If I were to create a new OS today, it would basically look like an iPad-ish screen of icons as a front-end to Xen. Each "app" would be a stand-alone virtual m

If I were to create a new OS today, it would basically look like an iPad-ish screen of icons as a front-end to Xen. Each "app" would be a stand-alone virtual machine image custom configured to run a /single/ application each. I'm speaking out of my rear end, but it seems like that's where we're all headed in order to achieve the security/configurability/reliability/simplicity/etc that we all want. As examples, I point to sandboxed mobile/browser/cloud/game console apps as well as config sandboxing such as VirtualEnv and .Net's dll versioning. Might as well drop the half-measures and go all the way. Skip DLL/API/browser version hell and just ship a complete OS image that has been configured and tested to work reliably for the app. It's my understanding that the Xbox One has basically implemented this already. Game discs contain an OS image that runs as a guest OS on the Box. In addition to improved security, this should greatly reduce the back-compat test burden as future Xbox OS revisions come out.