Web OS, ajaxWindows Launched

BigRedFed writes "Michael Robertson, of mp3.com fame, Linspire.com fame (or infamy depending on your view point) and more recently, ajax13.com has released another interesting piece of web software. ajaxWindows they are calling it and it's an almost full fledged web based OS that you can use to transport around your documents and mp3 collection to any device with an internet connection and a full web-browser."

Re:As Scotty once said ...

[omeomi]

From the site:

500 Servlet Exception java.io.FileNotFoundException: /usr/local/ajax13web/apps/windows/content/index.html (Too many open files) at java.io.FileInputStream.open(Native Method) at java.io.FileInputStream.(FileInputStream.java:106) at com.caucho.vfs.FilePath.openReadImpl(FilePath.java:403) at com.caucho.vfs.Path.writeToStream(Path.java:1079) at com.caucho.server.connection.AbstractResponseStream.sendFile(AbstractResponseStream.java:254) at com.caucho.servlets.FileServlet.service(FileServlet.java:340) at com.caucho.server.dispatch.ServletFilterChain.doFilter(ServletFilterChain.java:106) at com.caucho.server.webapp.WebAppFilterChain.doFilter(WebAppFilterChain.java:173) at com.caucho.server.dispatch.ServletInvocation.service(ServletInvocation.java:229) at com.caucho.server.http.HttpRequest.handleRequest(HttpRequest.java:274) at com.caucho.server.port.TcpConnection.run(TcpConnection.java:511) at com.caucho.util.ThreadPool.runTasks(ThreadPool.java:516) at com.caucho.util.ThreadPool.run(ThreadPool.java:442) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)

Huh...my operating system never does that...

Operating System

[ettlz]

So... um... where's the interrupt dispatcher at? Come to think of it, what about the IO handler or CPU scheduler?

Slashdotted.

[Dimentox]

He got slashdotted and now makes it seem like they planed the outage.

"Thank you for visiting ajaxwindows.com

ajaxWindows and the Ajax13 web site are temporarily down for planned
maintenance. We expect to be back up by 2:30pm, PDT on 9/10/07

Thanks for your interest, please visit our site again, soon."

"Windows" = aspirin

[christian.einfeldt]

That is the brilliance of Michael Robertson's strategy, and why he will win, again. Windows is far too generic a term, and Microsoft is vulnerable there, IMHO. That is probably why Microsoft paid Lindows to stop using a term that sounded like Windows. Microsoft new that it had chosen a name that is too generic. After all, a window is just the name for a frame. From Microsoft's home town newspaper [nwsource.com], the Seattle Times:

Microsoft has settled its trademark-infringement lawsuit against Lindows.com and will pay $20 million to the San Diego-based startup, bringing an unusual end to a case that made Lindows famous.

In the final analysis, getting sued by Microsoft might have been the best thing to happen to Lindows. The company has received vast amounts of free publicity from the lawsuit, positioning itself as David to Microsoft's Goliath. And now, David is embarrassingly richer, and Goliath is richly embarrassed.

And, to quote Michael Robertson [michaelrobertson.com] from TRA about the use of the term ajaxWindows:

"We may wake the giant, but we're ready."

Would you trust this man with your daughter?

[Moth Boy]

I checked out the MP3.com bankruptcy auction a few years back. The stuff they had in there was a mind-blowing waste of money. Tons of the best new equipment, hideously expensive (and ugly) interior decorating including an honest to god bordello for visiting musicians. In one of the oak-paneled developer conference rooms with 360-degree white boards and projectors and other gadgets galore, somebody had written the note: "Robertson + $$ = stupidity"

Re:The ultimate irony

[quantum bit]

There is a web browser inside the web browser!

That's what I thought at first until I tried actually clicking on it and it just popped open a new firefox window. Lame.

silly

[roman_mir]

when I selected the option to logout, I saw a confirmation dialog: do you want to continue? Yes. Cancel.
So I guessed that 'Yes' meant that I want to 'continue' loging out.

Anyway, for me in FF 1.5 the right click on the 'desktop' showed to menues at the same time: on the bottom there was this 'os' context menu and on the top there was FF context menu and I could only chose items in the FF context menu.

The windows are slow. The widgets did not execute (some error.) The 'console' didn't open (maybe for IE it will, I don't know.) What is the point of all of this?

Michael Robertson is a stealth revolutionary

[christian.einfeldt]

I completely agree with what you are saying, and I would take it one step further. IMHO, Michael Robertson is doing as much as Richard Stallman, Steve Weber, The Pirate Bay and maybe even Che Guevara to redefine the nature of property. Each of these four guys / entities has done something to help us envision or experience "intellectual property" in a radical new way.

Richard Stallman formalized the idea of "Free Software." Steve Weber gave Free Software a new name, calling it an "anti-rival" resource [wikipedia.org], meaning a resource that increases in supply as it is consumed. The Pirate Bay and Che Guevara both thumbed their nose at western notions of capital accumulation. Michael Roberston has commercialized the delivery of "anti-rival resources.

Of course, lots of people would say that I am nuts to compare these four guys. Che killed people. The Pirate Bay is regarded by many as organized international theft. Richard Stallman has never held a gun in his life, probably, and has a low opinion of combining Free Software with non-Free Software, which is the mainstay of Robertson's business. And Michael Robertson considers himself a gung-ho capitalist. Steve Weber is a political science professor at one of the premier universities in the world, he drives a sexy black Saab, and he is no enemy of free market capitalism. So of course there are huge differences between all of these guys.

But if you look carefully at their lives, I think you will see that each of these people has played a remarkable role in changing the way that we think of property. My point in comparing and contrasting them is to point out that Michael Robertson deserves respect for fundamentally re-imagining the role of "intellectual property", maybe even as much as Richard Stallman, but just in a more commercial way. And yet even Richard advocates selling "Free Software." In 15 years, Michael Robertson will be thought of as one of the stars of the Free Software revolution.

Finally, don't think of Michael Robertson as an intellectual slouch. He completely understands the theories of Steve Weber, Richard Stallman, and Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen. In fact, one of the things that impresses me most about Robertson is his ability to boil very complex ideas down into really simple, straightforward statements and businesses.