:User:JohnPritchard/Web operating system
The term Web operating system has been used to describe a network application system for integrating web applications into a web based work space {{cite web
| url = http://www.youos.com/html/static/manifesto/what.html
| title = What the heck is a web operating system?
| author = youOS
}} {{ cite web
| url = http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.malaysia/browse_thread/thread/36b9497d0a66a191/12c717c6defb41d6?lnk=st&q=%22web+operating+system%22&rnum=5#12c717c6defb41d6
| title = Press release for the extinct 'myWebOS.com'
}}. These systems may be better described using the terms Web desktop or Webtop {{ cite web
| url = http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=178
| title = What is a WebOS?
| author = Richard MacManus
}}.
The term Web operating system has been used in a broader sense to refer to a Web universal space inclusive of countless numbers of heterogeneous services {{ cite web
| url = http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/benlamine97problems.html
| title = Problems Of Computing On The Web
| author = Slim Ben Lamine and John Plaice and Peter Kropf
}} {{ cite web
| url = http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/kropf99overview.html
| title = Overview Of The WOS Project
| author = Peter G. Kropf
}} {{ cite web
| url = http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/202697.html
| title = Running Scientific Computations In A Web Operating System Environment
| author = Ioana Banicescu and Herwig Unger
}} {{ cite web
| url = http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/508728.html
| title = Towards a Web Operating System
| author = Peter Kropf and John Plaice and Herwig Unger
}}.
The term Greater web operating system makes an all inclusive reference to the countless thousands of online Web services. Generally web services speak XML over HTTP, but in some contexts {{ cite web
| url = http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/fielding02principled.html
| title = Principled Design of the Modern Web Architecture
| author = Roy Fielding
}} may be simple HTTP without XML, for example in editing a server side document resource. In a more general sense the term Web operating system may be inclusive of the Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) that use these Web services as in the case of web service based webtops.
The term Web operating system is distinct from Internet Operating Systems in that it is independent of the Operating system as the software abstraction layer over computer hardware.
Culture
The term Web operating system may be recognized as suggestive of the effect that large numbers of live Web Service applications may be expected to have on the computing world. En masse they are a force promoting a general shift in all applications away from single user computer concepts out into the open space of the multiuser data network.
Research
The Web operating system may have a contribution to make to the computing world more profound than being the global Web universal space. Its REST architectural style is a good foundation for development with principles of Interaction {{cite web
| url = http://rest.blueoxen.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?RepresentationalStateProgramming
| title = Representational State Programming
| author = John Pritchard
}}. With good web in terms of the principles of REST and Interaction, applications become more correct, reliable, interesting and compelling as [http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/peter97why.html Interaction becomes more powerful than algorithms].