[LINK] The State of the Internet Operating System

[Kim Holburn]

Interesting essay by Tim O'Reilly

http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/03/state-of-internet-operating-system.html
> The State of the Internet Operating System

>  On a standalone computer, operating systems like Windows, Mac OS X,  
> and Linux manage the machine's resources, making it possible for  
> applications to focus on the job they do for the user. But many of  
> the activities that are most important to us today take place in a  
> mysterious space between individual machines. Most people take for  
> granted that these things just work, and complain when the daily  
> miracle of instantaneous communications and access to information  
> breaks down for even a moment.
>
> But peel back the covers and remember that there is an enormous,  
> worldwide technical infrastructure that is enabling the always-on  
> future that we rush thoughtlessly towards.
>
...
>  But how different is this from PC application development in the  
> early 1980s, when every application provider wrote their own device  
> drivers to support the hodgepodge of disks, ports, keyboards, and  
> screens that comprised the still emerging personal computer  
> ecosystem? Along came Microsoft with an offer that was difficult to  
> refuse: We'll manage the drivers; all application developers have to  
> do is write software that uses the Win32 APIs, and all of the  
> complexity will be abstracted away.
>
I'm not sure you can blame this "innovation" on Microsoft.  I would  
say Apple had already been there and apart from that it makes sense in  
a software engineering way anyway.
> It was. Few developers write device drivers any more. That is left  
> to device manufacturers, with all the messiness hidden by "operating  
> system vendors" who manage the updates and often provide generic  
> APIs for entire classes of device. Those vendors who took on the  
> pain of managing complexity ended up with a powerful lock-in. They  
> created the context in which applications have worked ever since.
>
> This is the crux of my argument about the internet operating system.  
> We are once again approaching the point at which the Faustian  
> bargain will be made: simply use our facilities, and the complexity  
> will go away. And much as happened during the 1980s, there is more  
> than one company making that promise. We're entering a modern  
> version of "the Great Game", the rivalry to control the narrow  
> passes to the promised future of computing. (John Battelle calls  
> them "points of control".) This rivalry is seen most acutely in  
> mobile applications that rely on internet services as back-ends. As  
> Nick Bilton of the New York Times described it in a recent article  
> comparing the Google Nexus One and the iPhone:
>

....

> Media Access
> Just as a PC-era operating system has the capability to manage user- 
> level constructs like files and directories as well as lower-level  
> constructs like physical disk volumes and blocks, an Internet-era  
> operating system must provide access to various types of media, such  
> as web pages, music, videos, photos, e-books, office documents,  
> presentations, downloadable applications, and more. Each of these  
> media types requires some common technology infrastructure beyond  
> specialized search:
> 	• Access Control. Since not all information is freely available,  
> managing access control - providing snippets rather than full  
> sources, providing streaming but not downloads, recognizing  
> authorized users and giving them a different result from  
> unauthorized users - is a crucial feature of the Internet OS. (Like  
> it or not.)
> The recent moves by News Corp to place their newspapers behind a  
> paywall, as well as the paid application and content marketplace of  
> the iPhone and iPad suggests that the ability to manage access to  
> content is going to be more important, rather than less, in  the  
> years ahead. We're largely past the knee-jerk "keep it off the net"  
> reactions of old school DRM; companies are going to be exploring  
> more nuanced ways to control access to content, and the platform  
> provider that has the most robust systems (and consumer  
> expectations) for paid content is going to be in a very strong  
> position.
>
> In the world of the App Store, paid applications and paid content  
> are re-legitimizing access control (and payment.) Don't assume that  
> advertising will continue to be the only significant way to monetize  
> internet content in the years ahead.
>


-- 
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
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