Gruber: The OS Opportunity

I don't see how that is the case, since the main software supplier in the world today that is microsoft, is totally dependent on hardware manufacturers.

I don't see Intel, (ok easy example) or any other hardware manufacturer dying anytime soon. The only one who 'could' die are those whose job is only about assembling hardware components together. And even them have a role in the low end market that will be very hard to meet for a company aiming to handle the whole chain of assembly of a computer, software included.

It's easy to agree on the fact that software has a much more profound impact on people that hardware. It's why there is an UI in GUI. But to me this point is as moot as saying an engine manufacturer is useless because it doesn't do steering wheels.

It seems to be a fact (I dont have enough informations to be sure) that software economy is wealthier than hardware's. But i'd like facts about that first, because i see a whole lot of software companies dying too . And then even if it is true it doesn't mean we NEED hardware manufacturers to come and release a ton of more or less compatible software and trying to impose that on users the exact same way we are stuck with windows at the moment.

Software building is a field of expertise in itself. A company can convert itself, or invest a new field. But it certainly doesn't mean they should, or they gonna die if they dont ..

My summary : Basic and non credible argumentation from the original article. Takes a visionnary tone , but in my opinion this is everything but where we are headed at the moment.

I was born in 1990. The first computer that I could call my own was a custom built PC with Windows XP. This was in 2003.

I cannot express in words how sad that makes me. I've heard older programmers talk fondly about the BeOS, the classic MacOS, Amiga Workbench (IIRC), NeXtStep and even Win3.1. Even older programmers talk about computers built by Tandy and the BBC, and the legendary machines built by Atari and Commodore. I cannot help but feel that I've missed something. I salute Gruber for making the point I have been trying to make for a long time now.

I've grown up in a world where we have only two major families of operating systems[1]: Windows and UNIX. That makes me a sad panda :(

Even though I hate the flimsy machines Dell make, I would love to try out the DellOS, if they ever decide to build one.

[1] I'm only talking about the desktop space here.

(From your other post below)

I don't see Intel, (ok easy example) or any other hardware manufacturer dying anytime soon.

I don't think that, when the author said PC makers are "busy dying" that he meant that they're necessarily on a direct trajectory towards bankruptcy. I took it in the softer, more poetic sense that they're listless, apathetic, lacking in the proud vigor and vibrancy of their youth. This was captured best when he said this:

People today still love HP calculators made 30 or even 40 years ago. Has HP made anything this decade that anyone will remember fondly even five years from now?

I agree with you that hardware and software decoupling is a very good thing. I also do not see this as being mutually exclusive to what Gruber is suggesting. If Dell wanted to invest in being a player in user experience, there's no reason that they would have to tie their system software to their hardware.

The biggest flaw that I see in Gruber's article is that he might be overestimating consumers themselves. Sure, the computer industry is different from the days when you tried to sneakernet a 1-2-3 file to a friend's machine only to find that he was running Visicalc on CP/M. But will consumers accept this change without knowing what an open standard is, or a document format, or a portable runtime, or cross-compling, or virtual machines?

I'd guess not, given that I've talked to seasoned geeks who haven't yet fully internalized that things are different today. Consumers, recoiling from the fear of "incompatibility", all happily ran to one side of the boat in the 90s and nearly capsized it. Teaching them that diversity doesn't have to mean incompatibility seems like a daunting task.

Why from scratch? If you remove that seemingly pointless requirement then there's quite a few examples, starting with the Litl OS which is based on Ubuntu

Heck, there's plenty of good solid starting points. What about BSD? Linux? Android?

I was thinking about this the other day. There's a lot of opportunity in terms of other Operating Systems/Interfaces. Computers used to JUST be these beige boxes that sat under our desks. Actually at one point, it used to be huge mainframes. Now, computers are everywhere, and by computers I mean full fledged system specific GUIs tied to some piece of hardware. They're in our pocket, in our cars, on our desks, in our laps, on our tvs, in the cloud as servers, and probably other places I'm not naming. This is where I see other Operating Systems taking away Microsoft's dinner. Microsoft got us to the first billion, but I'm pretty sure someone else will get us to the first trillion. Now, that's pretty exciting.

As far as the desktop goes? Apple will have its market share, which is the high end computing market (they have ~90% of it that 10%) and windows will have the other 90%. You can make Ubuntu function/look exactly like windows/mac. The problem comes down to the OEMs. Will they support it? Will they make the strong push in marketing to get people to try it out? Your grandmother is not going to do sudo and apt-get commands. If an OEM made beautiful machines, that ran tight software/hardware integration running a customized version of Ubuntu, marketed the hell out of it, and offered the right amount of training like Apple does, it could possibly get off the ground. Even then, linux is a scary place for the average person and the apps just aren't there.

Honestly, I'm more bullish on other Operating Systems taking us from billions to trillions on devices that aren't beige boxes that sit under our desk.