From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Oct 8 18:16:40 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from smtp03.primenet.com (smtp03.primenet.com [206.165.6.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1884B153C0 for ; Fri, 8 Oct 1999 18:16:37 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert@usr09.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp03.primenet.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id SAA26880; Fri, 8 Oct 1999 18:16:29 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr09.primenet.com(206.165.6.209) via SMTP by smtp03.primenet.com, id smtpdAAAjWaOt0; Fri Oct 8 18:16:19 1999 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr09.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id SAA02614; Fri, 8 Oct 1999 18:16:18 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199910090116.SAA02614@usr09.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Targeting the server: Not such a good idea? To: brett@lariat.org (Brett Glass) Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 01:16:18 +0000 (GMT) Cc: brett@peloton.runet.edu, tlambert@primenet.com, jcwells@u.washington.edu, chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.19991008154001.043f3220@localhost> from "Brett Glass" at Oct 8, 99 03:49:31 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > O'Reilly's remarks are also consistent with what I'm saying. In his > speech, he advocates the use of the Web browser *as* a desktop environment, > which is fine! (Netscape had the same idea long before Tim did, and the > concept scared Microsoft silly.) It'd certainly be better than Yet Another > X Window Manager. > > But what is that web-browser-cum-GUI-cum-desktop going to run on? (There has > to be an underlying OS, after all.) Why not let it be BSD? It might be > one good way for FreeBSD to invade the desktop without just mimicking what > Linux and GNOME are doing. IMO, and that of some other people, among them researchers at I.B.M. Almaden, X Windows is an albatross, which should probably be dumped, at least as the top level interface. The replacement for this would be a CORBA application, compatible with KOM (per KDE), or some similar technology. This would allow embedding of applications (including X servers) into diplay devices. This would also allow "application farms", where your desktop is somewhere on the Internet, and through an authentication method, and via transport level security (e.g. IPSEC/IKE or SSL), you would authenticate to get your desktop embedded at your current location (whether this be a terminal, a full computer, or just a PDA). In such a world, the platform in front of you (i.e. "the desktop") doesn't matter, it's the back end servers that matter. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message