It seems like a waste not to have an OS that is based primarily on the Mozilla platform, after all, XUL is more than capable to act as the standard GUI as-is. I would suggest using FreeBSD for the kernel. I would also love to be a part of developing the shell. :)
I'm sure that others have opinions here, but to my mind the browser *is* an OS, with the application layer being AJAX patterned apps which can be run in online and offline state. So we're kind of already there.
All we need to do is tune the UI a little, but you can see bookmarks <-> shortcuts, history/cache/storage <-> file system, extensions <-> plugins/system helpers.
On Mar 16, 11:11 am, "Mike Beltzner" <beltz...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> I'm sure that others have opinions here, but to my mind the browser *is* an OS, with the application layer being AJAX patterned apps which can be run in online and offline state. So we're kind of already there.
> All we need to do is tune the UI a little, but you can see bookmarks <-> shortcuts, history/cache/storage <-> file system, extensions <-> plugins/system helpers.
> "The network is the computer," indeed!
> cheers, > mike
It's not an OS, but it is indeed a platform. Really it's middle-ware that is ported to a number of OS's. On each OS it is implemented differently, on top of or along side an existing native GUI, because there isn't a Mozilla desktop. The thing is that XUL beats the socks off of any other GUI (IMO), and it seems unfair for it not to have a dedicated OS where it is the native GUI instead of just mimicking the look n' feels of all these others. It wouldn't be a monumental task to create a desktop with XUL. It would first be a matter of tying in the things that are now currently borrowed from the native API, like find file dialogs. Then we'd need to make a Mozilla-based graphical shell. Doing what Gnome and KDE have done should not take nearly as much effort because most of the work is already done. XUL is already an incredibly powerful widget toolkit with all the works (widgets, locales, skinning, etc...) built into it already.
Oh, sorry, I think I misunderstood you Mike. Were you just saying that creating a shell would be even less work because the browser can already do most of what a shell can? In that case, yeah, I agree, the browser could be integrated with the shell the same way that Explorer is on Windows.
I don't see the advantage of being an OS as you describe it. Let the OSes deal with the pain of device drivers, memory allocation, filesystems, network interface layers and I/O. Let us work on improving the cross-platform layer that helps users get to their applications, online data, and friends, pushing the web forward.
On Mar 16, 4:24 pm, "Mike Beltzner" <beltz...@mozilla.com> wrote:
> I don't see the advantage of being an OS as you describe it. Let the OSes deal with the pain of device drivers, memory allocation, filesystems, network interface layers and I/O. Let us work on improving the cross-platform layer that helps users get to their applications, online data, and friends, pushing the web forward. > cheers, > mike
I'm not suggesting dealing with any of that pain. That's all handled by the kernel. I'm only suggesting competing with Gnome and KDE as graphical desktops, because the Mozilla platform already does almost all of what they do, and does it better. Currently we use familiar skinning to match the look n' feel of these desktops so that it *feels* native. Why shouldn't XUL *be* the native GUI? Furthermore, because XUL is already so incredibly good at mimicking its would-be competitors, that will be a huge reason for developers to use this desktop as their main developing environment (the GTK+ and Qt ports are dreadful). I think one of the main things stopping developers from using XUL is because it has a reputation, wrong as it may be, for being a memory hog, specifically because it [must] replicates a lot of functionality already present in the native API and already occupying memory (for good reason; relying on native widgets would be impractical, and extremely limiting, i.e. wxWidgets). That would not be an issue if Mozilla were the native API. In other words, one reason for a Mozilla OS would be to get rid of the needless overhead that another OS would add for running applications not built with Mozilla. And because it would simply be a better desktop in general I think. XUL makes beautiful interfaces.
There's also the advantage of being able to escape the GPL, and instead use the MPL which I very much prefer.
Symphony OS 2006-12 $9.99 http://On-Disk.com/product_info.php/products_id/192 "Unity, Beauty, Simplicity... Symphony OS is a GNU/Linux based operating system which uses it's own Mezzo desktop environment. ..."
Mezzo uses Gecko, at least, IIRC. I'm not sure about XUL, etc.
The SymphonyOS project has had financial and other challenges the last several months. Nevertheless, they did manage to get a release out last December.
I agree with Mike that we shouldn't get into dealing with drivers, filesystems, etc. But what if we took a linux distro like Knoppix that loads from a bootable CD (or Live CD), and modified it so that the only UI the user got after booting was Firefox. We would probably want to implement online profiles since there wouldn't be any storage, but it would be a cool way to quickly convert an old computer loaded with viruses and spyware into a secure and streamlined Web browsing machine. Maybe a labs project?
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Beltzner" <beltz...@mozilla.com> To: "emery denuccio" <emery.denuc...@gmail.com>, "dev.planning" <dev-plann...@lists.mozilla.org> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 5:24:21 PM (GMT-0800) America/Los_Angeles Subject: Re: Any plans for a Mozilla-based OS?
I don't see the advantage of being an OS as you describe it. Let the OSes deal with the pain of device drivers, memory allocation, filesystems, network interface layers and I/O. Let us work on improving the cross-platform layer that helps users get to their applications, online data, and friends, pushing the web forward.
