In these days, networking has become an essential part of every computer system, be it a standalone PC, a file server or a mobile phone. Well, you are right, the dishwasher has no network connection... yet. So the new OS certainly needs to be network enabled. That does not mean that there is no room for improvement, however. We have the Static, DHCP and Zeroconf methods of getting IP adresses, NFS and SMB to share files, Cups, LPR and SMB to share printers, NIS, NIS+ and LDAP to have the same user accounts everywhere, and Remote Desktop, VNC and X for remote logins.
These existing systems work. Sometimes. After editing a lot of settings and configuration files. And that is not how it should be. When networking should be practical, it should be really practical, for everyone. After all, a home user wanting to take advantage of the network they have made for internet sharing, does not want to dive into the world of TCP/IP, DHCP servers, gateways, DNS and so on. They want a network that just works. And what would be rather practical, is if you were able to edit the same document no matter whether you are working on the desk computer, the laptop or the refrigator.
Such a thing cannot be accomplished easily. Rendezvous is a step in the right direction, but it is still bound to one single computer: you don't instantly have access to your documents - you need to search through other computers for the resource you need and login to that computer before you have access.
4.1 The basic idea
This is a rather interesting question. Imagine you have a home network with two computers. On the one hand, you want to be able to login to both of them, even when the other one is down. On the other hand, you don't want that a hacker can enter the network with his laptop and have access to everything. And in a larger network, you don't want each PC to store all user data, as such a network probably does have a server running 24/7.
That does already imply that there would be two "modes" of operation: one for the home user, where each PC knows all accounts, and another one for centralized networks where a server knows them. In a perfect world, these two could be matched, so let's look how that can be done.
4.2 Peer-to-peer and server-client implementation
In principle, each PC operates in decentralized mode. Without a network, that means that it has one user (with associated ID) that owns everything. If two such computers meet eachother, both will learn the user data from eachother. Now, you can login to both computers with exactly the same result.
In a larger network, a server can be added. In a similar p2p-method as with decentralized mode, the server information is shared (but only its address, not the accounts themselves). When someone wants to login now, first the local user database is checked and when there is no match, the computer will also look at the server. The latter will send the account information to the local PC, and if everything is right you will get logged in and have access to the network, most likely the printers and drive space attached to the server. Additionally, the account now exists on your local PC too, so that you can use it even when you aren't connected to the network.
4.3 Account modification
The only problem left is changing your password, as the new password needs to be propagated through the network without allowing hackers to change your password. Luckily, for this there is a solution, too, and it is rather easy. The new password will have the old one "within itself", so that the new password can identify itself. In this way, no hacker can change your password without knowing the current one, while you can do it. To solve the problem for when two password changes meet, the date of each password can be stored in the account. This also makes it possible to remove obsolete passwords after a certain amount of time.
5. The end result
Finally, it might be useful to look at the results of the proposal: is it innovative, and almost more important, is it useful and user-friendly?
I believe the proposed GUI does indeed break with the current tradition and does this in a useful way. Doing away the windowed interface seems going back, but removes something which is rather confusing for new computer users (and has no advantage over split-screen like windowing other than wasting space because windows don't fit to eachother). Not having a too fancy interface is also a good thing, as it doesn't distract you from your work and does not scare away people (yes, people fear Windows XP as it is different from 98/Me).
The document format, on the other hand, does not offer much more than Display PDF or something like that. Combined with the linking model, however, it becomes more powerful than what we have today, allowing to use pipes, famous within the Unix world, within a graphical environment, which serverely extends possibilities and reduces complexity.
The network model, finally, unifies the traditional, server-based systems like UNIX and Netware, and the peer-to-peer networks like AppleShare and SMB in one package, allowing for one consistent, interface for both types of networks, still powerful but also comprehensible for the average home user.
Though this proposal might never see a working implementation, I still believe it shows there is a lot of room for innovation in the current operating systems. So I hope that they will not only innovate behind the scenes (SMP support, NTPL, WinFS, ...) but that one of them will take the step to break with the past to allow new concepts in, so that the end user will finally get improvements as well.
- "Future OS, Page 1/3"
- "Future OS, Page 2/3"
- "Future OS, Page 3/3"
