GNOME Online Desktop: Achieving what was done over a decade ago?
Those who follow GNOME have probably read about the GNOME Online Desktop. After reading about this concept, I find myself very confused at what it is they’re actually trying to accomplish.
Take what is, at the time of writing, the second paragraph under the “Philosophy” section: Imagine an OS that keeps all its information online, so you can use a live CD as easily as a full installation. When you start up a newly-installed computer, or visit a friend’s house, your whole environment will be waiting for you, with no setup to redo. For the techies, think Stateless Linux Desktop; your files and settings are somewhere else.
Why do I need to imagine that sort of an operating system? I’ve had that for years now. It’s really quite simple: I have a system at my house running Solaris, connected to a broadband Internet connection. Using SSH, I can connect to it from virtually any other network-enabled computer. And over that secure connection I can run X-based applications quite well. All I need to bring with me is a USB key with an X server installed. Since most UNIX or UNIX-like systems, like Solaris, Linux and Mac OS X often already have an X server present, it’s really only a matter of using Xming on Windows.
Best of all, I get to use real desktop applications. I don’t have to bother with lousy JavaScript-based web apps, and I have full access to all of my data. Also very important, I have much more control over how my data is stored, copied and backed up. Yes, it’s a little bit more effort on my part, but I think it’s well worth it to know how my private files are being stored and used.
So I find it difficult to understand what exactly the GNOME developers here are trying to accomplish. Using my setup, it’s already possible to use the existing GNOME applications from other computers quite comfortably. We get the benefits of web apps, without what is often the poor quality they exhibit, and without having to worry about who else has access to our information.
Now is major turning point for the GNOME project. KDE 4.0 is coming soon. GNOME isn’t prepared. We may very well see a mass exodus of users from GNOME to KDE, just because KDE 4.0 will be so far ahead of GNOME. It’s doubtful that this GNOME Online Desktop idea will bring any benefit.
August 1st, 2007 at 11:55 am
I’m also wondering what the online desktop is all about. I think IMHO this is the wrong road to walk down for a future project.
It reinforces the storage of data on centralised servers but the internet is going to take on a distributed architecture.
Every one will have an IPV6 address which is accessible from anywhere and will run their own services and store their own data.