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What even is an OS now?

30 points by fratellobigio ago | 28 comments

Xirdus |next [-]

In my opinion, this post misses the forest for the trees. Yes, the model of an OS running various off-the-shelf apps for various tasks will soon become obsolete. But it's not the idea of the OS that's outdated - it's the idea of apps. Why would you ever want to ask an AI to make an app for you to complete some task, if you can instead ask the AI to complete the task directly? The future isn't a bunch of extremely personalized apps - the future is a single AI assistant doing all the work.

chroma_zone |next |previous [-]

> That makes a lot of sense in a world where we’re importing all our software from strangers. It makes less sense in the world we’re heading to, where most of the software we’re carving up fiefdoms for has the same provenance.

If I'm running software written by an LLM, even if I was the one who prompted the LLM, I would still want my OS to treat it as if written by a stranger.

I know he's not necessarily talking about relaxing security models here, but he's not being very specific about his vision otherwise.

cgio |root |parent |next [-]

I think OP may be onto something real, while you are definitely right if we translate concepts directly. But maybe the challenge, with current platforms included, is because we try to cram identities by reference. If a phone had its own identity, with which you transact as with any party then lots of the security concerns would dissolve. To tone down crankiness, I refer to identity in the technical sense, not personality etc. This doesn’t solve the challenge but it might point to a different foundation for a security model.

tptacek |root |parent |previous [-]

Nope. There has never been a "good" post written in this genre ("I'm leaving my last team, here's my new project") and I'm not going to waste interesting bits on my pro-forma transition post.

I didn't submit this! Happy to chat about it, but I feel like I was pretty clear in the post that I wasn't bidding for the front page.

zahlman |root |parent [-]

I think you got your comment replies mixed up? I don't see the relevance of this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49851040) to that (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49850998).

tptacek |root |parent [-]

Sorry, I'm responding to the (apt) complaint that there aren't a lot of details in the post. They're right, and I'm just adding why.

dist-epoch |next |previous [-]

Taking it at face value, it seems to me this will also collapse and get folded into the model.

Unclear what will be left next to it. It will just live on your phone and take care of everything. The apps will be markdown files describing what they do, probably compiled ahead of time for latency.

But the model will be in control, so what else is left to implement besides giving it bash, a compiler and a display?

I guess there is value in the year before that happens.

georgemcbay |next |previous [-]

I agree with the gist of how weird everything is going to get, and how we are living in a time where people haven't come close to internalizing the shift.

IMO even this AI phone is doomed in the long run.

One more step into the weirdness and people will just be working with AI to build their own bespoke phone with the specs sent over to a manufacturer that is "like PCBWay, but spits out whole devices".

pjm331 |next |previous [-]

Adult Roblox

tptacek |root |parent [-]

I love the idea that normal people building software to solve real problems in their life is, necessarily, a toy; the only real software is blessed by our sacred priesthood of PLT experts.

pjm331 |root |parent [-]

Didn’t mean any judgement just the metaphor that came to mind

Roblox is a game where you make the game. This sounds like an OS where you make the OS.

Probably could have spelled it out more, being too pithy perhaps

tptacek |root |parent [-]

No, you're fine, and I might be a little hair trigger; sorry about that.

PaulDavisThe1st |next |previous [-]

Why does this article have this title? I could see nothing in it at all that relates to the question posed by the title.

NoDodgeQuestion |next |previous [-]

>yet another startup nerd talking about “the future of programming” before announcing that I’ve joined, like, Sri Lanka’s answer to Uber or something.

not just startup nerd, he also make gas town and drunken rant

tildedave |root |parent [-]

steve yegge is not tptacek (thanks for cryptopals, tptacek!)

ameliaquining |root |parent [-]

You've misunderstood; the quoted line from the post is most likely subtweeting Steve Yegge (in particular https://steve-yegge.medium.com/why-i-left-google-to-join-gra...).

einpoklum |next |previous [-]

> Consider: what does computing look like in a world where many (maybe most) applications have an audience of just 1-2 people? How is software distributed? What does it run on?

The same. The slop apps remain just that. They may do something useful for you, but that's it. A bit like a branch in a repository.

tptacek |root |parent [-]

Have you thought carefully about this? What does it mean to call a piece of software that solves a real problem you have in your life "slop"?

okdiendiendjefn |next |previous [-]

What it has always been. Nothing has changed in this regard.

autoexec |root |parent |next [-]

I think operating systems have changed. They don't interact directly with hardware much anymore and computers are filled with SoCs all running systems of their own, sometimes with entire network stacks, communicating with devices and each other, collecting and processing data and that activity can be totally invisible to the operating system the user gets to work with.

tptacek |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Oh, ok. I guess computer science is finished, then. I should have known. It's not like there's any evidence that it's been blown wide open recently.

(The irony is that all the reading that's gone into our design is like, old CSAIL papers. Maybe it's true! Maybe everything we're doing is just crate-digging through old settled computer science. That would be on brand. I should find a way to work Athena into it. Maybe we'll use Zephyr for messaging.)

kristopolous |root |parent |next |previous [-]

I've heard very competent people claiming similar things. I think there's an abstraction I'm missing. I know they don't mean it literally

tptacek |root |parent [-]

I mean it literally.

msla |root |parent |previous [-]

This is by and for people who do not distinguish between the UI and the OS, like how "MSIE" is "The Internet" for them.

Zee2 |root |parent [-]

There could be some interesting actual OS design innovations for new permissions, access control, and sandboxing systems that are designed from the ground up for these "conjurable" experiences (or even OS components themself).

Finding some balance between access and safety for vibe-conjuring parts of the OS in a way that's still powerful but won't accidentally nuke or corrupt itself.

yjftsjthsd-h |root |parent [-]

I do think there's some interesting space to be explored in capability-based systems, but even then I think it would mostly end up looking similar to how existing systems are, just with one more element added

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t1234s |previous [-]

Kernel + Shell + Slop

einpoklum |root |parent [-]

Don't forget systemd :-\