smackfoo.com | I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Joyent's David Young has a conviction that the days of the operating system are numbered, as part of his Joyent Manifesto - Quo vadis, Computing he writes:

“The operating system is dead. Long live the operating system. If the future is network applications, the past is the operating system.”

I think David has oversimplified the concept of an OS-less and server-less environment just a tad. Hardware and software will still need basic building blocks able to run the software of the future, be it server-client or de-centralised. He also notes:

A Web operating system will not emerge. I’m sure this point will be argued vigorously. But I’m right.

That is a give-in. Because the web isn't defined by being an "operating system", rather it is an increasingly interactive environment. So it's hardly breaking new ground to suggest "the internet" won't be an operating system, as it were. David also states:

Because the operating system is pushed down the stack, doesn’t mean what replaces it is an operating system.

To suggest a less complex OS isn't really an OS at all, side-steps the reality than an Operating System is defined primarily by it's function, not how big, or small it is. Or which parts of it reside where. This, again, is a questions of semantics.

A duck doesn't suddenly become an elk the moment it gains a slightly more efficient plumage and flies faster. It is still a duck. Just because many operating systems are moving towards a decentralised nirvana, doesn't suddenly mean they stop existing entirely.

As an example, the software that allows the iPhone to surf the web, access email and receive calls all hinges on a base install of OS X. It may be hidden, indeed one may potentially never actually see it, but it's still there.

Joyent rely heavily on Solaris and large server farms. Without either they would be little more than an idea looking for some way to find fruition. Indeed without that standardised, documented operating system they would never have been able to build their various products to begin with. It seems at odds with sense to be so quick to claim the imminent death of the very thing that helps gives one’s business life.

Further reading, however, illustrates that David contradicts and concedes some points:

This doesn’t mean a client edge device won’t have an operating system. It just won’t matter. Changes have been afoot to usher in this new era. The web is one.

So we’ve gone from no operating system, web or local, to an invisible one that doesn’t matter. I don’t typically “see” oxygen, but I still require it to live. Future technologies will be just the same, in that they too will require a basic operating system or environment to function. That may be entirely built into the device itself, or may be some kind of downloaded “intelligent code”. It may be a very different beast, but it will still be there.

This is really so much more about de-decentralised, portable and application focused computing and evolution of technology, both at the user and producer levels, not the death of the operating system itself. Smart devices are cropping up everywhere and David is right, computing as we know it will change massively in the future. But in order that those new devices can pass information and work in a semi-predictable way, they will still require a common tongue and portable code to co-exist.

How they will be constructed, where they will reside and what remnants of the current model will remain is something that will challenge us for many years to come.

Mr Hunt’s comment on my pet hate, the
cross platform user interface:
“I'm not against cross-platform libraries, or cross-platform applications. But giving the same UI to every OS isn't a good solution.”
It isn't a good solution, but one often mooted as the 'best' compromise. The downside of that middle ground choice is that it will offset […]

I am Steve, hear me roar.

The ‘cold-war’ between Ballmer and the Open Source movement that has raged on and on and on, continues to escalate as the “Ballmer rhetoric engine” version 2.0 picks up speed.

Due to an unscheduled fault, the smackfoo mySQL db decided to reject connections for the last couple of hours or so.

We are currently experiencing periodic and intermittent issues involving connectivity from customer applicatoins to MySQL. (mt) Media Temple engineers are aware of this issue and are actively working on a resolution.

However, as the (mt) guys rock, we’re back in action. This would be the first unscheduled outage in, err, 5 months? Having come from dreamhost where outages are an almost daily occurrence, this whole not crashing, always available thing (mt) have going, quite frankly rocks!

It appears google doesn’t beleive in Santa Firefox anymore.. indeed it’s now ’similar to an automated request or spyware’..
It’s “firefox on a mac” - not exactly your average trojan riddled script kiddie ‘doz box or
snakes on a plane now, is it?
.. and yes, as a side note, I’m currently running OS X - it’s […]

I’ve come to a fork() in the operating System road.
Indeed.. I’m not entirely sure I wish to install another Microsoft Operating System product, again.. ever.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. You see, late last night I decided to free up some previously assigned space on my workstations SATA drive. Not a big deal really and […]

First things first, Paul I have attempted to spell your name correctly.
Now that we have that small matter laid to rest I’d like to make a quick critique of

This will be one of I hope a few in-depth looks at some of the great applications included in
Novell Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop.
First up, we have
banshee, an open source answer to Apple’s
iTunes media player.

Banshee is a
helix powered1 media player that already boasts many features.
helix is an open source media engine and […]

It’s true.. I’m completely smitten. In love, head over heals and all misty eyed.

Novell have just done something I didn’t think anyone could really do. Bring a viable Linux solution to the dekstop.
World, meet
Novell Suse Linux Enterprise Dekstop 10, SLED 10, meet the world.
Oh how I love your snappy GUI, your clean minimilist lines […]

After two very frustrating days, I can honestly, hand on my heart, say that
Vista is just not ready.
I will spare you all the “beta review” ((there a
great many doing
the rounds at present)) and simply slice it all down to some pretty fundamental things that Microsoft have to get right and just plain […]

David Weiss has posted a
virtual tour of Microsoft’s Mac Lab. Perhaps the real secret is not the ever-green rumour that Apple is going to switch to Windows, but rather Bill Gates is going to spearhead the switch to OS X, particulary given that Vista sports many OS X features -
via.
You heard it here […]