run on a wide variety of hardware - desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, watches
Curious if he means can run on different devices or an installation spans multiple devices. I'm interested in considering the operating system as a control plane for many devices. Additionally multi-user support for sharing hardware.
In the Beginning was the Command Line -- Neal Stephenson
Current operating systems are managed in animperativeway.
Mozilla announced it will no longer produce Firefox OS smartphones. This is a drag. Android and iOS need more competition.
Today, we’re announcing the end of Chrome’s support for Windows XP, as well as Windows Vista, and Mac OS X 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8, since these platforms are no longer actively supported by Microsoft and Apple. Starting April 2016, Chrome will continue to function on these platforms but will no longer receive updates and security fixes.
Google announcement from 10 Nov 2015.
Estimate of operating system usage.
Microsoft security updates for Windows Vista are scheduled to continue until 11 April, 2017.
Mozilla's Firefox OS is just the latest in a long list of mobile operating systems that have struggled to get the attention of consumers, who have typically shied away from upstarts often characterized by a weak selection of apps available. That hard-luck list includes Microsoft's Windows Phone, Samsung's Tizen, Jolla's Sailfish OS, Canonical's Ubuntu, Hewlett-Packard's WebOS and BlackBerry's BlackBerry OS.
"We are definitely working with a good number of partners who desire a non-Android OS to power their mobile devices," Acadine founder and Chief Executive Li Gong told CNET. He declined to detail discussions but said, "We are now the frontrunner in terms of choice in this space."
Hong Kong-based startup Acadine Technologies may take over development of Firefox OS, as H5OS.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Google will be merging Chrome OS into Android, to be released sometime in 2017. Chrome OS runs on netbooks and provides most of its applications through the Web browser. As a result, it is a very secure system -- unlike Android, which has been quite vulnerable. Chrome OS will continue to exist as open source software, but Google will focus on extending Android to run on laptops.
In all cases, one standard is clear: Each of these vendors is betting very heavily on HTML5-based applications as well as methods to make HTML5 compatibility the basis for their future. Whether made from Java or other language frameworks, HTML5 is the common thread that runs through each of these alternative mobile operating systems. Start with HTML5, and your applications’ portability is almost assured.
Is there any other reasonable bet than HTML5?! Especially in the smartdevice realm where there is a rich set of HTML5-family features already enabled it makes less and less sense to make native applications except for special edge-cases. And any smartdevice competitors cannot possibly compete against iOS and Android on their own unique native app development format-- so HTML5 would seem the only reasonable place to focus development of new apps. Where Ubuntu succeeds is compatibility with an already well established Linux ecosystem.