3 ms·
A truly distributed OS would be incredibly useful in times like this where people may have a mobile phone, a tablet, a desktop workstation and maybe even their
by ginko 14y ago
A truly distributed OS would be incredibly useful in times like this where people may have a mobile phone, a tablet, a desktop workstation and maybe even their own server.
Having all files, processes and system resources accessible from all my devices would be great.
- tellarin 14y agoNot trying to be a MS fanboy here. But, while not truly distributed, this is the one area where I feel Windows 8 might be interesting. I really want to see how (if?) they'll try to provide that experience as it's on phones, tablets, and regular PCs. Any practical experimentation in this area can provide good insights and help future attempts at other OSs. At least that's what I hope happens. :)
- jff 14y agoThe Octopus system (http://lsub.org/ls/octopus.html http://lsub.org/ls/octopus.html) attempts to do something like that. It builds on lessons learned from Plan 9 and Inferno.
- astrobe_ 14y agoAnother Thompson has worked on it with others: It's the Plan 9 project, and later Inferno. Currently efforts are headed right in that direction both at OS and language level. What you describe is already under way for devices of the same brand/manufacturer is already happening (I'm a afraid make it happen between vendors is going to be a much longer story). It seems to me like a strong selling argument and I don't understand that some big consumer electronics vendor like Sony or LG didn't make it happen already. Maybe the technology isn't cost effective yet. I think that the next major step is to make these technoknowlegies both user-friendly and programmer-friendly in order to make them mainstream. The innovation the author wishes for already happened 20 years ago. What really needs to happen is that someone take it out of the cupboard and use it.