hairyfeet]

Don't worry Windows 7 will be supported until 2020 and by then Ballmer will hopefully be fired and the office guys will put out another decent OS. That is one of the nice things about Windows, its support cycles are long enough if you time it right you can just skip completely the shit releases which traditionally have been every other one.

So I figure Windows 9 will be just Windows 7 with some updates and a little extra bling and all will be good again, and on a positive note i'll probably make a nice pile o' cash stripping out Win 8 for 7 the way I did Vista for XP, I'd say thanks MSFT but it seems such a waste that Win 7 rocks and instead of doing the smart thing and just adding some nice features to make it worth upgrading (I'd suggest something as easy as homegroup for computers in different locations, so someone like my dad could just use a USB stick to copy some token at work and be able to stick the stick in and have it hook up to his work PC from home) it'll be some "me too!" Apple ripoff that is gonna royally suck ass just so they can try to hop on the ARM bandwagon, even though backwards compatibility is what sells Windows and without it there is no point in buying MSFT anything.

As for TFA, because currently FF 4 sucks the big wet titty when it comes to memory and CPU, two places that are seriously constrained on mobile devices? i have to support everything from decade old office boxes to the latest quads and I've been having to switch everyone over to Comodo Dragon as FF 4 is simply unusable on anything slower or smaller than a 3.2GHz P4 with 2Gb of RAM.

I'm typing this on a 1.8GHz Sempron with 1.5Gb of RAM, which is 512Mb more than you get on the average netbook and faster than a single core Atom, yet FF 4 is completely unusable, even with ABP. Launching a tab can slam the CPU for up to two minute where the machine is unresponsive, and may the FSM help you if you dare to click on a video link as FF 4 will slam the CPU into the redline while giving you a slideshow. Compare that to Dragon and other Chromium browsers where I can have several tabs open without ANY CPU slamming, just a VERY quick spike and then it drops, and when I click on a video link the video plays nicely on anything short of HD, and even the HD ones play alright as long as I let it buffer a little first. Not to mention for some reason FF will slowly but surely continue to suck RAM until it slams the swap, whereas Chromium actually gives back RAM when you close a tab.

So I'd have to say a "FF OS" based on the current FF would be a majorly BAD idea, because they have some serious problems in that code. Even the devs admitted here in an article a few months back that they needed to work on memory usage, boy is THAT an understatement! I don't know what they did, as pre 3.6.x it was actually quite nice but after 3.6 it has been going downhill fast. Maybe Gecko simply can't take all the additions like a separate flash container being bolted onto it, I don't know, but currently I wouldn't use it on less than a 3.2GHz with preferably HT and 2Gb+ of RAM and those specs are more than a little too high for a mobile OS, unless mobile means like Alienware laptops in that you need a really long extension cord?

Re:Easy.

[smash]

More diplomatically put: they're having enough problems getting firefox 4 to work as a browser, getting an entire operating sytem platform up and running is going to prove more difficult than that.

Re:Easy.

[Lennie]

It doesn't look like they will be departing much from how Windows 7 technically works. That part will stay the same, it is mostly gui and new API (and still supporting the old API).

Re:Easy.

[Lanteran]

Sorry, going to have to call bull on this one. I've got a P3 650MHz with 384MB of RAM that I use for linux (ultra)legacy testing and firefox 3.6 ran fast enough. FIrefox 4 was excellent, faster than chrome in fact, on that same machine. It's every bit as responsive as it is on my usual 2.8GHz dual core 2GB ram system.

Re:Easy.

[Canazza]

People seem to be mistaking the Desktop Widgets being coded in Javascript as the whole OS being a giant interpreter with no support for proper apps.

Re:Easy.

[tehcyder]

Where did you hear (from Microsoft, not rumours) that existing stuff won't work?

Ha! We don't listen to what Microsoft says here, obviously they'll just lie. But an online acquaintance of a friend of my cousin's girlfriend said it was true on an Apple forum, so that's good enough for me.

Re:Easy.

[somersault]

I refuse to strain my eyes (I sit about 1.5m away from the 22" 1080p screen).

If you don't want to strain your eyes, shouldn't you be sitting a little closer? Sounds like you're twice as far from the screen as you should be if you want to be able to make useful use of the pixels you have. If you zoom everything to hell, you might as well be using a 640x480 monitor.

Re:Easy.

[somersault]

That is an excellent deal indeed. I decided to switch from dual CRT to a widescreen monitor a few years ago, and decided I'd be just as well getting a 40" HDTV rather than a separate PC monitor and TV. I haven't really used it much as a PC display since I switched to laptops and console gaming, but if I ever get another desktop machine or gaming laptop, it's going to be hooked right in there.

Re:Easy.

[hairyfeet]

Uhhh...where EXACTLY in my post which mentioned Windows several times did you notice me say ANYTHING, anything al all, about Linux? That is like saying "Well my motorboat runs well" in the middle of a conversation about cars.

Frankly it could run like the second coming on Linux for all I care, after watching the drivers fall down and go BOOM! in Linux every. single. time. I tried to update the damned thing I wouldn't touch that POS with a 50 foot barge pole. When Linus gets fired or retires and you FINALLY, after all these damned years, have a stable driver ABI like the rest of the planet? Then I'll take another look. But playing "hunt the forum for fixes" wastes too much of my already limited time. I need an OS to "just work" even after I update it, and Windows does. Sorry.

Now on WINDOWS, WinXP Home SP3 to be exact, I watch FF 4 slam the CPU for every new tab, slam the CPU for several minutes and give me a slideshow when I watch a video, and slowly but surely suck up all the RAM, even if you don't do anything but just let it run. Comodo don't do that, Chrome don't do that, FF 4 does. And I have the same extensions I always have had, just ABP and ForecastFox. That's it. Hell even the FF devs said the memory usage was problematic not a month ago in one of the articles. Maybe you think they are full of shit too?

Re:Easy.

[fyngyrz]

Where did you hear (from Microsoft, not rumours) that existing stuff won't work?

Microsoft doesn't talk to me. -->

Google it

Re:Easy.

[Lanteran]

Hm, interesting, haven't had driver problems at all in the last 3 years I've used linux (after a huge batch of wireless cards got decent drivers). Not any bugs really too- but my experience can't speak for everyone's of course, and I do tend to purchase good hardware for compatibility. Anyway, it used to be a win2k machine which was quite clean of bloat and malware, and firefox 3.5 or 6 performed admirably- not as fast as firefox 4 at page loading, but no memory leaks or anything, certainly not much slower than 3.6 on my then current pentium 4 running linux. Oldest XP machine I've ever run firefox on was a pentium 4 1GB so I can't speak for legacy stuff post 2k. Posting this from a friend's windows 7 laptop and it runs fine here too.

Re:Easy.

[Lanteran]

Strange, I'm on arch 64 bit with much inferior hardware (pentium D, 2GB RAM). Only addons I run are noscript and adblock plus though.

Re:Easy.

[hairyfeet]

Well the P4 had that long ass pipeline which for some reason FF 4 seems to love, try it on AMD CPUs and its a different story. Maybe they are using Intel's rigged compiler?

As for Linux and drivers, your post just hit the nail on the head accidentally about what is wrong with the community: They say Linux is a replacement for Windows, when really it is a replacement for Macs. Like a Mac you have to be DAMN picky about hardware, and even then it can be a roll of the dice.

Owning my own little shop I have plenty of boxes of all makes and sizes to try it on and frankly it is more likely to fail at least one driver on update as not. The problem is once you get it running YOU CAN NEVER UPDATE as that will cause the thing to fall down and go BOOM! which in this era of zero days is just too risky for my customers and I can't afford to give away lifetime support, especially when a broken driver may not get a "forum fix" for a week or two which is simply unacceptable when you have a customer wanting their wireless back. Linux makes a great server OS, where companies spend millions to deal with Linus' PITA driver model, but desktops? Most don't care so you literally have a driver written by Bob in his basement, that is hacked together and will crap itself when you update. No thanks.

Anyway next time you are on a Windows box try Comodo Dragon and compare it to FF 4. Even with ABP and ForecastFox installed on both the Dragon frankly stomps the living crap out of FF 4 on memory usage, on CPU spikes and percentage used, frankly there isn't a metric where Dragon don't stomp the fox. Personally i hope they fix it, as I miss my NoScript which there is no replacement for on Chromium based (NotScript is a bad hack and been abandoned) but as long as I have to support a wide variety of hardware I need a browser that works on everything and from 3.6 up FF has just been getting steadily worse.

Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[MrEricSir]

A: Because it's a dumb idea.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[TubeSteak]

[sarcasm]I can't wait for the day that the OS is a browser and everything runs in either flash, javascript, or some proprietary plugin that is plagued with memory leaks.[/sarcasm]

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[MoonBuggy]

I'm torn on that one - on the one hand I want to say that an extra layer of abstraction, wasting memory and cycles itself only to interpret code on the fly rather than taking the time to compile and optimise once per platform and be done with it, is a terrible idea. Particularly when it's designed to help move code to diverse, often lower power devices.

On the other hand, most high-end phones now have as much processing capability and memory as a decent desktop did a decade ago, yet many of our day-to-day computing tasks haven't changed drastically in ten years - maybe letting the power make up for the bloat isn't such a bad idea, when it's not so useful for anything else. Sure, there'll always be space for highly optimised code that makes use of every cycle, but (as much as I hate to say this) perhaps we're wrong to demand 'elegant' when 'simple' is good enough for a lot of tasks...

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[MrEricSir]

It's like using a desktop computer just so you can remotely eject the CD tray and knock over a cup of water to water your plants while you're on vacation.

Yes, you COULD do that, but it's wasteful and unnecessary. And last I checked, wasteful and unnecessary weren't the hallmarks of a "simple" design.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Carnildo]

"Firefox would be a great operating system, if only it had a decent web browser"

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

But also, it sounds no different besides the marketing.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Runaway1956]

I always thought that "elegant" and "simple" were nearly synonymous. The reason code isn't elegant is, some people don't understand their tools, others don't understand machines, others don't understand the programs they are trying to write, and yet others are just plain lazy.

I mean, if developers can't even be bothered to go back and remove their comments from the code they've written before releasing the code, that is just plain LAZY!! Why load a 12 MB executable into memory, when removing the cruft would reduce it to 9, or maybe even 6 MB?

And, obviously, if they can't be bothered to remove COMMENTS, then they certainly haven't bothered to monitor memory usage, data flow, or anything else. Memory leaks? Why bother - memory is cheap, right? Besides - everyone runs Windows, and everyone reboots* every morning, noon, and evening - no one is going to leak very much memory in a few hours, right?

*forgot that I finally updated my kernel last week - my uptime isn't anything to brag about right now, lol!
19:05:03 up 8 days, 15:45, 2 users, load average: 2.01, 1.57, 1.47

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[RobbieThe1st]

Thanks to bios boot-at-specified-time, and OS shutdown-at-specified-time, this could actually be perfectly plausible. :P

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... you're kidding about the comments, right?

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[GCsoftware]

I don't know what the hell kind of compiler you're using to generate these crufty executables, but GCC produces the exact same binaries for source with comments vs source code without.

Or am I missing a joke here?

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Oligonicella]

No, he's not. I've seen his code.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[werewolf1031]

As I understand it, comments are only retained in interpreted-code applications, but are ignored/removed when compiling an executable because the code is being 'translated' to lower-level machine language in the compiling process. So, there would be no point of removing comments from the source in the latter case, in fact it would present a project-management nightmare to have source code with zero comments when you (or, especially, someone else) has to dig in to the original source to make changes later on down the road.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

So that is why so much uncommented code exists! This guy has been removing them all as an *optimization*

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[n3xg3n]

You mean you don't allocate memory to store your comments as strings?

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[s4m7]

Due to the varying level of sarcasm in your post, my detector's MoE is +/-50% so this remark may be completely irrelevant. When you're discussing compiled languages it's not customary to remove your comments, for two primary reasons.

1. Comments help a maintainer other than the original author more quickly locate and troubleshoot problem code. This also applies to prolific coders who can't be bothered to remember what they were doing on somerandomlibrary.c three months ago.
2. Comments are generally removed in the compilation process, and therefore do not add to executable or library overhead.

That said, comments are typically also retained for reason #1 in interpreted and compile-on-run languages. If comments inflate your interpreted script code by 20% or more, you're probably using them ineffectively and they won't serve as much of a guide for a subsequent maintainer anyway. Even at a rather unnecessary 20% level, the average perl or python app is unlikely to exceed a meg in code size, so you'd only be adding in the neighborhood of 200k to your final product, and again for reason #2 this won't negatively impact the runtime footprint.

For things like html, css, and javascript, this is why minifiers exist. However, it does seem like an inordinate number of "professionals" fail to regularly avail themselves of these tools.

finally...

my uptime isn't anything to brag about right now, lol!

Sure didn't seem to stop you!

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[sg_oneill]

Almost nothing is strictly interpretted these days. Almost any language I can think of thats not hard compiled at least gets reduced to bytecode , and in many cases then JIT compiled on the fly.

Short of a bytecode compilation speed-bump, the comments won't affect a thing.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does Mozilla have to consider it? Any schmuck can make a livecd that boots into a full-screen Firefox session, and it'll be roughly the same experience as ChromeOS.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

gcc -E

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[dwywit]

Well, IBM did it with the AS400 (iSeries). Double abstraction meant that application binaries compiled on the smallest box in the range could be copied to the largest box in the range, and the operating system would automatically re-compile those binaries to work with the different microcode. That's not ported, not re-written - literally copied to tape and restored on the larger box.
 
It meant that hardware upgrades (as your wildly successful company expanded) weren't accompanied by the cost of re-writing or porting your application code for the new hardware.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Rizimar]

You think that's cool? I don't even use the enter key when I'm writing code, just for the major optimization factor alone.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Removing comments to reduce executable size...I honestly can't tell if you're trolling or just really high.

I'll just pull a Morbo on you and say Compilers DO NOT WORK THAT WAY. Goodnight.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[dudpixel]

no one seems to be concerned with the Windows 8 part of the story.

Are Microsoft so directionless these days that they would consider a move that makes the ENTIRE windows stack basically irrelevant?

If people start coding for HTML5, suddenly windows is out of the picture, because the apps would run just as well on linux or mac.

I thought the whole reason for Windows' existence was windows-specific software. If we remove that, what does windows have going for it?

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you tag it as sarcasm, then it isn't

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[melikamp]

Actually, because it's an AWESOME idea, already implemented and known as GNU/Linux.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[shaitand]

You are forgetting the extend and embrace part of the equation. Microsoft will add HTML 5 extensions and tie ins to the underlying subsystem. The result will be that they get to claim to be a completely open platform while remaining totally proprietary.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Abstraction is fine, but only when it actually buys you some advantage. I'm still not sold that HTML5/JavaScript give you much of an advantage over traditional application development tools. There is the promise of write once, run everywhere (I've heard that before) and the ability to load the latest version of the application each time it is run, but those things could, with similar effort to what's being devoted to HTML5, be added to other more mature technologies that don't require the compromises that HTML/JavaScript entail. For me, it's too much of a sacrifice to give up testing/debugging tools, and language features that we've had in other languages for many years now (namespaces/package management, threading, etc.) And all that is before you consider the order of magnitude performance hit that web technologies introduce.

I'm not against bloat on principle. I think I'd be fine if browser vendors included a python interpreter and the necessary DOM manipulation libraries. But web technologies (and mainly just JavaScript) are a huge step backward for me, so I'm against the bloat in this case.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[vlueboy]

I remember not-so-fondly the reason causing Windows to "power down" to a power-wasting state with a the sky/cloud banner stating that "It's now safe to shut down your computer now" back in Windows 95. Even with 98 lots of hardware was unable to shut off on its own.

I wish some standard would unify auto power-*up* management at the BIOS level (even if Linux gets locked out of the hardware deal). I really liked how plain old Macs had a universal control area going over sleep countdowns, screensavers, powerdown times AND the elusive power-up function that Wintel users are forbidden to touch unless from outside the BIOS --and all from a perfectly integrated GUI running as a control panel applet (and that was around 1998, when the *other* consumer OS/BIOS combination would barely even shut down without user-case-button-interaction).

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[vlueboy]

Ooops!
s/unless from outside the BIOS /unless from INside the BIOS/

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Killall -9 Bash]

And last I checked, wasteful and unnecessary weren't the hallmarks of a "simple" design.

I cite Object Oriented Programming. Wasteful, unnecessary, and simple.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Comments are not compiled AFAIK.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Serious Callers Only]

Interesting that this dumb idea first came from Andreessen -

Netscape will reduce Windows to a poorly debugged set of device drivers - 1995

That's not to say I think its an idea whose time has come - Chrome OS has frankly been a distraction for Google as Android takes off, Apple tried and failed to go down the web only route for apps on their devices, and WebOS hasn't really gained traction. But it is an idea which has its attractions (though not to denizens of a site like this) - for many users not having to bother with a local file system would be a blessing, and for many developers not having to bother with local installs or creating platform binaries would vastly simplify deployment and upgrades. Our machines (even our phones!) are fast enough that many activities can be done over the network and many apps can happily be network-based. For example many people I know almost exclusively use webmail nowadays, which tells you something about desktop mail clients and their perceived value (I use a desktop client, but recognise that most people do not care to).

What has been happening is that services are moving onto the internet, and the internet is moving onto desktop machines in ways that we wouldn't have dreamed of previously, so in that sense the idea is coming to fruition, though often based on binaries rather than write-once deploy anywhere web apps.

Firefox could potentially expand into this space, but if they do so they are likely to end up gored by operating system vendors who react badly to people intruding on their turf. MS, Apple and Google are all quite capable of trying to cut off the oxygen supply of Firefox, and would happily do so if they started to encroach on operating systems or these vendors' own cloud ventures. Quite apart from that I don't know if Firefox really have the moxie to pull this off - they are struggling already to compete just as a browser with Chrome, Safari, and a newly revived IE. They need to focus on their core competency first.

As to Microsoft's new-found enthusiasm for HTML at the expense of Silverlight - this must have devs who trusted them and committed to Silverlight seething, and I wouldn't trust them at all to support that strategy going forward or deliver on their promises. The most likely outcome is that they have decided to again try to embrace and extend the web itself - they definitely will not let apps work well for long across anything which doesn't have a Microsoft brand on it, and might decide to change course again in a few years as they do seem a little rudderless at the moment.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[cshark]

It has been done. The project is in Freshmeat. It was promptly started in 02 or 03 I believe, and abandoned, like most other somewhat interesting projects there. In fact, if memory serves, there may have actually been two of them around the same era. Both long dead. The reason being (as usual) that people on Freshmeat and similar sites would rather tell you how much of a dick you are for trying something interesting, than paying any attention to how novel your project is. At the time, this was revolutionary stuff. Did anyone care? No, of course not. The only time anyone cares about anything Open Source is when there's a marketing budget behind it.

Be that as it may, the Mozilla OS project(s) I vaguely remember were true browser as a platform for desktop style gui projects, ala 'let's build a whole desktop environment in XUL' type stuff. What Microsoft is proposing is not a true browser as a platform system. Closest thing to browser as a platform that's in active development now is Chromium, which looks nothing like Windows 8. Sure, it's nice that Microsoft has finally gotten their head out of their ass with hypertext apps. This has been coming since Windows 95, though, and I'm not seeing anything really all that new in it except compatibility. But if you're going to be least bit critical about it, that's something that should have existed all along.

I remain skeptical.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Erm, comments are useful for maintaining code, and are not compiled. Why should you have to remove them? They don't affect the size or efficiency of the compiled binary...

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Lennie]

You do know that for Google ChromeOS is what they wanted to have ? And Android was just needed to fill a gap because HTML5 wasn't ready.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[rtb61]

Now all you have to do is solve the screen real estate, colour, resolution, memory abstraction and you home and hosed. Of course you have to forget those pesky mobile phones as well.

Reality is what you are after is an IDE that you code in one language and architecture and it writes the code for the other architecture and language types that you want to use. So a big bloaty IDE rather than M$ typical solution bloated clunky OS with half arsed solutions and a whole lot of promise with only random temporary delivery.

When it comes to innovation, the real push is to be able to compile software engineering concepts and terminology, into tweak able code and then into variable architecture machine language. Converting software engineering into executable code is really a job that computers were designed to do, solving that patentable software interface that takes human specific language and terminology and translates that into editable code prior to compilation, is the real trick. Really does require a new coding language that suits that translation and post pass readability and adjustment.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[DrXym]

A: Because it's a dumb idea.

Chrome OS is a dumb idea but a version of Linux that cold boots in under 30 seconds to desktop & browser and has instant on capabilities in other regards is not a dumb idea.

I don't think it would be dumb either for Mozilla to pursue the concept of native client like Chrome, but PNaCl, not NaCl.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Ramin_HAL9001]

@GCsoftware: I could be wrong, but believe Runaway1956 is talking about JavaScript. Since scripts must be transmitted to and stored on every client it runs on, 3 MB can make a big difference, even if caching is helping you along. Not only is optimizing for memory and CPU usage important, but filtering the comments and white-spaces, and renaming symbols to the minimum length allowable by the syntax can help squeeze out every last bit of performance. Google does this to the code in several of their apps.

But I may be misunderstanding him.
@Runaway1956, why are you talking about memory leaks if indeed you are talking about removing comments from JavaScript?

PS: uptime on my Linux desktop is 91 days, because my kernel lets me apply patches/updates on the fly.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[dwywit]

Well, screen real estate, colour, resolution, and memory abstraction weren't issues when OS400 was designed - it was 5250 text terminals - mostly green-screen, but some were colour. You're right, though - those are all issues to be considered. My point was that IBM considered and solved these types of problems way back before 1988 (when the first AS400 was announced) - how to manage portability of application code between different hardware platforms - and the hardware in an entry-level AS400 was sufficiently different from the higher-end models to be considered a different platform, even though the user interface was the same - but that's what you get when a proprietary system is designed from the ground up by a competent team - OS400 was designed first, then they designed a range of hardware to run it. I may sound like an IBM fanboy, but the AS400/iSeries has many features that others would do well to incorporate, patent issues aside for the moment.
 
For instance, the "PC Support" feature took application binaries that were originally designed for 5250 text terminals, and presented them in a GUI-based 5250 emulator. All the end user required was the emulator, and this was presented as an icon on their screen. Yes, it was a text-mode terminal in a make-believe GUI - primitive by today's standards, but it still proves the point that it can be done. No code had to be ported or re-compiled with various architecture options for this to work.

It's also one of the differences between an operating system that costs $1000 or less, and one that costs considerably more.

I recommend a visit to an iSeries shop sometime - or read of some of the design documents and history of the AS400.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[tehcyder]

If you tag it as sarcasm, then it isn't

[dumbass]
He did something wrong with the HTML, I could still see the tag names.
[/dumbass]

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[tehcyder]

It's like using a desktop computer just so you can remotely eject the CD tray and knock over a cup of water to water your plants while you're on vacation.

You too? I thought it was just me.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[AmiMoJo]

One of the major goals of HTML5 is to avoid the need for plug-ins in web apps. Data storage, complex interactivity and video used to require Flash but you can do them all in HTML/Javascript now.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[SoloFlyer2]

they are in his compiler!

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[AmiMoJo]

It isn't like that at all. When developing web or mobile apps you can build something that works across many platforms and does something useful quickly and easily. Your software won't have the best performance possible and will probably use more memory than strictly necessary, but since CPU power and memory are both cheap and the alternative is investing much more time in development or simply not developing at all that seems like a good trade-off.

Thanks to that we now have lots of apps for our phones and lots of useful web sites. The Arduino platform does a similar thing for electronics. Artists without a lot of technical know-how can make working designs quickly and easily, at the expense of some performance. Us hard core guys carry on coding in assembler but if you look at some of the really cool stuff people have done with an Arduino I think you will see the benefits of simple over fast and lean.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[dave420]

HTML5 still can't provide the same level of video support as Flash does, namely RTMP. Or a set of standard codecs, like flash does. So we'll still need codec plug-ins. Awesome.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Rogerborg]

Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?
A: Because it's a dumb idea.

Q: Why hasn't Slashdot removed the moderation cap on comments? Some comments deserve to go to 11.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I restarted my home system remotely, once, and it ejected the DVD in the drive (mac mini),causing it to knock over a can of coke into my desk chair. Does that count?

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[RobbieThe1st]

That's actually a good point, but while not exactly unified, I know it's possible to set the power-on counter on linux(on some motherboards, anyway, by echoing the right value to the right device file. It's useful if there's no Bios method for sarting the PC at the same time each day, instead only being able to set it to start once.

I only had to mess with that on a couple of P4 Dells, not that it always worked quite right...

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with this most of the time. If you take a task that seems slow and you optimize the hell out of it, and make the code inflexible and possibly illegible, you shoot yourself in the foot. It may be faster now, but pretty soon you'll need more features and defect fixes, and you won't be able to do them in a timely manner, and someone else will eclipse you with freshly written software.

It's really a balancing act; you don't want really slow code, but if it's reasonably fast, it's better to solve the speed issue with hardware than to junk up your code.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[jellomizer]

Not really... What are most of the applications that we use today? Forms that fill out do some processing and give us back an answer. That is a perfect fit of HTML 5 (Heck HTML 4). And is HTML really that far off then the syntax that is needed to send windows forms controls to the OS to display... No not really.
It is a dumb idea to you because you are too much of an old fart to realize that it is probably a better way of doing things.

An OS level parsing of HTML can make the speed quite fast. Programs can be accessed to other OS's and browsers, it really makes things better.

The real reason Firefox isn't making an OS is because there is more to an OS then the Interface Layer. You are still going to need to access hardware, Windows 8 is still doing that, you can still run platform binaries off the OS, for those things that need real processing power.

But right now Bandwidth is cheap, and processing is expensive. You are better off having a remote server that processes data and send it over the network. This will change, then change back and change again.... It is the way things are.
 

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[BeanThere]

no one seems to be concerned with the Windows 8 part of the story.

Are Microsoft so directionless these days that they would consider a move that makes the ENTIRE windows stack basically irrelevant?

If you actually believe that a post by "adeelarshad82" on slashdot is indicative of the direction Microsoft is taking, and that Microsoft is now issuing press releases through "adeelarshad82" on slashdot, then yes. If not, then expect the big-ol Windows stack to be around for quite some time still. The HTML5 stuff will just be a flashy shiny layer on top of a big pile of cruft in Win8 - same formula for most their OS releases. Most people still regularly use large applications that aren't going to be ported to HTML5 anytime soon, and some form of the 80/20 rule still applies, i.e. even if 80% of the things you do on a computer can be done in a browser, if just 20% can't, you still need a traditional OS.

Re:Q: Why hasn't Mozilla considered a Firefox OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if your desk chair needed watering.

Because firefox is shit?

[Bizzeh]

i know im going to get marked as a troll for this, but i dont care.. its true, mozilla themselves said that firefox is shit (slashdot story in the last 12 months, not sure of link or title)

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the concept came up during the 90's (yep, last century) and MS sort of sealed Netscape's fate. Why are we bringing it up again, don't you want to try out the free laptop from Google to see what the cloud is all about?

Include me out ...

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[SpongeBob Hitler]

Actually, feature-wise, Firefox is a nice browser. The problem is that it's slower than the molasses in January.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[i_ate_god]

Which country and where in that country? January in Australia is fairly different than January in Canada, and January in Canada is fairly different depending which side of the country you're on.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it was exactly Netscape's long-range plan. Of course MS couldn't tolerate their OS business being rendered irrelevant, and they couldn't beat Netscape with a better version, so they just bogged Netscape down in the browser wars until the whole thing went away.

Of course, all the good reasons for it are still around (and there are some, though I don't think it's a good idea overall), and since it was trumped on business grounds, not tech, it should surprise no-one that various entities, including MS and Google, are trying it again. MS's beatdown of little-guy Netscape doesn't really say anything about behemoth Google's chances of success, and there's room for Mozilla (and anyone else) to survive with some coat-tail surfing.

Oh, and if it truly means true cross-platform (OS and arch) apps that run anywhere, I'm more than willing to take the hit f a bloated memory-leaking runtime. What I fear (along with every other sane mind) is that we'll accept the bloated runtime, and then too late see that only the most circumspectly crafted apps can avoid dependencies on some platform-specific library that can't be duplicated elsewhere (e.g. the situation with .NET/mono right now...), whether from incomplete specifications or patents -- worst of both worlds.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

With crutches!

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a guess, but I would say the country in which that particular idiom originated from. Or are you referring to which country Firefox is slow in? In that case, I would say all of them.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[RoFLKOPTr]

MS's beatdown of little-guy Netscape doesn't really say anything about behemoth Google's chances of success, and there's room for Mozilla (and anyone else) to survive with some coat-tail surfing.

Except Google isn't gunning for market share, and I believe they're still one of the larger sources of direct funding for the Mozilla Foundation. Google just wants advancement. Before Chrome came along, every browser's javascript engine was absolute shit. Slow and crappy and slow and slow. V8 kickstarted everybody's interest in Javascript (as Javascript is what really makes Google run) and now everybody is much faster than the first release of Chrome, which gives Google plenty of room to make bigger, better browser applications. They didn't want to beat everybody, they just wanted to scare everybody and say "Look, speed is important to people. Do you see how fast our market share is growing? You had better pick up the pace or you will become irrelevant as quickly as our new browser renders Google Maps Satellite View."

It worked.

And today Microsoft still holds the majority of the browser market share, but most of that comes from enterprise and people who either prefer IE (those people DO exist, believe it or not) or people who just don't care to deviate from the default (which is also just fine).

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[RoFLKOPTr]

January in Canada is fairly different depending which side of the country you're on.

Seasons are opposite across the equator, sir. When it's Winter on one side of Canada, it's Winter on the other. The only difference is that Southern Canada might be i-cant-feel-my-face cold while Northern Canada is holy-shit-i-think-my-balls-just-froze-off cold.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[S.O.B.]

Seasons are opposite across the equator, sir. When it's Winter on one side of Canada, it's Winter on the other. The only difference is that Southern Canada might be i-cant-feel-my-face cold while Northern Canada is holy-shit-i-think-my-balls-just-froze-off cold.

While what is called winter occurs at the same time of year across Canada, Halifax and Vancouver, for example, experience a very different version of it.

I believe that was the point the OP was making.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand this. How is Firefox slow? I'm on a fairly low-end laptop, and I've never, ever sat and thought, "boy, this Firefox browser sure is taking a long time to do something."

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[graham.ernst]

Except Google isn't gunning for market share? Are you sure? I think you mis-read their business strategy.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[RoFLKOPTr]

Not in the browser market, no. They have enough market share that they're able to influence the market and keep the innovations and advancements flowing, and that's all that matters to them.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Chrome or IE 9.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google wants advertisements, not advancements. And your history is off. Firefox was working on tamarin and Apple on SquirrelFish before google Chrome/v8.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[shaitand]

"we'll accept the bloated runtime, and then too late see that only the most circumspectly crafted apps can avoid dependencies on some platform-specific library that can't be duplicated elsewhere (e.g. the situation with .NET/mono right now...), whether from incomplete specifications or patents -- worst of both worlds."

Of course and for the same reason as .NET/mono, this is being pushed by Microsoft. Did you think the platform specific libraries were an accident or oversight? Windows tie-in was a design decision and it will be again.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[hairyfeet]

Oh please! Ya wanna know why Netscape died hard? Because they put out a total POS release that was NS4 and then they broke one of the cardinal rules which basically gave the market to MSFT.

You may be too young but I was one of the poor bastards that had always used NS and had TRIED to use NS4. Let me give you my impression of me using NS4: "Alright! Its installed! So lets fire it up and go.../NS4 crashes/....Okay, must have been a glitch! So I'll just go to a different site this time and../.NS4 hangs and THEN crashes/...huh, maybe that site is buggy. This time I'll just go check my.../NS4 crashes and BSODs the OS/...*&^*^%*&^%*&%!

NS4 was complete and total garbage, NS6 was released THREE YEARS later (there was no NS5) and by that time nobody gave a shit because IE was "good enough". If you look at the download numbers (NS4 was in the days before IE was bundled) I'm sure you'll see a BIG spike soon after NS4 was released. Compared to NS4 IE4 was a big bundle of candy flavored goodness. No frankly it wasn't great, but at least it ran most of the time and didn't BSOD the OS like NS4 which in the days of dialup meant a long bunch of BS as you had to reboot and redial.

As for TFA, because FF isn't the "lean mean" browser it was originally supposed to be, but a big bloated monster? mobile is all about thin and light, because with the exception of the top o' the line mobiles most have less CPU and RAM than we used on desktops a decade ago. FF 4 is frankly a huge bloated mess, especially compared to Chromium based so I can understand why nobody at Moz is talking about a FF OS.

I hate to say it, but maybe it is time for a rewrite of the Gecko engine? Because ever since the 3.6 branch I've found it to be quite painful on anything less than a 3GHz+ with 2Gb of RAM, which is a hell of a lot more than your average mobile device. It is pretty obvious at least for now that mobile and green computing are gonna be popular for awhile, and FF bloat just don't fit in with that. When FF 4 can give a really nice experience on a single core Atom with 1Gb of RAM and work well all day then maybe a FF OS will be in order, but that day sure ain't today.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[jon_doh2.0]

Agreed. I am on a six year old laptop with 2ghz CPU and i find Ff to be quite snappy. I have done some, rather unscientific, comparisons between it and Chromium and i can not really clock a perceptible difference, and i would willing tolerate a small difference to retain Ff's functionality too, any day.

Which is not to say that i wouldnt like it to be leaner, of course.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Lennie]

I'm not sure I agree about what you think Google's motives are, I think they are willing to use other models of making money if they can find them.

For now they just want a bigger marketshare, this isn't just about speed. But also about features and making the Internet important (making the desktop irrelevant).

And in Europe IE does not have the majority marketshare, they still do have the biggest share though.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Lennie]

I do think FF4 is better than FF3.6 or atleast I'm using FF7 and it doesn't feel bloated.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Lennie]

I guess because of Ocean currents ?

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[RoFLKOPTr]

And in Europe IE does not have the majority marketshare, they still do have the biggest share though.

Well, that was misuse of my native language. IE doesn't have the majority market share anywhere, but they do have the dominant one. Google doesn't make a whole lot of money on Chrome, though. I don't have statistics and research in front of me, but I presume that the majority of Chrome users came from Firefox or another alternate browser (the vast majority of which have Google as the default search engine and even homepage anyway). Google has spent a lot more money developing Chrome than they have made directly from it.

Google's business is in browser applications. That means that no matter how good their applications are, they're still constrained by the limitations of the browsers. A few years ago, Google started pulling way ahead of the curve as far as how well Javascript engines could run the new apps they were trying to develop, so they needed to kick the industry in the ass a little bit, and Chrome did that. By building a browser that was over twice as fast as any other on the market, they really scared the other competitors into focusing on speed and less on feature bloat like what was happening at the time. Now everybody is mostly neck and neck. Chrome isn't significantly faster than anybody else, but damnit if Google isn't trying, because the faster Chrome gets, the faster everybody else has to get to compete. In the end, Google doesn't care what browser you use when you're using their applications, but your browser has to be able to handle the ever-increasing toll these applications take on its engines. Google has succeeded in their primary goal. Everything else is just frosting.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Canberra Bob]

Not in the browser market, no. They have enough market share that they're able to influence the market and keep the innovations and advancements flowing, and that's all that matters to them.

So their main goal is not to make money but to produce innovations and advancements? I'm sure their shareholders would be interested in that one.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Xtifr]

So their main goal is not to make money but to produce innovations and advancements?

IN THE BROWSER MARKET, yes! Their shareholders will be perfectly satisfied that they're encouraging people to use the world wide web more, where Google has a near monopoly on advertising, and makes money hand-over-fist. As far as Google is concerned, it doesn't matter whether you use Chrome or Firefox or even IE, as long as you continue to browse the web where all their advertisements live. So their main goal with Chrome is exactly what RoFLKOPTr stated.

Promoting their brand is probably a secondary goal, but it's secondary enough that they're still going to be perfectly happy to help Firefox (or Safari or Opera or even IE) improve as well. Anything to get eyes on ads.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Sinthet]

Same here, for the most part. It takes longer than I'd like to start up, but since I rarely close it that doesn't bother me too much.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[h4rr4r]

It would make me run out and buy their stock today if that was true. When money is goal number 1, the company is either stagnant or already dieing. Good product, advancement, something else has to be goal number 1, or the bean counters will kill the company.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have. Chrome, at least. I always wind up gravitating back to Firefox, and I still find myself confused whenever people complain about how slow Firefox is.

Re:Because firefox is shit?

[Kalriath]

Open Task Manager some time and check out just how much memory it's using... for 5 tabs, expect it to be 500MB or more. In fact on my PC, Firefox clocks in at twice the memory usage of SQL Server, 3 times the memory usage of Visual Studio 2010, and about the same memory usage as Duke Nukem Forever.

Fine with me.

[The MAZZTer]

It's fine with me Mozilla isn't doing a "Firefox OS". They can focus more of their efforts on the core Firefox product. Besides, Google is doing a good enough job already with a browser-based OS if you ask me.

Re:Fine with me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but the dream of "then suddenly every piece of software works across every piece of hardware" is just that - a dream. In the brave new word, I can see MS welcoming Firefox while Apple kicks it out of the walled garden.

Re:Fine with me.

[arth1]

Besides, Google is doing a good enough job already with a browser-based OS if you ask me.

Then they do it in secret labs, cause there's no such thing out in the wild. If you mean ChromeOS, that's not a browser-based OS, but a locked down Gentoo Linux that runs on a locked down file system, running a locked down display manager that runs a locked down Window manager that runs a (you guessed it: locked down) version of the Chrome browser inside it. The browser is four steps away from being an OS -- it's just another app -- the main app, but still just an app.

Having the browser be the OS is by all means possible - if the browser contains a kernel, file system, drivers and everything else needed. But what would the point be?

Re:Fine with me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually ChromeOS is based on Ubuntu

Re:Fine with me.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Citation, please?

Because it uses Portage, which is the Gentoo package manager, and which is not at all used by Ubuntu.

Re:Fine with me.

[electrosoccertux]

It's fine with me Mozilla isn't doing a "Firefox OS". They can focus more of their efforts on the core Firefox product. Besides, Google is doing a good enough job already with a browser-based OS if you ask me.

what efforts? It still doesn't scale to >1 core.

Re:Fine with me.

[the_humeister]

Sounds like emacs...

wow

[Anonymous Coward]

So, it was Microsoft that invented ChromeOS! Who knew?

Of course we shouldn't worry, since once Apple finally comes around in a few years, they will make everybody believe that Apple invented it all!

Because its a stupid idea

[MikeBabcock]

The 'browser as an OS' concept is still stupid.

I could draw it out and make it sound pretty, but its stupid nonetheless. Once you've made the browser so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, it is too bloated and someone else makes a smaller faster better browser.

Operating systems and browsers are two different things.

Now as a work environment, say a desktop interface, browsers have potential, and that's what most people mean, but even there, the security problems of dividing up what is local data and what is remote, what should be executable and what shouldn't becomes a nightmare that is easier to handle when avoided completely.

HTML5 isn't the best way to write any application; that's why almost everyone else who's made an HTML based platform has moved to a native one after the fact. Does HTML need the features necessary to write generic applications? Certainly not. The overloading of protocols (everything as HTTP) and formats (everything as HTML/CSS) is just short sighted laziness.

Please make it stop.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[amicusNYCL]

Once you've made the browser so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, it is too bloated and someone else makes a smaller faster better browser.

Now there's a thought.. Mozilla can wait until everyone else gets all bloated, then they can launch a new project to create a fast, lightweight standalone browser without all the bloat of their current offering.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[MikeBabcock]

Chrome was the tiny fast lightweight browser yesterday. I wonder who's next.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[AaxelB]

A bit of a whoosh there: Firefox was the tiny fast lightweight browser last week (that's the joke), before Chrome became the tiny fast lightweight browser browser yesterday. As for tomorrow, well, it'll probably be on a smartphone :)

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[PenisLands]

Hah hah hah, you're right on it, Mr BabCOCK. I couldn't have put it better myself.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you've made the browser so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, it is too bloated and someone else makes a smaller faster better browser.

Except when the standard has been made so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, and the smaller faster browser can't load any websites because they've all been programmed to use ajax, cookies, canvas, facebook sessions, and scripting libraries that rewrite their own language for what an img src tag used to do.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

And they can call it... uh, BIRD-ON-FIRE, or something like that.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[shutdown -p now]

The 'browser as an OS' concept is still stupid

At this point, "browser as an OS" is actually already meaningless. It's just using JS as a programming language, and HTML5 as an UI framework.

HTML5 isn't the best way to write any application; that's why almost everyone else who's made an HTML based platform has moved to a native one after the fact.

I'm aware of two HTML-only platforms: early iOS, and early webOS. So far as I know, only iOS truly "went native" - on webOS you get NDK for apps such as games, but if you want any UI it still has to be HTML.

Now, one thing to remember about iOS is that, back when it came out, HTML5 was still early in development, and JS was not yet optimized anywhere near as good as it is now (mobile Safari didn't get native JIT-compiler for JS until, what, the most recent iOS 4.x release?).

Personally, I'm still not fond of the concept, because I don't much like JS as a programming language, nor HTML as an UI markup language. But, technically, it is entirely feasible to build an app framework on them, and have it work good and fast.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[rtfa-troll]

The 'browser as an OS' concept is still stupid.

[...] Once you've made the browser so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, it is too bloated and someone else makes a smaller faster better browser.

The whole point of the "browser is an OS" is not to "encompass all possible generic operating system needs". The idea is that most of those needs will be handled by a "the cloud". Most of the time, when Microsoft or an IT manager talks about it, that doesn't mean anything sensible. However, when Google talks about it, it really means

• You aren't going to have to do file storage because your named objects are going to be stored in the cloud server and just cached locally
• You aren't going to have to do much computing because most of that will be handled by Google's servers
• You aren't going to have to think about application security because that will be handled by Google's
• You aren't going to have to control privacy and data flow because Google will do it for you.
• You aren't going to have to handle user management because Google will do that for you.
• You aren't going to have to handle setting up a file server/ file sharing because that will be done already, by Google
• etc.

If that list scares you, then it should. Basically what you are saying here is that when you move to a "Browser is the OS set up" what you are actually moving to is a "Google is your administrator and your system and all applications are controlled by them set up". You had better hope they are nice http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/>operators

Operating systems and browsers are two different things.

You are answering the wrong question here. The question isn't "should I build these things separately". The question is, "should the user have any understanding of the underlying operating system, and if so, do I need any more interface to it than a web browser can provide?" The Google answer is "no". Fundamentally, you as a naive user, surrender everything to Google. Your so the OS is still there, just the user doesn't have to worry about what it does or how it works.

HTML5 isn't the best way to write any application; that's why almost everyone else who's made an HTML based platform has moved to a native one after the fact.

Given that nobody has fully implemented it ye very few of the people who used HTML used HTML 5, so that comparison isn't yet made. Probably we should come back to that ten years from now to get the proper empirical data. However, every potential alternative platform has problems:

Windows binary no simple way to install applications; user need to download, install, approve etc. Many different incompatible versions and bad multi-version support Linux binary not widely enough installed; users are resistant to learning; several different versions OS/X binary both disadvantages of Windows and Linux at once! Java "binary" horribly variable platform versions; users are resistant; inconsistent user interface; ugly Flash "binary" partly incomplete platform access; horrible security model; horribly s.low and unstable; at serious risk of elimination in the next couple of years HTML5 / AJAX incomplete platform access; slow.

Does HTML need the features necessary to write generic applications? Certainly not.

Again it's the wrong question. The question is: "does it make sense for the people writing the HTML 5 standard to make generic applications possible". The answer is "unfortunately yes". They see a gap in the market and they are closest to filling it. Let's be clear what the gap is:

• Cross platform (Windows XP -> Windows 2008 / OS/X / Linux + Mobile )
• Dynamically installable (you don't need t

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[The Dawn Of Time]

But why? There's not a single reason in that post, it's just a lot of insults and the strong implication of a vague misunderstanding of the webapp stack.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[cptdondo]

The 'browser as an OS' concept is still stupid. Once you've made the browser so big that it encompasses all possible generic operating system needs, it is too bloated and someone else makes a smaller faster better browser.

Somehow I want to read Godel's theorem again...

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[SanityInAnarchy]

Basically what you are saying here is that when you move to a "Browser is the OS set up" what you are actually moving to is a "Google is your administrator and your system and all applications are controlled by them set up".

I can't imagine Microsoft deliberately walking into that.

No, it seems much more like, Google and others may provide a software-as-a-service version (pure Web), but it can also run locally. At this point, it's essentially a replacement for the other platforms you mentioned -- Java being the closest, I think.

I do wish there was more emphasis on local servers, but as a developer and a user, I actually like this trend. As a developer, it means that while my frontend is forced into HTML/CSS/JavaScript, my backend can be anything I want, and I don't need to make my backend code run on everyone and their dog's Windows machine, let alone every OS. I can push a lot of stuff to the backend, and what's left is much easier to make work on all recent browsers than it is to, say, make a portable C++ app that works on all OSes -- and if it was Java, I'd have to either include a JVM or force users to download one.

And as a user, it means everyone making an actual Web app is actually making a Linux app without realizing it -- and a whatever-OS-I-want app. As a user with some dev skills, I actually get more control over many of these apps, not less -- while I may be surrendering my data (if I had any to begin with; I tend not to put important stuff "in the cloud"), I gain the ability to use userscripts (Greasemonkey), custom CSS, or even my own web scraper to interact with this app in any way I want. (Every webcomic I read now has keyboard shortcuts, whether they wanted to or not (thanks, XKCD!).) Even if I didn't have development tools, I could still download userscripts and extensions which extend the functionality of the app.

It also means I get features I actually like from the Web. Not installing, or streamlining installation, is nice (thank you, Linux package managers), tabs, bookmarks, back/forward, or sending a link to a friend. These are all things which can be implemented (reinventing the wheel) in native apps, but for a well-designed web app, they just work. It's true that sometimes the developers have to deliberately re-enable these things (hash URLs), but it's common for this to happen, since users expect it.

My main complaint was being forced into JavaScript/HTML. But now we've got canvas (and even WebGL) and Google's Native Client for things which don't fit well with JavaScript/HTML, though again, most things do -- I used to hate HTML, but more recently, I've come to appreciate its extensibility (microformats and such) and semantic markup. I also used to hate HTTP, but take semantic markup + REST + proper use of hypertext, and you've got an API almost by accident, as an artifact of writing an app correctly.

Every new protocol seriously adopted in the last years seems to have to have an http tunnelled equivalent. This is insane...

For every protocol, maybe. But for the vast majority of protocols, HTTP done right (REST or websockets) is actually a good fit.

Still, I do wish there was some API by which a web app could ask for cross-site, or a generic socket API. That's about the only thing that's missing.

it's just another binary format equivalent to ELF or COFF.

Except, unlike those, it's actually standardized to the point where if you get an x86_64 binary and you're running and x86_64 browser, you can execute it, no matter what OS you're running -- whereas ELF (other than within NativeClient, if they're still using ELF) doesn't run on Windows, for example. There's also a "portable native client" which compiles to LLVM bytecode, which can then be compiled on the client's system, so you're not even necessarily locking people to an architecture.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is stupid. I should have picked up on this as soon as I read "Microsoft's simple and graceful..." Windows 8 will probably be another perhaps substantial improvement for their OS but come on, it's Microsoft. They are not known for graceful solutions; they are known for swallowing free cycles from Intel.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of the "browser is an OS" is not to "encompass all possible generic operating system needs". The idea is that most of those needs will be handled by a "the cloud". Most of the time, when Microsoft or an IT manager talks about it, that doesn't mean anything sensible. However, when Google talks about it, it really means

• You aren't going to have to do file storage because your named objects are going to be stored in the cloud server and just cached locally
• You aren't going to have to do much computing because most of that will be handled by Google's servers
• You aren't going to have to think about application security because that will be handled by Google's
• You aren't going to have to control privacy and data flow because Google will do it for you.
• You aren't going to have to handle user management because Google will do that for you.
• You aren't going to have to handle setting up a file server/ file sharing because that will be done already, by Google
• etc.

If that list scares you, then it should. Basically what you are saying here is that when you move to a "Browser is the OS set up" what you are actually moving to is a "Google is your administrator and your system and all applications are controlled by them set up". You had better hope they are nice http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/>operators

When I think of most of the people I know, the alternative to Google administering their computers, is me administering their computers, or no one administering their boxes. (OK, not no-one, but dozens of random script kiddies and the Russian mafia via spyware and viruses...)

You're still free to visit any sites you want, and use any online "apps" you want, including your own on your own server if you're hardcore enough to like that kind of thing. Of course Google hopes to provide apps good enough that you choose to use them.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[hedwards]

Firefox was, but it turns out that people actually want a complete web browser. If you don't believe me just look at Chrome, it was faster and now it's bloating up with features the way that Firefox did.

OTOH, Opera was fast and still is fast, but AFAIK they never did bloat up with features and they're being buried by Firefox, Chrome and IE at the present time.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[jon_doh2.0]

I would say that Opera has far more features than Firefox, out of the box. Yet, it remains very fast.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[CodeBuster]

Please make it stop.

One might as well ask the sun not to rise. People are ignorant and know only what they see. The internal workings of the software that runs their daily lives are so far beyond them as to be indistinguishable from magic. Those who know what is available and what they want will continue to use the proper tools, which will always exist, while the masses use their 'browser as an OS' tablets and complain about not being able to work offline or how slow and crappy their tablet is compared to their previous computing devices.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[AliasMarlowe]

I can't imagine Microsoft deliberately walking into that.

It may not be deliberate, but a side-effect of other dysfunctions. Ever noticed the way Dilbert's PHB is kind of Ballmer-shaped, except with more hair.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

More features != slow

Firefox is/was slow because of the underlying architecture going on there. The godawful mess of APIs they use. Chrome was like the rewrite that Firefox needed.

The reason they're the same speed now is because Firefox has been improved, not because Chrome has slowed down. In fact they've all reached up to the Chrome baseline and are holding beautifully. Even Internet Explorer.

Nowadays the browser choice you make is largely about UI.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

And call it Phoenix

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[MikeBabcock]

Actually you got wooshed. Firefox hasn't been tiny in a while. Chrome replaced it in the tiny department. You're a few years late for the unbloated Firefox party. And the joke is, now Chrome is repeating their mistakes. So who's next?

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[MikeBabcock]

Some of us remember when Netscape made a push platform, or when their Java integration platform whose name I forget tried to be a browser OS too.

Internet Explorer took over the desktop and introduced silly web apps on the "live" desktop that have subsequently been replaced by the applets we have today in Win7.

Many of those who agreed with me remember these and other attempts to misuse a protocol or language and try to shoehorn a square peg into a round hole.

HTML is a markup language for text. CSS is an attempt to make it usable in more formatting situations. Javascript is an interpreted scripting language that while it can be hacked into a decent Pacman game isn't even up to par with Java's performance.

PS if I were going to promote a cross-platform bloated mess on your desktop, it would be Java. Its much less limited than HTML+CSS+Javascript, and with Webstart it can even launch remotely.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[MikeBabcock]

One might as well ask the sun not to rise. People are ignorant and know only what they see. The internal workings of the software that runs their daily lives are so far beyond them as to be indistinguishable from magic.

Well said. My complaint is not that users want this or that users don't understand why its a bad idea, but that companies who specialize in offering computer software and related services are offering it to them.

Its akin in my mind to people wanting to paint with mercury and lead in their children's bedrooms because it goes on the wall better. Sure it does, and it may very well kill your child too, so we don't allow it.

We're getting to the point in history where I believe (unfortunately) government intervention will take over where private corporations have failed, and mandates for specific levels of security will be the result. No more wanton sharing of your location is already working its way through the pipeline, and some day it will be cross-site data sharing, data mining of personal email, etc.

And rust me, I agree with your point wholeheartedly. I do computer network security and when I refuse to configure unnecessary wireless APs for customers they get upset with me. When I refuse to let them install a public-facing webserver on their internal database server they get annoyed. And on several occasions I've had to have very long discussions with their security companies for wanting holes punched in the firewall for remote unencrypted access to the office camera system.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[GargamelSpaceman]

As long as you have a tiny lightweight core then you can shed excess baggage if it starts to weigh you down more than it is worth. I think that's going to be the winningest strategy long term. Build small lightweight tools that can connect with others so that whatever the situation requires, you can pick from what you need and stick em together into whatever form fashion dictates.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[Kalriath]

Internet Explorer?

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[MikeBabcock]

As much as I love the microkernel concept of software development, I think its bunk.

By the time you've added all the facilities and interfaces to your small core to allow for all the modular bits, you've already made it bloated compared to the same software without those options.

Sure, I'm an old *nix geek but I like my software to be relatively single-purpose and therefore easily debugged and defined (but yes I still use PERL).

I like my browser being able to browse the web. I'd prefer to use a video player to watch video, especially considering how often I full-screen it. In fact, its one of the things I love about the Youtube app on Android -- when I click a link to a Youtube video in the browser, it offers to load it in the external application instead.

Sure, we can give tabs process isolation and we can use no-execute flags and memory isolation and virtual machines, but why use all that complexity to implement something that doesn't need to be done?

Linus' infamous comment about microkernels applies I believe.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[MikeBabcock]

As funny as it seems initially, its possible. Microsoft could finally decide to compete by making a small, efficient and fast dedicated browser that doesn't try to double-up as the system's shell interface.

I doubt it though.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[GargamelSpaceman]

It's just that when you don't really know what you are building, building generally useful things at least lets you make some progress. Whatever the goal, you'll have something useful in your pocket when it's clear what it is you were trying to make.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

you realize we can run x86 apps in a browser now right? we could easily have a davlik virtual machine running anything from the android market. microsoft office now runs in the browser. your myopic understanding of a browser, and use of the phrase "short sighted laziness", wins the ironic-post-of-the-week award.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[MikeBabcock]

I've read it ten times now and what you said does not appear to be a reply to what I said.

Feel free to elaborate, because I both agree with you and have no idea what it has to do with my comment.

Re:Because its a stupid idea

[GargamelSpaceman]

I thought I detected sarcasm in the 'I wonder who's next?' comment. That was the only one I was replying to, not your topmost comment.

WEBIAN!

[ylt]

Isn't webian going in that direction?

Because it's dumb

[metrix007]

Mozilla make a browser, that runs on an OS. Why would they want to start making the OS as well?

Re:Because it's dumb

[hedwards]

I was curious about that as well. Beyond the superficial both are created by programmers angle, I'm not sure what the two have in common that would lend itself well to people going from OS design to browser design or vice versa.

Seems a bit like going to the people at Oster and asking them to make the power grid, because they do so damned well with kitchen appliances.

Because they remember what happened to Netscape

[Insanity Defense]

Because they remember what happened to Netscape. They probably also assume that Microsoft HTML 5 will be incompatible with real HTML 5 or that this is just about as likely to see release on time as WinFS.

They have

[Anonymous Coward]

but they didn't follow through. Mozilla's idea of replacing the OS was the same as everybody else's: Create a portable runtime for apps on top of an OS, because writing an actual OS is hard. Mozilla calls their runtime Prism, Adobe calls theirs Air, and so on.

here it is:

[mugurel]

http://webian.org/ at least, they're moving towards it.

The whole point of Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

Was to be a standalone browser, unlike the then-flaghip Mozilla browser/email client/news reader/etc.

People liked it better that way, so it became the flagship product.

They dont need to. There is one.

[unity100]

Its called linux. all firefox needs, is to bundle an acceptable linux kernel together with an installer and firefox.

Re:They dont need to. There is one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and, hopefully, they don't misplace, commas in their, sourcecode. /shatner

Why?

[DogDude]

Why? Because they haven't gotten Firefox working all that well yet. They're 10 years behind on some bugs. Hopefully somebody organizing realizes that they need to try to do one thing well, at least first, before trying to do a bunch of other stuff half-assed.

Re:Why?

[dakameleon]

Name one other open-source browser developed by an open community process not funded by a corporation that doesn't have some sort of lag on fixing some bugs.

I'm not a FOSS evangelist, but for the resources they have it's not out of the bounds of expectations in my book.

Re:Why?

[DarwinSurvivor]

Mozilla IS funded. You should see how much money they get from Google alone!

Re:Why?

[dakameleon]

... versus the funding behind Safari, Chrome and IE?

Re:Why?

[DarwinSurvivor]

I never said the others weren't, I was just pointing out that your "not funded by a corporation" statement was false.

Firefox OS is right here

[Anonymous Coward]

http://webian.org/shell/

Why stop there?

[NoKaOi]

I mean, Firefox isn't an OS, so if they're gonna do something completely different, why stop there? How about a Firefox branded computer running on a Firefox CPU? Of course, that has to be powered by electricity, so how about Firefox electrical generators running on Firefox coal or Firefox oil?

Re:Why stop there?

[John Sokol]

Sounds more like Google's plan,

Re:Why stop there?

[dzfoo]

Or Firefox burritos. How about Firefox waffle irons and dishwasher liquid?

        -dZ.

Hello from 2007

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break, THIS is the first Google result for "Mozilla Desktop Environment".

Grace Concept?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is a "grace concept"? Did you mean "graceful"? "grave"? "great"?

What's graceful about force-fullscreening a web browser to display a bunch of pastel-colored rectangles instead of a windowing system?

Re:Grace Concept?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was confused by this.

Why doesn't /. offer to help non-native English speakers with their posts? If I made an error in something I wrote in French for publication, I'd appreciate help in correcting it lest I look more clueless than I am.

Re:Grace Concept?

[Kalriath]

Because even native English speakers are confused by statements like that. The editors here suck.

Linux with Firefox Kiosk

[PineHall]

Does a Linux kiosk OS count? How about Webconverger? It is a Debian derivative kiosk that uses Firefox.

They're a...

[mr_lizard13]

One trick pony.

Granted, they do that trick very well, but they lack the resource to manage much more.

Re:They're a...

[Nerdfest]

Thunderbird is a decent mail client, or at least better than most of the alternatives.

Re:They're a...

[kbrosnan]

One trick pony that produces code that other applications use as a foundation. NSS, Spidermonkey, XULrunner, NSPR, Bugzilla...

Funds open source groups developing code for accessibility, teaching web standards, creating open standards...

Re:They're a...

[hedwards]

The term is "mission creep" and it's a bad thing. I see no logical reason why Firefox would need its own OS when it presently runs on more than just one OS. And for that matter more than one free OS.

Re:They're a...

[mr_lizard13]

Oh sure, I'm not dissing Mozilla. IMHO the reason Firefox rocks bells is because they focus almost all their efforts on it, and little else.

They have other products, yes. None of them as wildly successful as Firefox (not that that makes them bad products) but they don't have massive teams working on the other stuff.

Sigh...

[Haedrian]

Just install a very lightweight linux distro. Install firefox on it. Set it to full screen mode.

Done. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Re:Sigh...

[dakameleon]

Sshhhh.... reinventing the wheel is what we in IT get paid for, half the time!

Re:Sigh...

[Anonymous Coward]

And slashdot for the other half.

Amen.

Re:Sigh...

[H0p313ss]

Sshhhh.... reinventing the wheel is what we in IT get paid for, half the time!

Half?

Re:Sigh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just install a very lightweight linux distro. Install firefox on it. Set it to full screen mode.

Done. No need to reinvent the wheel.

Oh, is that all a user has to do? Have you ever met normal users?

Here is a video of random people in NYC, trying and failing to answer the question "What is a browser":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ

You want these people to call you when they try and install Linux? You must not value your time at all.

Re:Sigh...

[dudpixel]

Sshhhh.... reinventing the wheel is what we in IT get paid for, half the time!

Half?

yes. We actually re-invent the wheel 100% of the time, but we only get paid for half.

Re:Sigh...

[serviscope_minor]

That's because most wheels in IT have spinners, blue neons, knobbly tires on one half with slicks on the other half, but nobody has realised that they ought to cut the corners off since square wheels don't work very well.

Re:Sigh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sshhhh.... reinventing the wheel is what we in IT get paid for, half the time!

And the other half of the time is spent fixing the problems caused by the new wheel (with a newer wheel)....

IceWeasel OS or Seamonkey OS

[Anonymous Coward]

both sound better..

I'm waiting for Spaceballs OS.

Re:IceWeasel OS or Seamonkey OS

[Trilkin]

...which will just go from suck to blow...

Re:IceWeasel OS or Seamonkey OS

[user32.ExitWindowsEx]

And the only possible password will be 12345

I think they mean "library", not "OS"

[h00manist]

Why can't HTML app development be a standard library, compatible with all OS's? Well it can - the trouble comes in making the standard be compatible wth the implementations. Making it no longer a standard, and no longer able to run many apps. There's lots of libraries in that situation. Anything that became standardized across platforms would work.

Re:I think they mean "library", not "OS"

[Drinking Bleach]

WebKit seems to be becoming that rather quickly. Chromium/Chrome seems to be the only except that refuses to use a system-wide libwebkit and instead uses its own.

Re:I think they mean "library", not "OS"

[jimshatt]

XulRunner has been trying to be where WebKit is now for ages. I think they just gave up. Not that there was anything wrong with the XUL/Gecko platform per se, but people just couldn't be bothered. Maybe with windows 8, there is room for some competition again and we'll see similar HTML app platforms for webkit and xulrunner (possibly for other OS'es as well). But I doubt it.

On a different note. I really don't get all the Mozilla / Firefox bashing lately. Sure, they aren't doing every little thing the way I would like, but then, I'm not Mozilla, nor could I do better. And all the other choices are crap as well: I don't trust IE, I like Chrome / Chromium but I'm not sure the licensing is okay *and* I don't trust Google either. Opera might be an option.
I do think it's all about being the underdog or not. Since Firefox has gained momentum and has become mainstream, the Slashdot crowd is quite suddenly 'against'. Same with Linux in the form of Ubuntu. But it's okay. I understand.

Well if they want to then talk to me first.

[John Sokol]

I am working on building out the Amorphous OS, (you can Google it) Firefox or something like it would be a big part of it's functionality.

>The 'browser as an OS' concept is still stupid.
Yes, we already have browsers,

A Cloud based OS and blurring the lines between OS executable binaries and HTML though isn't a stupid idea.

I've already given a talk at BAFUG, and am preparing presentations and design docs for each subsystem.

Restrictions on third-party executables

[tepples]

Does HTML need the features necessary to write generic applications? Certainly not.

The HTML platform does include one killer feature: the JavaScript sandbox partly circumvents restrictions on third-party executables imposed by a device manufacturer or by the administrator of a computer that other people use. For example, Slashdot recently ran an article about a form of "3DS homebrew" consisting of JavaScript applications run in the Nintendo 3DS handheld video game system's NetFront web browser, which acts as an end-run around Nintendo's long-standing policy against software development in a home environment.

Overheard somewhere

[zooblethorpe]

Why? Because they haven't gotten Firefox working all that well yet. They're 10 years behind on some bugs. Hopefully somebody organizing realizes that they need to try to do one thing well, at least first, before trying to do a bunch of other stuff half-assed.

Can't remember where I ran across this, but it suits:

Always remember, intentions aside, two half-asseds make an ass-whole.

Cheers,

Netscape had this plan at the beginning

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is what XUL was all about. It just never caught on. No one build apps using XUL.

Re:Netscape had this plan at the beginning

[John Sokol]

mod parent up please.

Re:Netscape had this plan at the beginning

[SanityInAnarchy]

Not enough people, anyway, for it to be really successful. I think part of the problem is that it took them ages to actually create a separate "XULrunner" package, so that you could install XUL once and then install Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Songbird, etc. When it was just the Mozilla Suite (Seamonkey, now), it might have made sense to bundle XUL with that, but if I ship a XUL app, it shouldn't be tied to Firefox itself.

But people did write apps using XUL -- Songbird wasn't even affiliated with Mozilla, if I recall. And people wrote tons of Firefox extensions that are almost standalone apps in their own right -- Zotero, for instance. (I think Zotero would make more sense as a standalone XUL app and a "send to Zotero" Firefox extension, but whatever.)

There's another reason XUL never caught on, though: It seemed pointlessly different than HTML. That is, they created their own separate markup language, rather than extend HTML. At the same time, you couldn't really write websites in XUL -- if I recall, it would at least ask for some sort of permissions -- that, and it wouldn't run on any other browser. So, despite the fact that so much of the Firefox UI (or, I'd guess, most of Firefox that isn't Gecko) is written in XML+JavaScript, it was still very different than the Web itself.

Compare this to their new invention, Jetpack, which is really taking the main idea behind the Chrome extension API and applying it to Firefox -- Chrome extensions almost entirely use HTML+JavaScript. They add some custom JavaScript APIs, but other than that, if there's a way to do what you want to do in HTML+JavaScript, they won't duplicate it for Chrome -- for example, if you absolutely need to run native code with full OS access, you use NPAPI and write a plugin, and restrict it to your extension.

I think this might be why HTML5 is taking off as an actual generic application platform -- people need web apps anyway, so it's already a cool idea to take your web app offline and integrate it into the desktop. Or, if you're writing a new app, you already have a bunch of web developers that you needed for your web app, so you don't need to hire or train experts in Win32 or .NET -- you just write another web app.

My poor hardware budget...

[shish]

why Mozilla hasn't considered a Firefox OS?

I heard you like buying paying for terabytes of RAM, so I stuck a firefox in your firefox so you can bloat while you bloat...

The way forward.

[mark_elf]

Great idea. Then they can make an OS web app that runs on the browser, basically a windows add-on for firefox. That way you can upload your OS in the cloud and just stream it over 3G to all your devices whenever you need it. A side benefit would be that Microsoft would finally get paid for all the pirated software people have stolen from them over the years.

Firefox isn't an OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Firefox isn't an OS? Then what the he'll have I been dual-booting with all these years?!

No, seriously, Firefox takes up so much memory that to do things like stream movies, I have to make sure I have no other apps running. Part of that is Flash's fault, sure, but still, when the system goes for 0M free to 1.25 GB free just by closing Firefox, there's an issue somewhere.

Also, isn't XULRunner essentially a "Firefox OS"? Or could be used as one?

They don't want to?

[tverbeek]

Because then they'd have to deal with all the hardware support and driver incompatibility bullshit that Microsoft and Apple and the Linux crew have to deal with. Not everybody wants to code at the metal level.

I have a brilliant idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

What if we just simply write html5 compliant web apps, so they run everywhere regardless operating systems or browsers????

Re:I have a brilliant idea!

[DarwinSurvivor]

Because you have 2 options:
A) Perform the majority of the processing on a server in another language. This causes lock-in, prevents "off-line" use and requires access to external hardware.
B) Perform ALL the processing in the browser. This is SLOW compared to native apps and seriously limits hardware access. Ever tried to use a scanner in html5?

Huh ?

[Anonymous Coward]

".. then suddenly every piece of software works across every piece of hardware .."

LOL

Dream on ..

I thought this is Slashdot, not Financial Times or some other bozo site.

I just want a browser

[Windwraith]

Am I the only one who just wants a browser?
Sure, I like stuff like javascript games (I am a game dev so the topic inherently catches my attention) and some webapps, but I am certainly not willing to give my browser that much importance.
For me the centerpiece of the OS is the file manager and the tools to do my tasks. I don't want to have to depend on just a browser or webapps that don't have local code to run from your physical computer. We know the cloud is not 100% reliable (sure, it's not 100% unreliable either, but until there's no choice but to use it, I want to use that choice).

Re:I just want a browser

[woolpert]

For me the centerpiece of the OS is the file manager and the tools to do my tasks

This is an argument against the browser as OS and gets +4 insightful? The mind boggles.

1 - File manager as centerpiece of OS:
A - A file manager is an app (of my choosing) which runs on top of my OS.
B - As we have already seen browser (IE / Konqueror) is hard to distinguish from a file manager (Explorer / Konqueror) and so if we accept your argument that the file manager is the centerpiece of an OS there is evidence aplenty that a browser is said centerpiece.

2 - "The tools to do my tasks" as co-centerpiece of an OS.
If ever there was a classic definition of "applications" it was "the tools to do my tasks". The OS is the tool to do the application's tasks. If we're going to zoom out and take such a broad view of what an OS is (it sounds to me like you're describing a desktop environment ) how are current browsers not inches away from that already?

We know the cloud is not 100% reliable

Where in the concept of "browser as OS" is "no off-line content" made explicit?

Re:I just want a browser

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who just wants a browser?

No. However, you might be different from some other users.

(I am a game dev so the topic inherently catches my attention)

You develop games, and you think you are anything like a normal user? Most users don't really understand the concept of files. You can program. Systems exist to meet your needs. The systems under discussion are for people who put ease-of-use above control. Not what you want? Don't use it, and stop acting shockled that others are not exactly like you.

Re:I just want a browser

[gl4ss]

he read it on a magazine. but I'll tell you where's the firefox os, it's installing debian and then only choosing to install minimum x and firefox... you can browse around the filesystem with it, yes, launch local js webpages, yes. but nobody cares to do it. those who are pushing for going all html/js in apps are people who's job is to be a web tech evangelist to secure funding for their departments.

Re:I just want a browser

[ignavus]

For me the centerpiece of the OS is the file manager and the tools to do my tasks. I don't want to have to depend on just a browser or webapps that don't have local code to run from your physical computer. We know the cloud is not 100% reliable (sure, it's not 100% unreliable either, but until there's no choice but to use it, I want to use that choice).

For me, latency is one of the many issues. Haven't you ever had your Internet connection crawling at a snail's pace because of congestion?

Who wants their app data stored on such an iffy environment? Maybe higher bandwidth would help, but I am about 5 kilometres from the nearest phone exchange and I only get about 400 KB/second max - often less (like when a family member is watching YouTube).

And then there is this thing called the Pacific Ocean, which many of my packets have to cross...

Give me local storage.

Re:I just want a browser

[Anonymous Coward]

Where in the concept of "browser as OS" is "no off-line content" made explicit?

The part where the browser as OS would need to deal with the various physical devices attached to your local computer, as tverbeek said further above: "Because then they'd have to deal with all the hardware support and driver incompatibility bullshit that Microsoft and Apple and the Linux crew have to deal with. Not everybody wants to code at the metal level."

Gnome 3 already relies on Mozilla libraries

[Anonymous Coward]

Gnome Shell already relies upon Mozilla JavaScript libraries via the gjs bindings. Combine that with CSS-like GTK+ themes and you've already got the better half of a "web desktop".

Re:Gnome 3 already relies on Mozilla libraries

[Anonymous Coward]

one more reason to stay away from it.. what a bloated mess.

Why!?

[MrEricSir]

And you couldn't do the exact same thing with native code because...?

HTML? Really?

[thisnamestoolong]

MS is really talking about using HTML as the best way to port code between the different versions of Windows 8? That is at least 4 different kinds of fail.

Re:HTML? Really?

[Mia'cova]

No... they're saying "hey all you web developers out there, you can make apps for us now too without having to learn anything new! Now whip together your facebook/amazon/ebay website app ports in 1/10th the time it takes you to do so on iphone/ipad!"

Re:HTML? Really?

[shutdown -p now]

The official demos so far have focused on HTML5/JS as a development platform for Windows 8. Nothing has been said about it being "the best way to port code between different versions of Windows". For that matter, nothing has been said about the need to port code at all.

Until September, anyone who tells you that they know anything other than what's said in that video (like this Slashdot story) is presenting his guesswork as facts.

The browser is not the OS...

[Nethemas the Great]

It is a GUI framework that sits on top of application frameworks, that sits on top of device abstraction layers, that sits on top of the kernel... Just because you stop wrapping the GUI being presented by the browser with it's own GUI doesn't mean that the browser is suddenly the OS. Just because all you as*hats see is a GUI doesn't mean you're 99% of the way to having an operating system once you've cobbled one together. You HTML5/Javascript people are creating a mess just as bad as what the IT marketing departments did the with stupid "Cloud." (TM)

They already are; Slashdot reported on it...

[Mekabyte]

just two weeks ago. Webian Shell on top of Linux sounds a lot like Chrome OS to me...

Have you used firefox recently it's all ready a OS

[vosester]

That's why its fucked in my eyes.
Mozilla or extension developers have strayed to far for the main concept of small tool that help to full blown lunacy.
The other day I came across fireSSH that's right a an SSH client inside a browser!
As a network security guy I felt like going to a field where there is no technology or civilization for hundreds of miles, taking a deep breath and scream every obscenity under the sun. There is just no hope for some people.

Why bother?

[Targon]

The big issue when it comes to OS design is the API, and if it can possibly be an improvement over what is currently out there. Think about it, it's all about making an API for programmers to code for that will be better in some way, shape, or form compared to what else is out there. For phones, you see Android, WebOS, iOS, and the list goes on. Some use Linux under the API, so what API would be better? How many attempts will there be to slap a new API on top of Linux, call it a new OS, and then watch as no one bothers to code for it?

Mozilla doesn't need to make a new OS with what is already out there. Then again, we don't need other operating systems that are based on web technologies, since by nature, the majority of the API code is the source of whatever limitations there will be. A better OS would be something that is designed to be VERY VERY low profile with very little overhead, and then make sure the design always stays lean and mean. If something is going to be optional, then make sure the OS does not get weighed down by forcing that item to be active. Now, most people don't think about it, but Linux is really a kernel with the GNU setup on top of it to provide those basic OS features. Now, take a Linux kernel, and replace the GNU stuff with something that is GUI based and REALLY REALLY tight, without the bloat that comes from standardized libraries that have 20 functions that do the same thing. Re-invent the wheel with all the modern stuff put in there, but without all the bloat and legacy stuff that comes from needing to make things compatible. New OS means you need new code anyway, so why not start off REALLY clean?

And that is why Mozilla won't do it, because the amount of effort needed to make a really NEW OS that does away with all that legacy garbage that slows everything down is very high.

What is more reliable, safe, fast, ubiquitous,.. ?

[obarthelemy]

your PC in c++ ? your PC in javascript ? your connexion to the interwebs ? the cloud's servers ?

You've got your answer !

Mozilla is libre OSS

[fermion]

IMHO, Mozilla was created to leverage the assets of Netscape to prevent a world in which proprietary MS protocals controlled the web. There was no business model in which Mozilla had to be the market share leader. There was no need to play games in which users had to be lured to give up personal data. A cross platform browser allowed users freedom to choose a machine that suited them and then run an appropriate Mozilla variant. I myself use Camino.

MS needs a browser based OS to maintain market share in the world of sub-$500 internet devices. We have seen these fail, and everyone is saying lack of mobile broadband is going to kill them, but these are going to be targeted at home user with WiFi that want inexpensive machines that can move around the house. The benefit is going to be reliability, and MS want to take users away from Apple in this lucrative market and return them to MS.

Likewise Google has to have a mobile OS to continue to collect information. The mobile OS is prefect for Google because everything a user does is recorded, track, mined, and sold. Google already has significant market share, so, as we see, the internet devices are being sold at a healthy profit, and the benefit to the user are free applications after the fact. This gives MS hope as it can often intimidate manufacturers to sell at a less healthy profit in return for marketing support that will create the volume that MS wants.

So we have one company that wants a WebOS to keep it office franchise alive, another that wants to keep the advertising money flowing. Where would mozzila be? They have no market share concerns, they have no free apps, and there is no open hardware platform for a table or internet computer. So one can buy an expensive laptop, pay the internet tax, and then install this great Mozilla OS. We have seen how well this works for Linux. Or one can buy the allegedly open Android or Chrome tablet and install Mozilla. What is the point? Chrome is not a bad OS.

As we have seen on the iPhone, software developers don't want to develop for the web browser. They want native Apps. The machine needs to do both, unless one is in the business of locking in users like MS or Google.

Re:Mozilla is libre OSS

[yarnosh]

MS needs a browser based OS to maintain market share in the world of sub-$500 internet devices.

That makes no sense at all. Microsoft needs to continue lock people into things like .NET to maintain market share. If everything goes browser based, there's no reason for anyone to pay for Windows... even a WebOS version. The only way it would work is if they make their "web apps" incompatible with other browser. But then, what's the point? You might as well just invent a better technology besides HTTP/HTML that will give you good thin client functinality without all the drawbacks of the browser.

Likewise Google has to have a mobile OS to continue to collect information.

This much is true.

Chrome is not a bad OS.

It isn't really "good" either.

"The Browser Is the OS"

[HTH NE1]

Because they invented the concept and had already rejected it?

silly assumptions.

[asa]

"which raises the question that why Mozilla hasn't considered a Firefox OS?"

Mozilla has considered a Firefox OS and decided against it.

Re:silly assumptions.

[SmilingBoy]

Mod up parent who I believe is the product manager of Firefox.

Aside from it being stupid...

[greymond]

Using Google Chrome as an example, the Chromebooks serve a small niche of users who only do specific tasks. Real OS's like OS X, Windows and Linux provide the ability of satisfying all user types to do any task.

Besides, explain to me how a Firefoxbook/pad would be able to compete with a Chromebook when it'd take several hours to boot after grandma accidentally let FF install 100 different useless add-ons.

Re:Aside from it being stupid...

[DarwinSurvivor]

You've obviously never had to boot a windows computer with 5 anti-viruses, an updater for EVERY camera/printer/webcam/mp3player/flashlight the owner has ever connected, 2 connection managers from their ISP, 4 "buddies" offering to help you write a letter, a waterfall screensaver (with christmas theme) and my personal favorite: SMILEY apps all running when the user boots up. Oh yeah, don't forget that they decided to dump the photos from the last 8 years worth of vacations onto the desktop. I *still* don't understand why that slows down login...

Long story short, it doesn't matter WHAT platform they use, people will figure out how to cripple it.

huh?

[Charliemopps]

Can someone summarize this article for me? I can't open the link because firefox has been constantly locking up on me since the last release.

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd love to help figure out what's going on. Please file a bug. http://bugzilla.mozilla.org

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check to see if your Company name is available http://bit.ly/m2IHF4

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of trying a different browser, you want someone to take 15 minutes of their own time to make a summary for you?

Re:huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blabla. Bla.

Scope Creep!

[trghpy]

The Firefox project is to make a good web browser and not get side tracked.

You want a firefox OS? Install Linux Bios with firefox and log into an EyeOS server. Done.

The fact that Google couldn't think of a name to differentiate Chrome OS disappoints me.

Chromium

[defaria]

That's what Chromium is for!

Firefox OS?

[sudonim2]

"Why Mozilla hasn't considered a Firefox OS?" They did. It's called "Google Chrome". Seriously, Google hired large numbers of people from Mozilla a few years back. They still work with Mozilla while simultaneously working for Google. Chrome is built on a base of Firefox. Chrome OS is the Chrome browser layered over a custom build of Linux. It's this reality that Microsoft is moving against with this development. Microsoft is playing catch-up, not leading the way.

Re:What is more reliable, safe, fast, ubiquitous,.

[phreakazoas]

Well, to be fair the actual core functionality, including the browser would be still written in whatever c variant the various parts are written in. Really linux + window manager + desktop setup they choose + the browser. The name is really a misnomer; it is really more of an OS with stripped-down functionality with chrome being the centre with web apps on top. Your point about native code is true though; no matter how hard you try, writing photoshop in javascript just isn't feasible, or any app with advanced functionality. I'm not saying this not knowing Javascript and HTML, but I'm saying this knowing its speed(I've had to do work speeding up portions of code for optimization, writing web apps, etc for years) and your comparing centiseconds to nanoseconds. Also HTML is a layout manager that seems to lack a lot of the things common to desktop applications, which has lead to hacks around it, but they aren't pretty. I haven't checked out HTML 5 yet, as it doesn't work on everything yet. Plus HTML and CSS in particular are really a mess when you get to cross-platform issues. It would be a big step backwards.

What's the difference?

[yarnosh]

What would a "Firefox OS" do that running FIrefox fullscreen won't? If you want to make your web browser your only application, DON'T RUN ANY OTHER PROGRAMS. Jesus Christ people, there's nothing innovative or novel about a system that will only run a web browser. It is a crippled system and a stupid idea.

Re:What's the difference?

[localman]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't understand why people are hyped up about stuff like this.

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments and data-mining corporations are pushing it for obvious reasons. They don't want you running native applications, because they can't profit/gain leverage from them.

Re:What's the difference?

[yarnosh]

Governments and data-mining corporations are pushing it for obvious reasons.

Far from obvious. What does the government care what OS or apps you run?

Re:What's the difference?

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments can gain even more insight into the private lives of citizens. Web applications responsible for aiding in the imprisonment of many people have included webmail, blogs and social networks. Consider the additional leverage from being able to peep on EVERY click you make and letter you type.

Proof that a browser based OS already exists

[Zeroedout]

*This* is a real browser based OS: http://michaelv.org/

Authoritative answer

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it's a stupid idea.
Next question.

t why Mozilla hasn't considered a Firefox OS?"

[mike.mondy]

Why not combine the browser and the OS? Because people who do programming have been refining a model of how things should be done since the 60s that says the opposite. Call it "levels of abstraction", "modular programming", "interface driven", "black box programming", "information hiding", "object oriented", etc etc. They all call out for not jumbling everything together -- that's "spaghetti logic".

Java?

[Loosifur]

I remember back in the day, when I actually wanted to major in CS, Java came out. Yes, that long ago. And the big thing about Java was that you would be able to write code that was platform-independent, and just rely on a Java interpreter that would be released on any necessary platforms. Which is why everything is written in Java now...

I'm just saying, using a browser as a conveyance for some sort of universal HTML-based software market just seems like a new version of an old idea that didn't pan out in the first place.

Also, not to nitpick (well, yes to nitpick), but I think that part that says "suddenly every piece of software works..." needs a bit of filling out. Especially at the "suddenly" part.

Also also, Mozilla would be better off not trying to be the Gobot to Google's Transformer, if you see what I mean. That niche is already being filled by Google. Mozilla should focus on making a niche for Firefox, not making it an also-ran to Chrome OS. Full disclosure, I'm not a fan of Firefox since Chrome came out, and since I put Opera on my Droid. But, there must be some area where Firefox excels, because it has a solid base of users. They should exploit and enhance that area.

Re:Java?

[SanityInAnarchy]

And the big thing about Java was that you would be able to write code that was platform-independent, and just rely on a Java interpreter that would be released on any necessary platforms. Which is why everything is written in Java now...

I don't think that's the biggest reason. I think the biggest reason is that it was reasonably similar to other 800-lb gorillas, like C++, but included things like garbage collection.

I'm just saying, using a browser as a conveyance for some sort of universal HTML-based software market just seems like a new version of an old idea that didn't pan out in the first place.

Maybe so, but here are some things that help:

First, there are multiple implementations with significant marketshare. If your app didn't run on things like kaffe or gcj, no big loss -- if one of Oracle's flagship JDeveloper-based frameworks doesn't work on OpenJDK today, they don't care -- hell, one of the bigger reasons Java failed is Microsoft delivered a broken JVM, and if you only care about supporting Windows, you code to Microsoft's broken JVM and you don't need to run anywhere else. Even ignoring that, I've taken recent code written for Java6 and had it fail to run on Linux because the code was littered with hardcoded backslashes, and had never had to run on an OS which used a different path separator. But if you want your HTML to work, you need to at least support the latest Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and maybe IE and Opera.

If you've done that, there's a good chance you've coded more or less to the standards, with a minimum of per-browser hacks, because to do otherwise would be insane -- which means there's a good chance that if I'm using a browser you didn't test, but my browser implements the specs reasonably, your code probably works. If Java developers had been forced to test their code on Windows, Linux, and OS X, there's a good chance it wouldn't break on, say, Solaris -- in the example above, they'd at least be forced to hardcode a forward slash instead (which works on all of the above platforms) or use the system path separator.

Second, because of this actual competition, all browsers, proprietary or not, aren't just competing to add crazy new non-standard features, they're also competing to implement the standard the best. The ACID tests helped a lot here -- no one (not even Microsoft, anymore) wants to be known as the browser that universally scores dead last here, and is therefore causing developers the most headaches when porting their code. By contrast, the only reason Java can maintain anything approaching a standard is because there is exactly one implementation, which is also a terrible thing for an open standard. Look how much uncertainty there was when Oracle started suing people (like Google) over making something similar to Java, but not quite. If Java was more like HTML, then Dalvik would've been pressured to become more and more standard, and where it got the standard and OpenJDK didn't, OpenJDK would be fixed -- but instead, Oracle sued.

Third, there's the part where you don't need to install anything. Everyone already has a browser, and most people have a fairly decent browser, other than, maybe, office drones stuck with IE6 -- but then, they'd also be stuck without Java or with the wrong version of Java.

Fourth, people already have to target the Web anyway. It's no longer acceptable to force people to load a Java applet, and even Flash is getting unfashionable. You need a Web presence, at the very least, and the more stuff that works from the Web, the better off you are -- after all, if you're forcing people to download something, and your competitors "just work", you lose. And once you've got something on the Web anyway, especially if it's something at all interactive, the transition to using it as an application platform isn't that big.

It also helps that JavaScript doesn't suck nearly as much as Java, as a language.

But whatever the reason, it also looks like this s

Re:Java?

[TeknoHog]

Also, not to nitpick (well, yes to nitpick), but I think that part that says "suddenly every piece of software works..." needs a bit of filling out. Especially at the "suddenly" part.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/nov/15/neilmcintosh

Re:Java?

[cardpuncher]

And I remember, back in the day, when "High Level Languages" were the new panacea that would ensure you were no longer tied to a single computer vendor. Yes, that long ago.

Plus ca change...

Re:Java?

[Anonymous Coward]

. But, there must be some area where Firefox excels

Extensions. And Sync. Chrome is faster to launch and very fast to render, but not as fast as my already-open Firefox with AdBlock, Ghostery, YesScript and some pipelining tweaks. A Firefox which has all my history automatically synced in the Awesome Bar (which really is awesome) across my laptop, desktop, work PC and Droid. A Firefox where any time I see an interesting feature or a bug, I flip open my Web Developer toolbar and check it out.

Yes I know Chrome and Opera have some of this but no-one has the choice and variety of Firefox. Plus I respect it's commitment to openness. Opera have always seemed like good netizens but I don't trust Chrome.

Re:Java?

[megla]

I have to agree with the parent, this just seems like the initial Java hype all over again. Not to say that Java is a bad concept, but it simply hasn't achieved what some of its early proponents thought it would.

In terms of the article itself, the author has clearly got caught up in the hype and forgotten that:
a) Microsoft's core market is the business market, not the consumer market.
b) Even if they would go for it, big software houses would be very uncomfortable writing applications which anyone could view the source code of and rip off.

I mean, try telling enormous ERP vendors like SAP or Sage that they need to rewrite their software in HTML5 + JS. Yeah, sure, they'll get right on that. Companies have huge investments in traditional applications (as opposed to 'apps') and that's not going to change anytime soon considering most of the big players still consider .NET to be new and fancy, especially not when it threatens their IP. Not to mention that the article completely neglects to think about the Windows Server product line - do they seriously expect people to be writing server-side applications in this way?

My prediction is that we'll see a few HTML5 weather widgets to go on the tiles interface and that everything else will continue down the .NET line. Maybe by the time Windows 8 see widespread business adoption sometime around 2020 then there'll be a couple of HTML5 intranet widgets and company stock tickers too, but the idea of all software going this route anytime soon is pure fantasy.

Re:Java?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember back in the day when everybody thought that Motif was going to set the standards for GUIs, and then it was OSF/1, or was it POSIX? Then middleware was going to make your code portable, then Java, then Javascript.... and I probably missed the first few iterations of "this technology XYZ is neat... let's set a standard and everybody can just code once." I bet if you look far back enough you can find some attempt to make JCL or OS/360 a global standard across all manufacturers.

Re:Java?

[Chelloveck]

I remember back in the day, when I actually wanted to major in CS, Java came out. Yes, that long ago. And the big thing about Java was that you would be able to write code that was platform-independent, and just rely on a Java interpreter that would be released on any necessary platforms. Which is why everything is written in Java now...

Java? N00b. Back in my day, the big thing was the UCSD p-System. With p-System you would be able to write code that was platform-independent, and just rely on a p-Code interpreter that would be released on any necessary platforms. Which is why everything is written in p-Code now...

With every generation of programmer comes the dream that hey, wouldn't it be great if you could write programs once and run them everywhere? And sure, it would be great. So systems get built and subsequently abandoned as the devilish details stack up. In my day it was p-System. In yours it was Java. Today it's HTML5. Just sit back, sip your favorite summertime beverage, and quietly watch as the lessons are learned all over again. Then you can take my place cynically welcoming in the next generation of the disillusioned. Just try not to say "I told you so" too loudly. They hate that.

Seriously, someday it'll happen. Someday there will be enough spare memory and cycles that no one will care about the overhead of the universal virtual machine. But it's not going to happen this time around.

Re:Java?

[Anonymous Coward]

[...] Also, not to nitpick (well, yes to nitpick), but I think that part that says "suddenly every piece of software works..." needs a bit of filling out. Especially at the "suddenly" part.

And the "every" part, and the "works" part.

Firefox OS conversion in 2 seconds.

[w0mprat]

Just click the maximize button! It's another pointless illusion such as the appification of everything. Google chrome web store "apps" are are just a links to a web page. Lets hope this doesn't happen to Firefox too.

Re:Firefox OS conversion in 2 seconds.

[Rizimar]

The maximize button? You're still running Firefox OS v1? Hit the F11 key for a free upgrade to v2, which takes up even more screen space

Firefox should work on Firefox-OS

[Anonymous Coward]

Browsers evolve fast, and they continue to evolve. Browsers replacing operating systems is like, people using vi/emacs to do other tasks like sending emails, etc.

gnome 3

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were working on gnome I would have suggested this with gnome 3.
Everything is an svg image therefore there is no limit to what your app can look like. The problems this proposes is security a single css file could steal a password quite easily (which textbox are you typing in? what is listening to the keypress event). However these problems will help to harden up html, so I see it as a win-win.

It is a shame that the implementation is coming from microsoft. It's an idea that should be explored however not by these folks html5 svg is made to be lean, not a bloated mess. 5 open source guys could do this better an army of microsoft robots.

make it stop please

[luther349]

why does everyone think coud os is gonna take over desktop computing, i for one dont trust google with all my data or anyone for that matter. does cloud have its place of course but will it ever take over computing i dont think so. and i assume the guys and mozlla have the same mindset. its like gnome and ubuntu thinking we have to use 3d on are desktops even thow it offer no real usefullness other then killing your gpu. its not good to have the gpu always running in 3d.

A2:

[electrosoccertux]

Because I don't want an OS that only uses one of my CPU cores!!!!

Not quite.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Most are, but they can also get to the Chrome extension API, I think. That, and it means Google can sell them the way they can sell other "apps", which means that whether it's "just a website" or not, I can actually sell it to you as if it was a thing.

Re:Have you used firefox recently it's all ready a

[koreaman]

Why is using Firefox (really XUL/Gecko) as an application development platform for creating an SSH client any less secure than using any other combination of libraries and UI frameworks for doing so?

Whats an HTML5 app?

[Anonymous Coward]

Daddy, whats an HTML5 app? Is there some way to get markup to execute procedurally? Dad? Dad?

Re:Whats an HTML5 app?

[sourcerror]

" Is there some way to get markup to execute procedurally?"
Yes, see XSLT.
But of course didn't mean that, they meant that the apps are actually in Javascript, but Javscript pretty heavliy relies on DOM, which is what is new in HTML5.

Bleed the Line between Web and Desk Apps HAVE BOTH

[Anonymous Coward]

I want webapps that show as their own windowless (and therefore entirely visually and organizationally customizable) desktop objects. Webapps should bleed seamlessly onto the desktop.

That's what I want. Automatically, dynamically updated apps that autosave what you're doing locally (so there no privacy concerns and you never lose anything).

There should be an icon in the task bar for Mozilla Web Desk. A themed, icon-filled menu box appears on the windows desktop with a + icon. Click the plus icon, a box asks you for the webapps URL, and the app is loaded and run.

Why can't we have both sorts of apps be equal on our desktop? They both have their positives and negatives. I know it would be cool to have a GMail web client that actually looked like a desktop app but was html and I wouldn't need it if I wasn't connected to the web anyway.

Not Gentoo

[Anonymous Coward]

Not Gentoo, Ubuntu

Re:Have you used firefox recently it's all ready a

[vosester]

Separation of code, If Firefox is compromised, So is SSH and all of you keys. The more stuff you run in Firefox the juicer the attack vector.

Wow, what a fluff piece

[SmallFurryCreature]

So basically MS coders have now finally made it possible to create a single piece of software and have it run on ANY computer? As long as it runs the Windows... Windows 8? WOW! Amazing! This tech will SET the WORLD alight and give me apps that look and function exactly the same on my 3 screen desktop as on my phone...

Why is there no Firefox OS? Actually, there are LOTS of apps that use the Mozilla code base to create apps that run on ANY OS the browser runs on. Take firebug. Runs on Linux, OSX and even Windows! And ANY version of Windows far more then MS itself supports with its latest browser.

A further answer can be found in gmail. I like the interface of gmail but why oh why did Google put a DIFFERENT interface on their own phones? Because they know I would have hated the full web interface on such a small screen? Oh.... they know me so well. It is as if they got a direct line to my most secret communications! Magical.

I know MS fanboys got it hard, but really, has MS so little to offer that the notion that you can a website can be seen on single generation of Windows and be rendered without failing on one form factor or the other that amazing to you guys? Oh wait... for MS it is (has a flashback to developing for IE 5.0 for the XDA)

THE HORROR, OH THE HORROR!

Can anyone Say Windows 98?

[Anonymous Coward]

ok... Most of the comments are bashing the idea of a web browser as an OS... yet (though I haven't read every post) I haven't seen mention of the most popular web browser OS ever... Can anyone say Windows?

Internet Explorer is explorer.exe which is the main shell of Windows. Up until the Release of IE7 for Windows XP, Windows was a giant web browser. This is also why it was such a huge security risk. Internet Explorer actually opened a persons computer up to any malicious code written in a web page that the computer was navigated to. It is the classic example of why a browser based OS is a bad idea.

Heck Microsoft even seen the light and "separated" their browser from their OS with the release of IE7. So, to the author of this original post... learn something about computers and operating systems before making such a stupid suggestion. Thank you.

Let's not be penny wise and pound foolish

[MrEricSir]

The performance difference between a well designed OOP program and a hand-coded assembly program is negligible compared to the difference between native code and running an application through a web browser.

Re:Let's not be penny wise and pound foolish

[TheRaven64]

Native is a slippery term. The Python or Ruby interpreters, for example, run slower than a typical JavaScript implementation and for GUI work they will typically be using the same drawing libraries that a web app uses via the canvas tag, the same H.264 decoder that is uses via the video tag, and so on.

The real problem with web applications is the lack of flexibility. The web browser is a desktop application, therefore it is not possible for a web application to do more than a desktop application can do. It has to run untrusted code, so you don't want it to be able to do a lot of the things that trusted code can do. The most that a web app can hope for is being as good as a desktop application.

It's out there...

[Anonymous Coward]

...it's just still booting.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Q: Where is Opera OS?

[Mirddes]

but firefox? wtf?

Where to begin...?

[Archtech]

There is no Firefox OS because the premise is completely wrongheaded. Just because a single piece of software handles HTML5 across all apps does NOT make that piece of software an OS. Off the top of my head, an OS needs to have a really fast, efficient, highly optimized kernel; control all the peripheral devices that the system has (or that might reasonably be connected to it some day); synchronize all the different activities, many of them vital or highly time-sensitive, that must be carried out; create, manage, and terminate processes and threads; manage memory, including virtual memory and multiple layers of storage with different access time versus capacity tradeoffs; impose and administer a security regime; support networking; etc., etc., etc.

You can certainly make compromises, by limiting the tasks a given system will undertake. That way you end up with either a minimal "hobbyist" user interface, like MS-DOS (which "was relatively fast because it didn't have the overhead of an operating system"), or a walled garden setup which will only do a fixed, immutable set of things and cannot be altered or extended. But a "walled garden" militates against most of the characteristics that define a modern computer; if you can't write code for it, add new applications, or add on new hardware, it's not a computer but a consumer appliance.

The whole merit of browsers like Firefox and Opera is that they are Web browsers, complete Web browsers, and nothing but Web browsers. That complies with the Unix tools philosophy, which requires that each software tool should do exactly one thing and do it really well - ideally, so well that no one ever considers writing an alternative solution. It was Microsoft that decided to blur the borders between Web browser and file system browser (as witness the choice of names "Internet Explorer" and "Windows Explorer"), but that was originally done for legal and business reasons, not for technical ones.

They have! Its called Linux!

[metasepp]

Obviously they have.
It's called Linux!

Weak

[linzello]

This must be the weakest set of arguments I've seen on /.
I'll point out just a few flaws here and leave the rest of the /. community to tear apart the remainder.

I don't think that's the biggest reason.

Apples and oranges. You can't just say platform independence is less important than garbage collection, they're not comparable.
The main point of this discussion is that a browser OS's could make apps platform independent - please read the second sentence of the original post.

... one of the bigger reasons Java failed is Microsoft delivered a broken JVM ...

How many people think Java failed?
I'd say Java succeeded, despite Microsoft's attempts at sabotage. Of course IE no longer comes with a JVM, but that's because once MS realized their sabotage attempts had failed and they decided to use their OS dominance to win the war by simply removing Java. Considering that MS still have 81 percent of the OS market, I think Java is doing rather well.

I've taken recent code written for Java6 and had it fail to run on Linux because the code was littered with hardcoded backslashes

Coding like this is just dumb. Using it as an argument is even dumber. If you plant to say that Java shouldn't leave you open to shooting yourself in the foot like this, then you're on rocky ground. Java has less ways of shooting yourself in the foot than most languages.

But if you want your HTML to work, you need to at least support the latest Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and maybe IE and Opera. If you've done that, there's a good chance you've coded more or less to the standards,

And this is how you'd like the future of coding to be?

the only reason Java can maintain anything approaching a standard is because there is exactly one implementation

There are loads of different VMs out there, with far far less compatibility problems than there are between browsers.

If Java was more like HTML, then Dalvik would've been pressured to become more and more standard, and where it got the standard and OpenJDK didn't, OpenJDK would be fixed -- but instead, Oracle sued.

Dalvik is not a JVM, didn't you know that? Oracle don't need a reason to start suing someone.

Everyone already has a browser, and most people have a fairly decent browser, other than, maybe, office drones stuck with IE6

Try looking at some statistics before coming out with comments like this.

It also helps that JavaScript doesn't suck nearly as much as Java, as a language.

Talk about destroying any hint of credibility that you might have had left.

Re:Weak

[SanityInAnarchy]

Apples and oranges. You can't just say platform independence is less important than garbage collection, they're not comparable.

Bullshit. They are both features Java had which C++ effectively didn't -- and even today, stuff like Boehm doesn't apply universally. All I'm doing is asking which one is the deciding factor for people who started using Java instead.

The main point of this discussion is that a browser OS's could make apps platform independent...

Maybe so, but in that case, I wasn't the one who brought it offtopic. The person I was replying to said this:

And the big thing about Java was that you would be able to write code that was platform-independent, and just rely on a Java interpreter that would be released on any necessary platforms. Which is why everything is written in Java now...

In fact, I quoted exactly that. That is what I was replying to. I was not replying to some abstract main point, I was replying to the actual points the person I actually replied to actually made.

How many people think Java failed?

I should've chosen my words more carefully, but I'd think it was clear from context that this is about Java failing in its goal of "compile once, run anywhere." How many people think this is actually a reality today?

As a desktop platform, Java pretty much has failed, with some notable exceptions. How many people install Java just to play Minecraft? No, it's on the server where it's really successful, and where compile-once, run anywhere is pointless, because even if I have to compile, I can compile specifically for machines I control, without the portability nightmare of trying to support, say, Windows, Linux, and Mac (especially pre-OSX Macs).

Of course IE no longer comes with a JVM,

Nor does Windows.

Coding like this is just dumb. Using it as an argument is even dumber. If you plant to say that Java shouldn't leave you open to shooting yourself in the foot like this...

I never said anything of the sort. The point is that this kind of coding, dumb as it is, would not happen in HTML, for the reasons I outlined -- specifically, because you actually can't just test your code in one browser on one OS, you have to at least make sure it works in multiple browsers.

It's also worth mentioning that unless you happen to know the File library intimately, particularly if you don't really know or care about Unix, creating filenames by concatenating strings seems like a reasonable approach. It seems dumb when you know better, just as attempting to parse HTML with regexes seems dumb when you know better. But it's not "just dumb" in the same way that most of the stuff on TheDailyWTF is.

And if you have to know which libraries to use (java.io.File) and how to use them effectively in order to make your app portable, what's the point of the JVM again? C++ has libraries, too.

And this is how you'd like the future of coding to be?

Coding more or less to the standards? Sure. In fact, I tend to do that, and survive developing it mostly in one browser -- when I test it on other browsers, I only find mild issues these days, because most of them do have good standards support.

Consider the equivalent on Java -- I'd have to develop on one OS, but then test on several others. I'd need a suite of VMs. I suppose I could get the same benefits if I'm careful, but it's a hell of a lot easier to fire up multiple browsers on one OS. I suppose technically I should be firing up other OSes to make sure that it works in the same browser on multiple OSes, but it's incredibly rare that it'll work on three or four browsers on one OS and fail on a different OS.

There are loads of different VMs out there, with far far less compatibility problems than there are between browsers.

Really? Citation,

hi

[fastformation]

I like this post http://tinyurl.com/4yn3fuq

A browser is a different thing than an O/S.

[master_p]

It seems to me that many slashdotters use an O/S and a browser as interchangeable things. They are not. When we say "a browser O/S", we mean an operating system with a browser as its user interface.

Firefox can already be a "Browser O/S", if the default program to start when the X-Window server starts in a Unix-based operating system is Firefox.

You are obviously too young to have seen Mozilla 6

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

or you wouldn't ask.

M$ lockdown

[amasd]

ol' redmond will lock it up so that any nice features will be ridiculously useless. customization and utility is the anti-product.

re:

[Anonymous Coward]

they are bangin out a webian shell?

Are we condemned to keep swallowing the same BS??

[Anonymous Coward]

What a revolutionary concept! Every bit of software working on a common, OS-agnostic (OS-irrelevant!!) platform, with distribution and major processing handled by The Network! Whatever company comes to market with that will be wildly successful!!

In the old days, when stealing an old idea, we at least generated a new marketing campaign for it.

Of course, the whole paradigm of stealing an old idea is pretty fraught with peril -- after all, you are mining failures. Maybe this time, everything will align. Probably not.

So now interoperability is a feature?

[Anonymous Coward]

The way Microsoft is planning out Windows 8, developers will be able to write one HTML 5 app which will run across every Windows 8 form factor, from desktops to laptops, to ARM netbooks and tablets

But... they're all MS products? Why wouldn't they be compatible in the first place, by design?

"The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he, by peddling second rate technology, led them into it in the first place, and continues to do so today." - Douglas Adams

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The future of the web (my version)

[StripedCow]

I'm not sure about a browser-based OS, but here's what I think will happen to browsers:

1. Developers are annoyed by having to design their website/webapp for 5 different browsers.
2. Also, developers are annoyed by using javascript and HTML, and not their favorite languages.
3. Open-source developers create tools that compile from any language into javascript+HTML.
4. Developers and users complain about speed.
5. Developers start targeting google's NaCl platform.
6. Other vendors adopt NaCl.
7. But there's still HTML. Developers are still annoyed by differences between HTML implementations.
8. HTML gets more complex. Implementations grow even more apart. Developers go crazy.
9. Open-source developers start creating a rendering engine that runs on NaCl.
10. NaCl runtime api improves. Various open-source rendering engines will now run on NaCl.
11. Websites/webapps will include their own favorite rendering engine.
12. Caching techniques in the browser will prevent network overload.
13. ?
14. Profit!

(prediction could be slightly off, because I'm typing this at around 3:00 AM local time)

Because you're not an administrator

[tepples]

And you couldn't do the exact same thing with native code because...?

In the case of PCs, the native code would have to have been installed by the computer's administrator. People using a computer in the break room at work, at a friend's or relative's house, or in a public library or Internet cafe are often not an administrator.

In the case of appliances, even the owner of a device isn't an administrator. All native code must be digitally signed by the appliance manufacturer, and some well-known manufacturers have long had a blanket policy not to sign anything developed at home.

Re:Because you're not an administrator

[MrEricSir]

In the case of PCs, the native code would have to have been installed by the computer's administrator.

Nope. You can run just about anything in a user-level sandbox.

In the case of appliances, even the owner of a device isn't an administrator. All native code must be digitally signed by the appliance manufacturer, and some well-known manufacturers have long had a blanket policy not to sign anything developed at home.

They'll do the same thing with Javascript.

Firefox is already "the system" for many users

[Anonymous Coward]

For many people Firefox OS is their ol' WinXP with Firefox 3 on top.

We're going to see unified apis soon

[Anonymous Coward]

That is, no devs want to write multiple copies of anything -- browsers, games, office apps, you name it. OSes will soon be competing on performance and features, and will all offer support for the same APIs. That way, eg, game devs will write the game once for xbox(n), ps(k), etc, and pc, mac.

installation

[Twinbee]

On a side issue, I get tired of the way almost every native program downloaded (for windows at least) needs to have a front end installer. It should be self-contained and the exe should work right off the bat. Browser 'apps' don't have that issue.

Re:installation

[yarnosh]

On a side issue, I get tired of the way almost every native program downloaded (for windows at least) needs to have a front end installer. It should be self-contained and the exe should work right off the bat. Browser 'apps' don't have that issue.

Yes, one of my favorite things about using a Mac. Hardly any installers. Even MS Office 2008 for OS X can technically be copied from one system's /Applications to another. Though they do have an installer to make copying the files easier. Maybe it installs so fonts too? Not sure.

Once again i see MS trying to break the web

[spacepimp]

I simply do not trust anything from Microsoft to be in the best interest of consumers. They haven't proven historically that they are capable of standards based benevolence (IE 6 anyone?). The MS setup of HTML5 will have to mandate that the html 5 apps are locked into the Windows ecosystem or Microsoft won't let this happen. It completely debases their platform with no chance for the up-sell. Maybe this is why they are debasing the security of WebGL? So they can come in with a proprietary platform that is full of great patents to protect the developers and end user from frivolous lawsuits.... Maybe it seems like this is a gross exaggeration, and most likely it is. However it is an honest gut instinct based off prior history, and I really do hope that I am wrong.

And what about Chromeless

[Camahueto]

I thought Chromeless, which evolved from Prism, was the answer to that...

Cloverfield

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only see a single scenario for this to work,
really cheap, stripped-down computers that only runs a dedicated browser.

Which disqualifies the bloated Cloverfield-monster that is Firefox.
http://scienceblogs.com/deepseanews/post-cloverfieldfake.jpg

In other news. Google Chrome OS tries and fails. Although in that case it's
payed by ads in exchange for a complete '1984 user tracking experience'.

I rather see OLPC succeed.

Windows 8

[sumdumgai]

You mean that if I write a Windows 8 application, it will run on Windows 8?? AMAZING!

Consoles don't require signatures on JS or SWF

[tepples]

You can run just about anything in a user-level sandbox.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Windows doesn't come with tools to quickly set up a user-level sandbox; an administrator would have to install such tools. It does come with a web browser.

All native code must be digitally signed by the appliance manufacturer, and some well-known manufacturers have long had a blanket policy not to sign anything developed at home.

They'll do the same thing with Javascript.

Among current video gaming appliances, Xbox 360 is the only one not to have a web browser. All others (PSP, Wii, PS3, iPT, DSi, 3DS) can run arbitrary JavaScript programs downloaded from the Internet. PSP, Wii, and PS3 also run ActionScript programs in Adobe Flash Player.

Re:Consoles don't require signatures on JS or SWF

[MrEricSir]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Windows doesn't come with tools to quickly set up a user-level sandbox; an administrator would have to install such tools. It does come with a web browser.

Who said anything about Windows? You're comparing apples and oranges here (no pun intended).

We're talking about creating a new OS that's based on a web browser. Why would we compare that to an existing OS? If we're going to write a new OS anyway, we'd might as well do it right and not get bogged down by legacy mistakes.

CPUs use more than one instruction set

[tepples]

We're talking about creating a new OS that's based on a web browser.

For one thing, existing devices don't already have this OS installed. For another, Google is working on Native Client, which in its first iteration appears to be a sandbox for specially compiled native code. But at some point, the code will generally have to run on CPUs that use more than one instruction set, such as x86 vs. POWER vs. ARM. The planned successor to Native Client is PNaCl, which uses LLVM bitcode. But at that point, what's the difference between using PNaCl and using Java, ActionScript, the CLR, or JavaScript?

Re:CPUs use more than one instruction set

[MrEricSir]

Why do you assume we'd need cross-platform applications that don't need to be compiled for each platform? That doesn't seem like a necessity, it seems like something that would be nice to have but comes with serious drawbacks.

Re:CPUs use more than one instruction set

[tepples]

Why do you assume we'd need cross-platform applications that don't need to be compiled for each platform?

In theory, a cross-platform inner platform means a developer doesn't have to put forth as much effort to support ports to multiple platforms. This has two benefits: a smaller developer has a larger audience, and it can also discourage prominent software companies from giving a particular platform short shrift.