The ratio of hot air to righteous anger in this rant is too high. Concrete points Dziuba makes:<p>a) Chrome is only out for Windows<p>b) Web applications can be more resource intensive than desktop apps<p>Is there anyone reading Hacker News who wasn't aware of these points? With WebKit/V8/etc, Chrome essentially acts as the language runtime, so the software stack he draws doesn't even get any taller (once the browser releases for all OSes).
Let me list the ways that Chrome starts to encroach on the OS territory.<p>1. It has a fast Javascript VM, that converts Javascript into native code, cutting through lots of layers.<p>2. Each Javascript app (i.e a tab) runs in its own process, which the browser manages. So effectively Chrome <i>is</i> the OS layer as far as your JS apps is concerned.<p>3. The browser provides a nice control panel for managing those tasks and provides stats about its usage - again tradtionally what you wanted from an OS.<p>4. Chrome is not yet cross-platform, but we can expect it to be cross platform in due course. It is open source with a BSD license, so I am guessing lots of people have already started compiling it to every platform on earth. Expect unofficial distros soon.<p>5. Layering Chrome on top of a very stripped down Linux or BSD kernel, letting Chrome do all the GUI work is possible. Chrome does not need MFC, it is layered directly on top of a lower level graphics library (Win32). The calls Chrome needs could be done on top of BSD fairly easily. In fact, that is how Chrome (or Firefox for that matter) is really cross-platform - they come with their own widget sets (i.e MFC equivalent) rather than relying on the specific platform's widget set. Incidentally, Java does the exact same thing.<p>6. OEMs could come up with a 20-30 MB distribution of Chrome, with everything included (kernel, libraries, JS, Flash etc) and bundle it as a web top.<p>So, yes, Chrome <i>is</i> an alternative to traditional operating systems. The fact that it would include a stripped down BSD kernel doesn't count: from the application perspective Chrome <i>is</i> the OS.<p>Snark is all fine and dandy, but occasionally exercising the brain cells a little bit keeps them in good working order.
It's all in definitions. For a lot of people, the web is already their O/S, and they could easily do without windows/OSX/linux.<p>I think we will see more machines that go that way and just have a bare bones linux o/s with chrome/firefox on top of it.<p>Sure, desktop software will always be around, for techies and hardcore gamers, but for the average non-tech user, they don't really need desktop software, and webapps are more natural and useful for them. (Tons of advantages to them).<p>I think some people are underestimating just how much google can throw at chrome in terms of marketing. They already have a link on google.com, and there's a ton of other ways they can promote it.<p>I think "Windows killer" is unwarranted, but it'll most likely make windows even less relevant than it is now to most people.
The argument about percentage for use/knowledge of web-based office apps does not support the article.<p>To clarify, I'll put another app's name in the same percentage.<p>There was a time when 73% of Americans had never even heard of Youtube.<p>As long as more than 73% of Americans have heard of Youtube this statement is quite likely true.<p>While Youtube clearly had a wonderful growth curve, both are horribly useless statements. Just as the knowledge of Youtube was low until it became high, knowledge of Google Docs will be low until it becomes high. Or it could stay low forever. But the current percentage/growth rate doesn't actually mean anything.
I don't think that desktop apps are going anywhere -- but web apps are going to look a lot more like desktop apps very very soon.<p>I think it's safe to say that applications written in dynamic languages (like Javascript) that communicate with the Internet regularly are going to become more common. And a lot of these apps are going to run in something like Chrome or XULRunner.<p>A "desktop app" is a pretty simple distinction. You go to your "desktop" and load the app. From there, the app can read/write the file system, talk to the Internet, read the keyboard and mouse, communicate with special hardware devices, etc. Web apps are going to be very much like this very soon. And then there will be no difference between a web app and a desktop app.
This is not relevant. The layers are not really built on top of each other in that way. Windows is mostly just a collection of libraries which do important stuff. If you did not have this libraries, you'd have to write the libraries. So this is not a layer you can remove, it's an essential part of the application.<p>Things like the Java VM are a real layer, but things like MFC (which chrome does not use, it uses WTL) do not really slow things down or act as a real layer. They compile down to the same code as if you were to do this by yourself.<p>And anyways, what's the point? We should stop writing web apps?
I think I can understand the author's frustration. While it might be just definitions unless we are willing to divest the word operating systems of all its meaning, I think we need to be really sure that we need a web version of word.<p>I can see some kind of apps requiring to live "in the cloud" but I don't think desktop apps need to live there.
The once clear meaning of "operating system" has become vague with today's software stack, but that's a semantic debate.<p>The web is undeniably an application <i>platform</i> and in that capacity, it is improved significantly by Chrome.<p>The most successful web applications, social and communication apps, would likely have never existed on the desktop.<p>There is also a broad class of desktop apps that have no forseeable migration path to the web such as rich media editing (photo/audio/video/etc) and games.<p>Which apps will make the leap from desktop to web is a subject ripe for speculation, but it's not going to be <i>all</i> of them. Such hyperbolic revolutionary fantasies always go unfulfilled.
How about the multiple interrelated stacks that make up web app <i>development</i>? That's what's really scary. You've at least got a server OS with its own kernel, runtimes, HTTP server, database server, application server, web framework, HTTP, SQL, SSL, HMTL, CSS, JavaScript, the browser itself, jQuery or other client-side frameworks, web services, etc. etc. etc. ...<p>It's madness!
You know who also thought a web browser could become a replacement for the OS?<p>Microsoft.<p>So much so they freaked out and ruined netscape, tried to ruin Real Media, and tried to extend and extinquish Javascript and Java, and almost got their company broken up by the government they were so worried about it. And now its back, and looking like more of a threat than ever.