tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13413537.post-43417746805795623812007-04-10T22:25:00.000-07:002007-04-10T22:35:17.415-07:00Back in the late 1990's, Oracle's Larry Ellison and others were championing the idea that the future of computing will revolve around remote networks, <a href="http://commonwealthclub.org/archive/96/96-03ellison-speech.html">network computers</a>, and the Internet. In essence, there won't be a need for local software, local Operating systems... basically, they were preaching the digital version of Ragnarok. Ellison et al were laughed off as chumps pushing for the return of the "dumb terminal." <br /><br />I guess Larry and crew will soon have the last laugh as Free Open Source software fully takes off and renders local OS obsolete. Technology is quite ironic sometimes. How yesterday's bad idea can become today's trend and back again. This dramatic arc connecting the "dumb terminal" days of IBM, 'Wintel's' ascendancy, and the rise of OS-neutral open source applications bear a similarity to <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=YtFtcp4mNzA">AT&T's life, death, and resurrection</a>. <a href="http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/firefox-os-why-my-hard-drive-software-are-obsolete.html">Click here</a> to get just a foretaste of tommorow's digital buffet of application choices.<br /><br />One possible twist, thanks to increasing flash memory sizes, completely portable USB devices with <a href="http://portableapps.com/">portable apps</a>.Dream Poolnoreply@blogger.com