OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/25075/Silverlight_OS Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Fri, 24 May 2013 08:23:53 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485466 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485466 A web app that looks like a desktop is not an operating system. Calling it such is an insult to anyone who has ever tried to create one. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 06:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kolmyo) Comments Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485467 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485467 Such apps are good for demoing what can be achieved with specific technology, but I can't see anyone actually using it.
From a user perspective it's pretty pointless. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 07:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (dpanov) Comments RE: Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485475 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485475 In theory, and let me emphasize theory, you could do a Chrome OS type of thing ... take a barebones OS, add a web rendering engine, a Silverlight or a Flash runtime and add your "Web OS" on top.

Granted the web part is more of a shell or a desktop environment than an OS. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 08:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pandronic) Comments RE: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485481 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485481 It is as much an OS as Windows 3/95/98/me were Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (adinas) Comments RE: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485483 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485483 But one based on a web browser is? Thanks for clearing that up. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments neat! http://www.osnews.com/thread?485491 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485491 Very nicely done. I like it. Good work devs! Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Calipso) Comments RE: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485492 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485492 I couldn't agree more. At the same time most programmers can't distinguish between their ass and their face so I'm not surprised. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:41:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (abstraction) Comments Comment by defdog99 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485497 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485497 Is it just me, or do youtube videos play smoother inside this silverlight OS youtube app... than they do inside Firefox6.0 and IE9. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (defdog99) Comments Comment by senshikaze http://www.osnews.com/thread?485501 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485501 Doesn't work with moonlight, as far as I can tell.

another very good reason the people at Redmond shouldn't be allowed to create technology for the web. They only create technology for their os (and sometimes mac). I am glad silverlight didn't take off in any kind of appreciable way, or I'd be SOL on the web. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (senshikaze) Comments RE[2]: Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485503 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485503
In theory, and let me emphasize theory, you could do a Chrome OS type of thing ... take a barebones OS, add a web rendering engine, a Silverlight or a Flash runtime and add your "Web OS" on top.


In theory, if you put a saddle on a dog, it's now a horse. But in reality it's not. Silverlight has no: protected memory, virtual memory, filesystem support, multi-tasking. So it's not really close to being an OS.

Bad article title. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AndrewZ) Comments A landscape devoid of Silverlight http://www.osnews.com/thread?485504 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485504 As far as I can remember this is only the second time in four years that I've been prompted to install Silverlight. The first time was on the Microsoft site whilst trying to look at a video about what Silverlight was. Which required Silverlight. And now number two, demonstrating what Silverlight's capable of. Is it actually used anywhere in anger? Even the Realplayer plugin is more commonly used nowerdays ... Not that I install that either.

Has anyone found a real, bonafide, business-like implementation of Silverlight on the web? Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (M.Onty) Comments RE: A landscape devoid of Silverlight http://www.osnews.com/thread?485506 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485506 The British Library's "Turning The Pages" was my first sighting of Silverlight in the wild:

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/ttpbooks.html

It turned out it was part-funded by Microsoft, however!Edited 2011-08-17 12:28 UTC Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Cymro) Comments RE[2]: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485507 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485507
It is as much an OS as Windows 3/95/98/me were


See OPs statement about being an insult.

Your statement and the people who continue to call these web apps an OS are insults.


Windows 3, 9x, me etc were and Operating system. Sure they needed DOS to boot, but thats like saying Linux isn't an OS because it needs Lilo or grub to boot, and the are far more advanced then a simple bootsector program now, they read and can write files to the disk.

When an application takes over system calls to the hardware THEN it is an operating system. Until then its just an application running on the platform its running on.

Windows 7 still uses the NT loader to get from the BIOS into the what we know as the Operating System.
As soon as the windows loads the kernel files, it takes over at the hardware level. Its then the Operating system of the computer.


Now, if the SilverOS was to create its own hardware emulation and run on top of that, you could argue that it was a virtualised OS running in the browser...


just sayin' Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:58:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sagum) Comments RE[2]: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485508 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485508
It is as much an OS as Windows 3/95/98/me were

I wouldn't even go that far.
Windows 9x had it's own driver model that could expose hardware functions.

This is just a graphical shell - and not even a good one. For example the web-browser is just an embedded trident frame. In fact if you middle click a link then the new window doesn't even open up in this "operating system", instead in a separate tab in the host browser.

Whats worse is this shell doesn't even add anything functional nor different to Windows' own shell - it literally just copies Windows, only badly and more fugly.

I'm all for hobbyist OSs and even web-shells as "proof of concept", but this servers literally no purpose nor point other than to kill a few hours of boredom for the developers.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but it's not an OS let alone a news worthy one.Edited 2011-08-17 13:02 UTC Wed, 17 Aug 2011 12:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Laurence) Comments Laughable marketing speak http://www.osnews.com/thread?485509 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485509 From the project's website:

Convenience and freedom - A personalized desktop, files, apps are available and accessible from any computer in the world.

Well, I can't access it from any computer I own or use daily. Freedom, they say? Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sodki) Comments RE[2]: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485515 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485515
But one based on a web browser is? Thanks for clearing that up.

Erm, where did that come from?

If you're talking about ChromeOS, then that generally refers to the whole stack from the Linux kernel through to the Webkit shell rather than just the browser specificallyEdited 2011-08-17 13:53 UTC Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Laurence) Comments ... http://www.osnews.com/thread?485518 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485518 No Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (FunkyELF) Comments RE: A landscape devoid of Silverlight http://www.osnews.com/thread?485519 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485519 Netflix

Other than that, I don't know anything else either. Except maybe, didn't NBC also stream the previous Olympics with Silverlight? Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Gusar) Comments WHY!??!?!?!? http://www.osnews.com/thread?485521 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485521 I think I just died inside... Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WarpKat) Comments RE[3]: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485522 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485522 It came from the issue I had with the original post saying that this isn't an OS. Why not? Why does he get to decide what an OS is.

I was speaking about ChromeOS, because it's just a browser running on Linux. Why is this any different?

ChromeOS is just a bunch Web apps running in a browser. Is it because it runs on Windows? Because it's Silverlight? Google didn't write the rest of the stack, just the interface.

I don't see the difference, other than one is made by google, and one was made by this dude. Maybe it just a toy, but applaud the guys effort, his willingness to try something, and not put him down for no good reason. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:12:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments RE: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485524 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485524 A Silverlight application linked/embedded into HTML also isn't really a web app. ;) Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (reez) Comments It can be done without Silverlight, too http://www.osnews.com/thread?485526 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485526 Cool. Though it should be noted, you don't need Silverlight to do this kind of thing...

http://eyeos.org/

:) Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Moochman) Comments RE[2]: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485527 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485527 No it isn't. Windows 95/98/Me are real operating systems, SivlerOS isn't. And before we go there; no, Windows 95/98/me was not glorified DOS shells. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments RE[4]: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485529 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485529 But, ChromeOS technically IS NOT an OS.

An OS is something that handles memory allocation, virtual memory handling, threading, multitasking, communication with devices, filesystem management, etc.

If you take something that runs on top of any kernel (say Linux, Windows NT kernel, etc.) is not an OS.

I see ChromeOS as a desktop environment, not quite different than Gnome or KDE, just running on top of one more abstraction layer: the browser.Edited 2011-08-17 14:44 UTC Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ebasconp) Comments RE[5]: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485532 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485532 I agree with you a hundred percent. This is no different than ChromeOS, and ChromeOS is not an OS. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments RE[3]: Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485533 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485533 as in ChromeOS, these things would be provided by the "Real" OS running underneath it. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (BluenoseJake) Comments Nonsense http://www.osnews.com/thread?485535 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485535 > Convenience and freedom - A personalized desktop,
> files, apps are available and accessible from any
> computer in the world.

Proprietary technologies (like Silverlight) don't promote freedom. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (shmerl) Comments RE[2]: A landscape devoid of Silverlight http://www.osnews.com/thread?485545 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485545 Yes Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Neolander) Comments RE[4]: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485546 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485546
It came from the issue I had with the original post saying that this isn't an OS. Why not? Why does he get to decide what an OS is.

This isn't an OS by nearly everyones definition of an operating system.

I was speaking about ChromeOS, because it's just a browser running on Linux. Why is this any different?

Because ChromeOS is an entire Linux distro. This is just a webpage. ChromeOS refers to the bespoke Linux architecture just as much as the webkit shell.

ChromeOS is just a bunch Web apps running in a browser.

The shell is, yes. But ChromeOS, as a distro, is more than that.

Is it because it runs on Windows? Because it's Silverlight?

It's because this doesn't ship with the underlying architecture where as ChromeOS does.
If this project shipped with a heavily customised Windows core which booted straight into this shell and those components were all interdependent, then I'd argue that this was an OS too - albeit just a "Windows distribution". But it doesn't - it's just a webpage.

Google didn't write the rest of the stack, just the interface.

Actually they did. ChromeOS is far from a vanilla Linux distro. There's a great deal of bespoke stuff in there.

I can see the point you're making though and I do think that ChromeOS is largely pointless regardless of it's classification. ;) Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Laurence) Comments RE[5]: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485547 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485547 ChromeOS is an OS, unless I'm misunderstood. If I download an image of what's called "ChromeOS" (or "ChromiumOS"), burn it on a CD/DVD, and run it on my computer, it works in a freestanding fashion, right ? Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:07:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Neolander) Comments RE: Nonsense http://www.osnews.com/thread?485549 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485549 What, you don't cherish the opportunity to run an inferior Windows clone on, uh, Windows anywhere? Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Soulbender) Comments RE: Not an operating system http://www.osnews.com/thread?485551 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485551 That's why I called it an "operating system" app. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David) Comments RE[3]: Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485603 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485603
In theory, if you put a saddle on a dog, it's now a horse. But in reality it's not. Silverlight has no: protected memory, virtual memory, filesystem support, multi-tasking. So it's not really close to being an OS.

Bad article title.


I'm not so sure this things are important to the vast majority of people. What I think is important is the experience to the end user. The rest is easily provided by Linux, BSD or why not a stripped down Windows. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pandronic) Comments RE[4]: Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485614 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485614
"In theory, if you put a saddle on a dog, it's now a horse. But in reality it's not. Silverlight has no: protected memory, virtual memory, filesystem support, multi-tasking. So it's not really close to being an OS.

Bad article title.


I'm not so sure this things are important to the vast majority of people. What I think is important is the experience to the end user. The rest is easily provided by Linux, BSD or why not a stripped down Windows. "

Then we are now talking about two different things. I am referring to "Silverlight OS". Not sure why you are responding in this thread, because we are talking about Silverlight as an OS. Not public opinion polls. Wed, 17 Aug 2011 21:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AndrewZ) Comments RE[5]: Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485699 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485699 We are talking about how to define an OS and how Silverlight OS fits that definition. And I'm saying that nowadays the UI is the OS to most people, so Silverlight OS and other "Web OSes" can theoretically be considered OSes if you slap a Linux, BSD or Windows foundation under them. Thu, 18 Aug 2011 05:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pandronic) Comments RE[6]: Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485752 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485752 Yeah no. I suggest you read the definition of Operating System, and then look at the functions provided by Silverlight. Shell, command interpreter, programming environment might all be better descriptors. Thu, 18 Aug 2011 12:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AndrewZ) Comments RE[7]: Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485766 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485766 What part of put a foundation underneath it don't you understand? Thu, 18 Aug 2011 13:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pandronic) Comments RE[8]: Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485778 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485778 Yeah no. Because the foundation is the OS. What goes on top of an OS is: a shell, a command interpreter, or maybe a programming environment. Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (AndrewZ) Comments RE[9]: Good for a tech demo, but nothng really useful. http://www.osnews.com/thread?485796 http://www.osnews.com/thread?485796 Well, to me the foundation is irrelevant. All new OSes use Linux as a foundation although as I've argued in previous post they could also use BSD or Windows and the only different thing that is worth talking about is the shell. To me and most people I believe that's the OS. Definitions change. Thu, 18 Aug 2011 19:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pandronic) Comments