You OS Web Based Operating System

Juergen writes "You OS comes from the MIT Labs and contains an email client, Chat Function, RSS Reader, and Text Editor. YouOS is a web operating system that lets you run diverse applications within a web browser. Small applications like sticky notes or clocks. Large applications like word processing, mp3 players, and instant messaging. Even better, it's very easy to tweak an existing application or write your own. "

Title?

[porkThreeWays (895269)]

From the title it looked like this was a bad "in soviet Russia" joke...

I will not bite!

[bogaboga (793279)]

While the idea is great, I will not bite in this case because my ISP places a limit on how much traffic can be allowed through my network interface with my current plan. Even though I can "upgrade", the costs are just prohibitive. Sorry, I will not bite.

Re:I will not bite!

[BoomerSooner (308737)]

Not to mention if their server goes down, or out of business, or HIPAA, or any number of other things...

Web based OS is like VRML, big on hype but short on practical implementations that are better than a traditional OS. Just my opinion.

Great? In what way?

[misleb (129952)]

While the idea is great,

Could someone please explain to me why this is a great idea? Besides the novelty. What place does YouOS have in a world where people (well, geeks, actually) debate endlessly about which desktop is the fastest/full featured/whatever? Certainly YouOS would fail to meet most anyone's criteria for a generally useful desktop.

Come on people, this "web based OS" idea is stupid. Admit it. And it is not just because of fact that "Operating System" is a great misnomer in this case. From their FAQ:

"Need to send or receive email or text/instant messages? We're working on providing full communication APIs."

If that gets you excited, then I have a network stack written in BASIC to sell you. ANd it runs in a browser! Amazing, huh? Forget the fact that your current operating system already comes with a perfectly good network stack and running mine would be completely redundant and pointless.

-matthew

It's not an OS

[by Anonymous Coward]

It's a bunch of applications. Yes, if you're Joe Sixpack, then that's what defines an OS, but it's not a real OS. I'm not sure what it's scheduling characteristics are, it probably doesn't have peripherals (or can you plugin your USB stick or camera?), I'm not sure it has swapping, etc...

And is there an SDK around? If so, it'd sound like the ideal computing slave. SETI here goes... (ok, maybe it has resource quotas, which would actually make it an interesting project...)

Re:It's not an OS

[Lumpio- (986581)]

I agree - this has been bugging me since I heard about "YouOS" ages ago. It's not an OS. I'd rather refer to it as an online desktop environment.

VNC

[GNUALMAFUERTE (697061)]

I Totally agree with you, besides, if your connection can run this stuff, it surely can give you a decent quality for a VNC session back home.

Having good web-based apps is greate, but only if you accept that it's a web app and so design it as such (Like gmail or google calendar). But if you try to emulate the look&feel of a classical desktop, you are screwed.

I use a lot of webapps, I have gmail and gmail for your domain for my company's website, google calendar runs my life, Pandora takes care of my mus

Re:It's not an OS

[jalefkowit (101585)]

It's a bunch of applications. Yes, if you're Joe Sixpack, then that's what defines an OS...

Cut them some slack, it's not like YouOS is from MIT or anything!

Oh, wait.

Re:It's not an OS

[dacarr (562277)]

I concur. It's like saying Gnome or KDE are operating systems.

Re:It's not an OS

[misleb (129952)]

And is there an SDK around? If so, it'd sound like the ideal computing slave. SETI here goes... (ok, maybe it has resource quotas, which would actually make it an interesting project...)

That might work, except that the applicaitons are not actually running on a server. They are running with javascript in your browser. They merely communicate with the server for data. You'd be using yoru own CPU... with the slowness of Javascript vs. compiled.

-matthew

How deep can it go?

[AdamBomb8705 (966960)]

Upon seeing this, I immediately wondered whether the OS's web browser could run itself. I'm posting this comment from inside YouBrowser, which is running on YouOS inside of another YouBrowser inside of YouOS in Firefox. So looks like it's possible. I wonder how many levels you could go down...

Re:How deep can it go?

[gardyloo (512791)]

It's turtles all the way down, young man.

Re:How deep can it go?

[Zarel (900479)]

Not entirely. The YouOS browser uses iframes, so it's still Firefox, not YouOS, that's powering it. So it's more like running an app inside Linux that the VMware VM told it to run. If it really was nested, the speed would decrease exponentially (especially for a WebOS; JavaScript isn't all that fast).

EyeOS

[Randomskk (990494)]

This is pretty similar to EyeOS ( http://eyeos.org/ [eyeos.org] ), which runs on any web server and lets you use apps (IM, RSS, web browser, games, etc) in it, change the background etc. I've got this running on my web server, and if nothing else it's great when I want to check the /. RSS while away from home :P

Online mp3 player

[cyp43r (945301)]

Wow, this is innovative. Oh yes, I'll just stream my music up and YouOS will stream back the sound. If you have any even moderate amounts of music, this is sort of ridiculous on a limit. If I play 14 CD's, that's my entire months limit gone almost (10GB). Unless, of course, it compresses it or plays at a low bitrate, which rather belies the point of having one. What's wrong with Winamp?

"Too many users online"

[lonesometrainer (138112)]

Ever had that message with your local workstation?

This is just another playground for the next gen. of Dot-Com-Companies, nothing serious.

a.) web-applications rely on high-speed-always-on internet connections (I'll be in an airplane this afternoon, no text processing for me then?)

b.) Will always offer less features and a bad UI compared to classical desktop applications, because restricted by web browser capablilites

c.) are currently much harder to code than classical desktop apps (e.g. editable drop down boxes anyone? Easy thing in NetBeans/VS .NET, very tough in webapps or server-pushing information to the client, requires long-lasting GET requests filtered by many firewalls)

d.) collaborative features are easily added to classical desktop apps

Conclusion: less possibilities, harder to code (you'll always be tricking, hacking to get a nice effect), bad UI (restricted by browsers)

The only competition to desktop apps I do currently see is MS XAML.

Bye!

Re:"Too many users online"

[LS (57954)]

I believe that your points are flawed:

a.) web-applications rely on high-speed-always-on internet connections (I'll be in an airplane this afternoon, no text processing for me then?)

That may be the case now, but give a few years or so (3-7 years maybe), and high speed wireless internet will be ubiquitous. Also, the final forms of these applications will probably involve some kind a hybrid between desktop and web applications, with some kind of caching mechanism for when no connectivity is available.

b.) Will always offer less features and a bad UI compared to classical desktop applications, because restricted by web browser capablilites

Current browser companies/groups, standards organizations, and OS vendors are all well aware of the current browser's limitations and are working feverishly to create full-fledged networked baeed application frameworks. You can already see bits and pieces with XAML, XUL, SVG, AJAX, etc. Yes, we're not there yet, but it's inevitable.

c.) are currently much harder to code than classical desktop apps (e.g. editable drop down boxes anyone? Easy thing in NetBeans/VS .NET, very tough in webapps or server-pushing information to the client, requires long-lasting GET requests filtered by many firewalls)

long-lasting GET requests? I'm not sure what you are talking about here - is this something that is utilized with AJAX? Regarding the rest of this bulletpoint, see my response to (b). Also, I'm sure as web apps become more critical to businesses, firewall software as well as their admistrators' configuration preferences will adapt.

d.) collaborative features are easily added to classical desktop apps

You are kidding right? This is the big *advantage* of web-based apps. Have you tried using Google's spreadsheets yet? Contacting a user through g-mail and sharing the same spreadsheet... it doesn't get any more collaborative than that.

LS

Not quite new, but

[NotFamousYet (937650)]

YouOS has been around for a while, and it's part of a growing trend of online desktops (I refuse to refer to them as "Online OSes", because they're simply a desktop page that launches programs, an alternative to Explorer at best).

If you're interested in this area, check out also:
FlyaKiteOSX [portraitofakite.com]
the 30Boxes Webtop [30boxes.com]
EyeOS [eyeos.org]
Computadora [computadora.de] (in Spanish, even though .de ?)
Goowy [goowy.com] (it's in Flash though)

And of course, because this is Slashdot, I couldn't go without mentionning that Google is probably preparing their own [aymnetwork.com], since their recent focus on releasing equivalents of desktop applications online (Notes, Excel, Word, Calendar, Picasa, etc) :)

2x OS

[MarsDude (74832)]

So... to run this OS, I need an OS to run the browser I can run that OS in... Doesn't sound like overkill at all

Re:2x OS

[TrueJim (107565)]

I think the point is that in the future one might access YouOS from something other than a conventional PC, and yet still receive a PC-desktop-like experience. For example, you might access YouOS from some lightweight client (like a gaming console, a PSP-like handheld gaming device, a wireless PDA, a smartphone, a future iPod incarnation, etc.) and still obtain the same working environment that you have on your PC.

Admittedly, the client will need blazingly fast processors and network connections, but presu

Operating System?

[by Anonymous Coward]

When did we start confusing a desktop "shell" application and a handfull of basic functions with an "Operating System"?

An operating system is the code that provides the operating environment in which these programs run; not the programs themselves; a layer between the hardware and the application programs that provides a uniform environment, manages resources, arbitrates contentions, provides synchronization primatives such as semaphores, schedules CPU utilization, etc. Its "users" are programs, not people; its user interfaces are APIs; not shells. Shells and other application programs provide what we traditionally think of as USER interfaces for interacting with humans.

Along with the operating system one often finds a suite of shell programs (textual or GUI), basic applications and administrative programs to provide a user environment. These may be included in the operating system package, and are helpful or even essential in making the operating system usable but are not themselves the operating system or part of it.

This important distinction seems to be lost on the likes of Microsoft. Perhaps as a result, this disturbing misconception seems to be spreading throughout the community.

If the "You OS" involves somewhere an operating system, it lives on their server infrastructure and the users never see it.

A better solution

[Millenniumman (924859)]

A better web based OS could be made by allowing people to ssh into a computer running emacs. Then you'd have a full fledged OS, instead of a limited one like this. Plus, if you added vim, you would have a good text editor.

Re:Ok....

[Eternauta3k (680157)]

There should be a link to some of these [youos.com] pages [youos.com], instead of no content linking to a practically blank page.

Re:Not the first...

[Lumpio- (986581)]

I think the point is that they can be used from quite much any modern enough PC, even PCs you can't really go and install an X server onto. Think libraries, certain computer labs, maybe friends' places etc.

Re:Great title

[TheGavster (774657)]

I think the point is that to run this OS, the browser needs an OS to sit on top of (that is, you don't boot to Firefox, you boot to Windows or Linux or OSX, and run Firefox from there). This differs from say a thin client where there actually isn't anything on the local machine except the software that talks to the central server.