A New Kind of OS

trader writes "OSWeekly.com discusses a possibility of futuristic OSes with both negatives and positives. From the article: 'Imagine if you will, a world where your ideas and perhaps, even your own creative works became part of the OS of tomorrow. Consider the obvious advantages to an operating system that actually morphed and adapted to the needs of the users instead of the other way around. Not only is there no such OS like this, the very idea goes against much of what we are currently seeing in the current OS options in the market.'"

Where's the beef?

[AKAImBatman]

Must be a slow news day. I read through the entire article and I didn't find anything substantial. He spends 6 paragraphs on the first "page" explaining how cool (and "weird") it would be to attach adaptive intelligence to our workflow. (His example is, what if the computer knew when NOT to bother you with email?)

He then goes on for another 5 paragraphs just to tell us that Evil Corporations(TM) could misuse the data about our personal preferences against us. (Shocker, isn't it?) So we might as well forget the whole idea, because the Bad Guys(TM) have it in for us.

*Sigh*

I suppose I could plug my own Linux Desktop Distribution of the Future article to fill space and provide something substantive, but then I'd be accused of shameless self-promotion. So instead, I'm going to bed. 'Night all! :)

Re:It's been done (sort of)

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think Quicksilver does a pretty good job of learning. It doesn't rule anything out but allows you to get to programs, address book entries and some data files with fewer keystrokes. I like how I can type in a few characters of someone's name, it can figure out who that is and open address book to that person's address book profile once I press enter to confirm that's the right person. And if you don't like that idea, it's completely optional, you don't install it.

It's Called Emacs

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want the closest thing to an adaptable operating system, learn Emacs inside and out. With elisp only a buffer away, it doesn't take long to adapt it the way you want to work. No restart required!

And prior to Emacs there were Lisp Machines. From what I know, every function available on one was redefinable all the way to the hardware without needing a restart. Now that's adaptable!

And it was done in the early 1980s too. Microsoft should have stole from MIT and Symbolics instead of stealing from Apple. Come to think of it, Xerox's UI that Apple stole may have been done in Lisp. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Re:I think we'll see more specialized OSs

[andrel]

I agree we're going to see a lot more customized forks in the world of GNU/Linux, but I disagree that most of them are going to be full operating systems. Instead we're seeing a common core with customized faceplates on it. For example what the Ubuntu folks are doing with Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu/Edubuntu. Behind the scenes it is all one OS, but with different faceplates changing how it appears to the user. Debian are doing the same thing [debian.org].

^BumP

[TubeSteak]

Parent makes an excellent point.

You can find dozens of good (many bad) shells for Windows or *nix.

GUI != Operating System