I need a hero. I just don't have the resources to do this myself. I want The Ultimate Operating System. I want dynamically loaded, resident, shared libraries. I want multi-user support, and MVS security. I want POSIX compliance, a small, efficient kernel, and hot-pluggable modules. I'd be ecstatic if it all ran on a CHRP or at least PPC computer. I want an attractive window manager and GUI, with a system-wide standard drag-n-drop and clipboard mechanism. I want to be able to run X applications, even if X is not the native windowing system. I want memory protection and multi-tasking.
There are many operating systems that provide most of these items, some that provide almost none of them, but none that provide all of them.
A good friend and I, who often lament together about the complete lack of an OS that supports all of what should be the minimal requirements for a competative OS, is fond of saying that there are only two entities on this planet who have the resources to provide this mythical operating system: Sun, and Steve Jobbs. Unfortunately, I think we're all doomed to Doze in the Wind, because neither of these entities will ever provide us with our dreams.
Let me explain. First, we'll talk about Steve. Steve is a wonderful guy. You could say that he's been my hero for a while, but then you could also say that he's been my nemisis for a while, too. Steve is a very creative, dynamic, shake-things-up kind of guy. He's smart enough to pull It off, has enough money, and could really bring the project together. Steve Jobbs has class, a rich aesthetic sense, and good taste. Unfortunately, it looks as if Steve is now sleeping with the enemy, although this could be a clever ploy to bring Microsloth down from the inside, or seek ultimate revenge on a company that fired him so many years ago. More likely, he's just trying to keep Apple alive the only way he can think of: take advantage of MS' fear of being broken up on a Monopoly charge and force MS to keep Apple alive as its token competitor. Furthermore, experience with NeXTSTEP, which had the potential to be a real killer OS (killer as in market dominating), was terribly mismanaged, from and end-user point of view. Jobbs could have sold NS to the end user. Could have secured more applications for the platform. It wouldn't have been hard, but NS was decidedly anti-user, expensive, and was targeted at the wrong market. Jobbs completely ignored the home user, where he could have made a killing. Humans are creatures of habit, and the odds of Steve bringing a wonderful new OS into the world is now pretty slim.
So how about Sun? So much great technology has come out of the Sun labs, that one could expect them to be capable of producing a really drop-dead gorgeous OS, right? They gave us Java, TCL/Tk, they're the only company really giving MS a hard time right now, and they have a certain amount of class, which is hard to say about monolithic companies the size of Sun. However, Sun also brought us Solaris, and is very entrenched in the OS. Solaris is inefficient, buggy, and has had the most hideous GUI of any OS, bar none, for the past decade. One would thing that Sun doesn't employ any graphic artists. CDE is a bloated whale of an interface, and OpenWindows looks as if it were designed for.. well, it doesn't look so much like it was designed for anybody, as much as it looks like it was designed by the software engineers that put the system together. Uuuuugly. It would appear that Sun has none of the Steve Jobbs artistic common sense.
So who is the shining knight? I doubt there will be one. My hopes for now rest in Linux; that it will grow, mature, and evolve a decent user interface that will bring the integration applications that made the Mac so successful, and that someone will create for Linux those few OS kernel aspects that it now lacks. BeOS is another hopeful, but most of the time I feel that the BeOS is focused on the designs patterns of the past, rather than those of the future. Single-user computers are passe, and the OS still crashes too much for me to believe there is any memory protection in there. But who knows. I give them my money to show my support; I hope they come through. Mostly, I hope fervently that I will not some day be forced to sit down and partake of the Body of Bill; I still have some shreds of self respect left.