Slashdot Log In
Saying 'No' to an Executable Internet
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sun Feb 12, 2006 09:46 AM
from the something-to-read dept.
from the something-to-read dept.
Dylan Knight Rogers writes "Applications are constantly being ported for usage on the Internet - either for a viable escape from expensive software, or because it's often helpful to have an app that you can access from anywhere. Operating systems that run from the Web will be a different story."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Ah, yes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ah, yes (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
rm -rf /../* (Score:4, Interesting)
what's above root dir? Does anbybody know?
Parent
Re:rm -rf /../* (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Ah, yes (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
errrr.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:errrr.... (Score:2)
What's being proposed in this article is a different scheme, or so I would gather. It's not so much about applications executing on a separate machine, rather than the operating system software being obtained on the fly. Of course, s
Re:errrr.... (Score:5, Informative)
It would have been quite a trick to design an operating system based on the principles of the network protocols later developed on it.
That said, the dumb terminal to mainframe concept was a big part of the UNIX legacy. UNIX was designed from the start as a multi-user environment for the individual user. The kernel supported multiple users but the tasks it was designed for were single user tasks, mostly programming. UNIX was a reaction against mainframe computing of its day.
The author is completely wrong when he says that Windows did not have any security until 2000. Windows NT was designed from the outset to obtain Orange book B2 certification. It would take a huge amount of work to get Linux to meet that criteria. It is generally considered to be 'B2 equivalent' but thats like saying that being ABD is the same thing as having a Phd, the only people who say that are ABD grad students.
Likewise the author is completely wrong about Microsoft being likely to take the O/S in that direction. Unix and VMS led the minicomputer revolution. Gates led the microcomputer revolution which was even more against the central processing store model of computing. If you look at all the early microcomputers you will find that they all ran Microsoft Basic. When IBM went to Microsoft while it was building the PC it was the BASIC they wanted. They only demanded a bootstrap loader when Kildal refused to deal with them for CPM.
The company that tried to make the network the operating system was Netscape. They failed for several reasons, the most important of which was you can't hire 5000 world class engineers in a year and even if you could that you would not end up with a world class team. MarcA's policy of never hiring anyone he thought might be smarter than him didn't help either.
The company that seems to be making the attempt now is Google. They might make it, at this point it is unclear.
Parent
Re:errrr.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:errrr.... (Score:4, Informative)
This is true, but:
1. Windows NT was only certified B2 secure when not connected to a network.
2. Orange book isn't related to the type of security we're talking about; the certification says nothing about whether there are bugs in the system allowing remote attacks or even local privilege escalations. It only talks about how the system is nominally designed, and even there it's more about logging who does what on the system and forbidding things like copying and pasting between applications running at different security levels.
Parent
Re:errrr.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems to me like there is something important that the Orange Book fails to take into account.
It's not necessarily what the Orange Book is failing to take into account, it's the observer. Microsoft Windows, thanks to Microsoft Visual Studio, and Microsoft's maximum documentation overkill mindset, is childi
Re:errrr.... (Score:3, Insightful)
It is easier to develop code for Linux than for Windows. That is why there are so many more applications for Linux than there are for Windows, and it is also why developers, on the whole, prefer to use Linux whe
Re:errrr.... (Score:3, Funny)
I didn't know it was going to turn the registry into swiss cheese, whatever that is.
"Swiss cheese [wikipedia.org]" refers to a variety of cheese, such as the Emmantel cheese from Switzerland, known for the distinctive holes that appear throughout the cheese.
Re:errrr.... (Score:3, Interesting)
You are quite right in pointing out that B2 is not very relevant to today's security needs. But the fact remains that Windows NT was designed from the outset to meet a measurable security criteria that UNIX was not designe
Technically *nix started out single-user (Score:3, Informative)
The very first iteration of what eventually became Unix was a simple task switcher to allow a game to run at the same time as actual work. Technically it wasn't multi-user, because there was only a system console.
Forget it (Score:5, Insightful)
Local apps give us a lot of freedom. It might be nice to be able to also have such a centralised system available, but even with access on planes, there are always times and places you'll be cut off.
woof.
Dumb Idea? (Score:3, Insightful)
What about having the network augment the user's computer? I mean, there are a lot of idle CPUs out there, right? What if your apps were designed to run on your own system just fine, but could tap into free CPU time as needed, SETI@home-style?
Now even to a non-computer person like me, security is obviously an issue here, but it seems like this could work pretty well on a company's in-house ne
Re:Dumb Idea? (Score:5, Informative)
Botnets are an interesting example of this sort of computing, though. In fact, botnets are the closest thing we have to this sort of idea being implemented right now.
Anyway, the point is that real time applications such as gaming wouldn't really see much benefit from this. By the time someone else could execute part of your processing, and send the result back to you, you character is already a foot from where you were when you requested the work, and the old work is now completely irrelevant. Even more, I can't think of a single use for GPUs that *isn't* realtime -- distributed GPU use over the net is almost certainly 100% impractical. It's not uncommon for gamers to play at and above 100 FPS -- that leaves your system 10 milliseconds to render every frame; you can hardly ping someone a block away in that time -- severely limiting the number of computers available to your 'cluster'. Also latency is NOT garanteed on the net, much less successful, in order delivery.
It works for apps like SETI@home because seti just sends you a chunk of work every few minutes or hours, and doesn't particularly care if and when you finish it. There's no 10 ms deadline on SETI -- the project will finish when it finishes.
Internet wide cluster computing is most suitable for applications that are primarily about converting a very large input (years of SETI data, protein folding data, massive mailing lists for bot nets) into very large output (analyzed data, folded proteins, spam) over a long, unpredictable period of time.
Parent
Re:Dumb Idea? (Score:3, Interesting)
As my assembly language instructor once said, "The time difference between loading something out of the local cache and access the computer's RAM is like the difference between taking a paper off the top of your desk and looking at it, and finding a paper in a filling
You need to do better than that (Score:3, Insightful)
There are few apps which can't run locally. They might run faster on the massive centralised hardware but if you can't connect, you're fucked. Anyone who can't afford to be fucked by the loss of a connection to any centralised system (like, say, a hospital) has a localised back-up already in place.
Re:You need to do better than that (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of your point was good, this part is horribly wrong .
The majority of US farm land has been idled due to the low cost of foreign food,
and the influx of huge Corporate farms like ADM(Archer Daniels Midland).
During Depression/World War II the people were told to grow a garden in there back yards
to deal with the situation .
My Grandparents still had this habit when I was growing up as a kid thru the 70's and 80's .
We had so much food we canned it, froze it, and gave it away .
The large cities of the east and left coast this is not practical, but there are large
patches of land throughout the mid west that were crushed due to Globalization and
Willy Nelson and Friends held a series of concerts called Farm Aid for all the farmers
whose families and lives were ruined by the globalization of food .
http://www.farmaid.org/site/PageServer?pagename=a
While it is good and great that we help the poor outside our borders, it is bad
that we make our nation vulnerable to shipping embargos and eat food from countries
that do not have the same pesticide rules as we do in the US .
Soil and water pollution levels in these countires are not monitored like they are here .
The taxes on land, the equipment, and the fuel are not on equal footing either, so the
US farmer cannot compete and a large number of small farms went broke .
The cost of living is higher here, as is the cost of doing business .
Outourcing our food will be something that will come back to haunt us in the future .
I was born and raised on a farm, and I dare say you were not .
Ex-MislTech
Parent
Anyone RTFA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyone RTFA? (Score:2)
Say "No" to Executable Internet, but (Score:2, Funny)
Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years (Score:5, Insightful)
I was horrified when I went back to set up networking booting in Un*xville, yes, horrified. "These people are dumb, not the terminals" is about the most polite I could be about the state of "the network IS the computer".
Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years (Score:3, Interesting)
This industry is a hoot.
Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years (Score:3, Interesting)
ACs post at 0. Registered users post at 1. Users with high karma post at 2. The comment is then moderated higher or lower.
"Worse is better" refers to http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html [jwz.org]
Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, his point is that Lunix rulz and Microsoft is teh sux and such will continue to be the case with AJAX apps. That doesn't make sense even if you concede all the author's idiotic premises.
This article is one big troll. (Score:5, Insightful)
Taco, you should be embarrassed for posting the article. There's nothing here but a bad rant about how Windows is a terrible OS, and microsoft sucks. You may agree or disagree with that statement, but rants against Windows aren't news.
The Point? (Score:5, Interesting)
I read through that article and it just sounds like one pretentious blogger's disdain for Microsoft. Let's run through all the things that got this fast-tracked to Slashdot:
This is pure Linux-user elitism, the sort of smug "Our Opponent Just Doesn't Get It; We Do; and We're Smarter Than You" attitude that loses political battles [commondreams.org] and makes the arguer only look like a pretentious fool in the eyes of the skeptic.
I dislike Microsoft as much as the next Slashdot user but this article is awful: it simply slams Microsoft as the Big Corporate Machine with quotes like "Microsoft does not publish all their security vulnerabilities because other executive stockholders, whom are also ignorant would become worried and eventually begin to question the platform's security." If I wanted to hear ramblings about the willfully ignorant I'd listen to a David Cross album [subpop.com].
* Intentional typo used to point out how correcting grammar on Slashdot usually leads to a spelling error, or vice versaRe:The Point? (Score:5, Funny)
You should put that in your CV.
Parent
Re:The Point? (Score:5, Insightful)
And they're not English instructors - some posters can just speak English and find mistakes glaring and detract from the message (see Marshall McLuhan). But go ahead with your arrogant responses. It just makes it easier for the rest of us to filter you out.
People will mostly accept honest mistakes. When the offender instead tries to make out that their mistakes aren't mistakes at all, for whatever reason, when clearly they are, this is what tries people's patience.
Parent
article summary (Score:5, Funny)
Linux rulez
and , oh..
Who forgot to change the battery? (Score:3, Funny)
May I suggest instead ... (Score:4, Funny)
Thanks.
The concept isn't bad, but the application stinks (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, a huge majority of these applications are going active-x or other proprietary format, and are limiting users' access on a more fundamental level - they expand the coverage range but limit you by your access point. Our ticket system has just gone to an active-x system. Now I cannot access it from my laptop anymore. So instead of making things more flexible for me and being able to access the system from any of the 200 machines in the building that I used to be able to use, I now can access it from less than two dozen machines, only one of which I have convenient access to.
Wonderful, just wonderful.
Worst Article EVER (Score:5, Insightful)
This article misses the point. (Score:3, Insightful)
"factors that Microsoft paid little to no attention to and still don't today would be gaming consoles..."
The X-Box and the X-Box 360? Microsoft put billions of dollars into those gaming consoles.
"As experience tells us, 'easily used' operating systems such as Windows are notorious for poor security..."
What about Apple's Unix-based OS X? That's often considered easier to use than Windows for new computer users.
"resulting in a poorly designed operating platform and ignorant users who don't know the difference between WEP and WPA..."
It seems like he's arguing that the users of an operating system determine the quality of that operating system.
Really, I think this article misses the point. Internet-based OSes will not be feasible now or in the near future, I agree; however, that has more to do with bandwidth limitations, and the enormous variety of hardware out there, than security flaws in Windows (Live?). Security will always be a big issue--especially when distributed to a network of hundreds of millions of computers--but the hardware and infrastructure issues will derail the process much earlier and more severely, IMO.
Well... (Score:3, Funny)
Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.
Sure told them!
Questions for the blogger... (Score:3, Interesting)
Being the author of the original piece and the guy who submitted the summary, I'd expect him to have a fairly good grasp on how to summarize it. However the summary reads as if a Web based OS would be a bad thing, yet he states in the blog post:
So do you think it's a good idea or a bad idea?
Also, why is the Slashdot summary focussed on the idea of a web based OS when you only mention the term once, and refer to a 'Web Windows' one time?
IT Phone Home! (Score:4, Insightful)
Gmail updates whether I like it or not. I'm always using the latest version, so now i'm stuck with a fking IM client for a mail host.
Hamachi doesn't run online, but phones home constantly and nags you relentlessly to "update to version X.X" every time they release a minor bug fix. When you give in and click "update" the thing is riddled with new bugs the previous version didn't have.
iTunes is similar. I never wanted all the bloat the latest versions give me. Thank christ its not an online prog. I can run the version I choose.
I spent $99 on HalfLife 2 and *cannot* play it anymore because of the very poor "Phone Home" code in steam that refuses to contact the server.
I got locked out of *my own* computer once for a day after an XP update. That wasn't cheap
I'm desparately trying to swap to linux to avoid the Vista DRM hell.
I love accessing my software from this computer remotely (using hamachi at present, but this seems to be an under developed tech) & would love to use a web interface to access info & software from my home PC from any device at any time, but I would like to retain the power over what runs on *my* pc & where that info is stored.
InternetOS (Score:4, Insightful)
Ummmm...
Can't you run thin clients (of some variety) over the Internet? Like the variety that consist of a boot disk (floppy, CD, or boot ROM) and pull the rest from elsewhere?
The problem with all of this (Score:3, Interesting)
If it is open for users to install their own programs, then everyone here will complain that it's a huge security risk and will lead to the death of the internet bla bla bla.
Re:It won't necessarily ruin security. (Score:3, Interesting)
The original point the poster made warrants discussion - he actually attempted to address the question, unlike yourself; you seem to be obsessed with the Slashdot moderation system, frankly, who cares if his post gets rated high or not?
The design of such a system is important, and the people who brought you net send [microsoft.com] possibly are
Re:404 - Page not found (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Wow! A post to your own blog! (Score:4, Funny)
The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.
So much for saying "No" to the Eecutable Internet. "They" must have gotten him.
Parent
Re:Wow! A post to your own blog! (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously the internet executed him.
Parent
Re:Wow! A post to your own blog! (Score:5, Informative)
Reading it's a waste of time, but here's the mirror [mirrordot.org] for those interested.
Parent
Re:uh (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I can't comment much on the content of your article itself as all I get is a 404 when I click on the link. Aside from that, much of the outrage over your "opinion piece" seems to be because this looks like nothing more than whoring for publicity for your little blog. The high UID and lack of any comments in your history prior to today doesn't help either. In addition, anytime somebody validly criticizes you, you get un
Re:The real fear (Score:3, Funny)
I see we have a new candidate here for the worst acronym ever to emerge from the bowels of Linux and Open Source.