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I disagree, while writing a web browser would be significant work, it would likely be on the same order as writing an operating functional enough for people to

by foota 10y ago

I disagree, while writing a web browser would be significant work, it would likely be on the same order as writing an operating functional enough for people to actually want to use it. Porting a browser would likely take less work even (while still being a significant amount of work). This page talks about what it takes to port webkit to another platform: http://blog.cranksoftware.com/webkit-porting-tips-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/ http://blog.cranksoftware.com/webkit-porting-tips-the-good-t...

pointfree 10y ago
Sure you could port webkit to your new OS, but if all the software you use effectively exists only as web apps what would be the point?
- anw 10y ago
  The point seems to be you could now use any system you wanted (as long as there is a compliant browser) and not worry if your needed app is supported or has all the features of the Windows/OSX version. This lets you take advantage of whatever benefits your desired system provides you without a change of user experience.
- foota 10y ago
  I think I understand your argument now. Why do you think browsers as de factor operating systems is wrong? Their programming interface is highly standardized across implementations.
  - pointfree 10y ago
    > Their programming interface is highly standardized across implementations. It may be easier to have everyone use the same software and hardware platform everywhere. After all we do want interoperability and we do want everyone to play well with others, but, standardization and portability is a push to stop people from trying new things. The push to standardize everything is an unfortunate consequence of not having a separation of concerns, separate concerns such as content and UI.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Not sure what you mean by standardization vs. exploratory programming. Separation of concerns would only exist if standardized (and enforced).
      - pointfree 10y ago
        A smaller contact area between implementations means we need only be concerned about compatibility at that interface and the rest is up to you. This keeps the area of software that we can't change to a minimum.
stonogo 10y ago
Forgive me, but you should more specifically define the terms you use. As it stands, it looks like by "functional enough for people to actually want to use it" you seem to introduce a circular dependency -- as though an OS is useless unless it's easy to port a browser to it. The GP post mentiones Plan 9, which is a great example here. There are real people who use Plan 9 every day (I have met some of them!) but Webkit will never be portable to that OS because there is no C++ compiler. This doesn't make the OS non-functional, but it does mean step one to porting a modern browser is "port GCC or LLVM," which is a massive task by itself. Both Firefox and Chrome source code repositories are in the hundreds of megabytes, even without the required host OS dependencies vendored in. The document you linked to recommends leveraging freetype, cairo, and all kinds of other things that would require serious graphics infrastructure of a sort that's just not feasible. Modern web browsers are keystones that cap off arches built of hundreds of pieces of very specific software. As time goes by, they require more infrastructure, not less -- c.f. Firefox, where to build the latest version you must also have a Rust compiler that targets your operating system. As the checklist of requirements grows ever longer, the candidate operating systems capable of meeting those requirements grows ever shorter. Five years from now, I predict the only three operating systems capable of interacting with the web in any meaningful sense will be linux, macos, and windows; bsd and haiku et al will have been left by the wayside. Ten years from now I predict there will be four operating systems, and one of them will be Fuchsia, because only a megacorp like Google has the resources to accomplish that.
- rhabarba 10y ago
  Don't forget that browsers like Netsurf might well be enough for your daily surfing.
- buzzybee 10y ago
  One intriguing direction we could take is for someone to make a self-hosting browser. Doing that would mean taking all these technology dependencies and moving as many as possible into wasm, until you're just left with the kernel, a "barebones" wasm runtime, and a browser binary. I think that is within the reach of one of the big-leaguers, albeit ambitious and full of "interesting" problems and standards that will have to be broken.
adrianN 10y ago
I'm no expert, but I believe the difficulty in writing an OS lies with the myriad of different hardware configurations you have to support. Writing drivers for poorly documented hardware is difficult. You don't get around that complexity by writing a browser. That's just an additional effort you have to make.

by foota 10y ago

pointfree 10y ago

Sure you could port webkit to your new OS, but if all the software you use effectively exists only as web apps what would be the point?

anw 10y ago
The point seems to be you could now use any system you wanted (as long as there is a compliant browser) and not worry if your needed app is supported or has all the features of the Windows/OSX version. This lets you take advantage of whatever benefits your desired system provides you without a change of user experience.
foota 10y ago
I think I understand your argument now. Why do you think browsers as de factor operating systems is wrong? Their programming interface is highly standardized across implementations.
- pointfree 10y ago
  > Their programming interface is highly standardized across implementations. It may be easier to have everyone use the same software and hardware platform everywhere. After all we do want interoperability and we do want everyone to play well with others, but, standardization and portability is a push to stop people from trying new things. The push to standardize everything is an unfortunate consequence of not having a separation of concerns, separate concerns such as content and UI.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Not sure what you mean by standardization vs. exploratory programming. Separation of concerns would only exist if standardized (and enforced).
    - pointfree 10y ago
      A smaller contact area between implementations means we need only be concerned about compatibility at that interface and the rest is up to you. This keeps the area of software that we can't change to a minimum.

stonogo 10y ago

Forgive me, but you should more specifically define the terms you use. As it stands, it looks like by "functional enough for people to actually want to use it" you seem to introduce a circular dependency -- as though an OS is useless unless it's easy to port a browser to it. The GP post mentiones Plan 9, which is a great example here. There are real people who use Plan 9 every day (I have met some of them!) but Webkit will never be portable to that OS because there is no C++ compiler. This doesn't make the OS non-functional, but it does mean step one to porting a modern browser is "port GCC or LLVM," which is a massive task by itself. Both Firefox and Chrome source code repositories are in the hundreds of megabytes, even without the required host OS dependencies vendored in. The document you linked to recommends leveraging freetype, cairo, and all kinds of other things that would require serious graphics infrastructure of a sort that's just not feasible. Modern web browsers are keystones that cap off arches built of hundreds of pieces of very specific software. As time goes by, they require more infrastructure, not less -- c.f. Firefox, where to build the latest version you must also have a Rust compiler that targets your operating system. As the checklist of requirements grows ever longer, the candidate operating systems capable of meeting those requirements grows ever shorter. Five years from now, I predict the only three operating systems capable of interacting with the web in any meaningful sense will be linux, macos, and windows; bsd and haiku et al will have been left by the wayside. Ten years from now I predict there will be four operating systems, and one of them will be Fuchsia, because only a megacorp like Google has the resources to accomplish that.

rhabarba 10y ago
Don't forget that browsers like Netsurf might well be enough for your daily surfing.
buzzybee 10y ago
One intriguing direction we could take is for someone to make a self-hosting browser. Doing that would mean taking all these technology dependencies and moving as many as possible into wasm, until you're just left with the kernel, a "barebones" wasm runtime, and a browser binary. I think that is within the reach of one of the big-leaguers, albeit ambitious and full of "interesting" problems and standards that will have to be broken.

adrianN 10y ago

I'm no expert, but I believe the difficulty in writing an OS lies with the myriad of different hardware configurations you have to support. Writing drivers for poorly documented hardware is difficult. You don't get around that complexity by writing a browser. That's just an additional effort you have to make.