ACCESS Details the Next Version of NetFront

Perhaps just be patient and wait for the news? :P

T3 & T5 user

beersie - my skepticism is well founded. your naivete is annoying.

The time I pointed out the embarrassing mistake you and Surer made by thinking ACCESS was going to "port" the Palm OS to a markup language so it would run inside the browser?

Ummmmm... when did I ever say "ACCESS was going to "port" the Palm OS to a markup language so it would run inside the browser"? Links PLEASE. You need to get a clue, Beersy. I've suggested 2 ways for NetFront to be integrated with PalmOS: the easy way and the hard way. Try not to put words in my mouth, Hackborn-style. I might just turn around and shove them back down your throat. (Though I'm sure that with as much practice taking things deep as you've had over the years you probably wouldn't gag.)

TVoR

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Just click on the link that you yourself put at the bottom of every single one of your posts and start reading:

This NetFront-as-platform manifesto is probably the future of PalmOS revealed....

The NetFront browser-as-UI paradigm would be a pretty bold step....

Of course you're typically incoherent as the thread goes on, switching mid-sentence between describing parsed mark-up and scripting languages in one breath and compiled procedural code in the next, then back again as if they were one and the same:

Google's plug-ins show what can be done when one takes a step back and creatively thinks about UI issues. With new PalmOS apps being written to the Protein APIs, with robust multitasking being built into PalmLinux, with even the most casual of users now being comfortable with a browser interface, and with an always-on wireless connection likely being the centerpoint of all future mobile devices, having apps plug in to a browser-style "launcher" definitely seems both understandable and doable. Not necessarily my cup of tea, but I doubt PalmSource's UI Kiddies wouldn't have too much switching ideas from Rome to a browser paradigm.

Shall I continue? I could quote some of Surer's silliness, which you replied to with approbation, but I won't because Surer is bright enough not to parade his occasional brain farts in every post he makes here.

Gotta remind you of this part, though. Here's where, to your credit, you finally started to realize you were making absolutely no sense at all and began furiously back-pedaling to a different story: the browser is no longer generating the UI; instead it's just an app launcher, now:

imagine the BROWSER interface as app launcher + file manager, with a pop-up/drop-down list of ALL apps; customisable links (e.g. icons on a DIA) to frequently used apps (both Protein or 68K), email program, contacts, schedule, websites, folders, etc.

Using a browser as a launcher to local resources on the device is something that Nokia and Motorola have been doing for at least two years on phones the operators give away for free. Anything but "bold" and nothing to do with the Palm OS.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

Surer, yes, of course they could create something that would render within the confines of a browser window. We're not talking about the browser being a UI engine in the case of an applet, though. The Java applet UI is created by something called AWT (advanced windowing toolkit) which isn't part of the browser and is in no really interesting way integrated with the browser aside from sharing some screen real estate and a network resource. In fact, the browser actually subtracts functionality from the Applet: it limits Java's access to local system resources like the file system for example. What you need to understand is that the only way the applet runs in the browser is if the user has a JRE installed and if they have the JRE they don't need the browser to run the applet as a free-standing application. It's as if you tried to tell me you can take me to San Jose on your flying carpet and then when I call your bluff it turned out the carpet "flies" on the back of a flatbed truck. Yeah, it still gets me there, but for all the trouble I'd just as soon ride in the cab where there's air conditioning, thanks. And you still had to buy the truck to make your carpet fly anyway.

I'm sorry, I guess I shouldn't be so smug about this, but you know... I'm talking to VoR. From the standpoint of a non-programmer I guess it's not obvious that there is a fundamental difference between something like HTML and JavaScript on the one hand, which are based on parsing a document object model, and a GUI like the Palm OS on the other, which uses code compiled to machine language that directly draws to screen buffers and what not. There's really no way to subtly mix the two or cleverly convert from one to the other. You're either letting the browser create the UI from a document (HTML + JavaScript + DOM) or you're telling the browser to step aside and let the UI be created by pure code, something that browsers have no concept of--they can't read it or manipulate it.

So what I'm saying is that ACCESS can use the browser to do things like launch both browser and native applications (go back and refer to that diagram you dug up) and the Palm OS can be that native application framework. Or if ACCESS wants to have the browser do all the UI rendering, they will have to jettison the Palm OS and just create something from scratch that looks like it. The in-between thing you are thinking of is not practical and it wouldn't be interesting even if they achieved it.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

Beersy, I'd suggest you ask a few recently departed PalmSource engineers which scenario is The Truth. I suspect you'll be disappointed to learn it is:

2) NetFront-dominant.

NetFront as the core OS with PalmOS being called on like Java/PocketC/AppForge/SuperWaba to launch apps as needed.

Advantages:
- Simple - Access might even get away with just coding a StyleTap Platform-like emulator to run PalmOS apps
- Little danger of a Cobalt-style catastrophe in which the emperor is revealed to have no clothes (years after the OS was supposed to debut)
- Platform starts immediately with a HUGE app library ("over 20,000 apps")
- Developers can keep on using their familiar old tools
- Previous investment in NetFrontOS is not wasted
- Likely better control + security for operators with NetFrontOS compared to PalmOS 5. It may be possible to limit PalmOS apps to a "sandbox" to prevent any rogue behaviour.

Disadvantages:
- Slower speed when running PalmOS apps
- Inability to truly multitask with PalmOS apps
- Somewhat of a KludgeOS compared to what a ground up fresh integration of PalmOS and NetFront could be.

**************************************************************************

Put your money where your (mealy) mouth is, Beersy. Let's hear YOU go on record stating what you feel the future PalmOS will look like. Otherwise S T F U.

TVoR

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

I won't pretend to know whether NetFront or the PalmSource middleware will be the "dominant" API. The market will tell. But the two will be entirely different things with different languages, APIs, tools, and architectures. ACCESS already has an SDK for NetFront and from what I can see they'll build that out and gradually make their browser work as a UI rendering engine for applications using the APIs documented in that SDK. The PalmSource middleware will provide a way to run a different set of third party apps, whose GUI will be generated entirely by that middleware, not by NetFront.

NetFront on Palm OS has always been a Palm OS application. It uses Palm OS system calls to perform low level graphics operations and memory management, for example. I expect PalmSource's system to expose the same kinds of low level services for NetFront. This could also enable the browser to integrate with the PalmSource middleware in some interesting ways much like Palm Query Applications used to (remember those?). (Too tired to elaborate now, but I've written about it here before.) The browser will run inside a window created by the underlying system, not the other way around. And the developer who uses the NetFront SDK will probably not have to know much of anything about the Cobalt API because they will be working at a higher level, manipulating objects in the DOM with JavaScript and HTML--web development with some kind of local server running that enables you to run 3rd party NetFront apps even in offline mode.

None of the disadvantages you describe to a "NetFront dominant" platform are in any way logical conclusions of such dominance, Voice. Although it's possible that, as Marty has suggested, ACCESS will decide to start shipping only PACE so you'll have limited multi-tasking, that's not what ACCESS has said they're planning right now.

That's all I have time for right now.

David Beers
Pikesoft Mobile Computing
Software Everywhere blog
www.pikesoft.com/blog

> "...NetFront as the core OS with PalmOS being called on like Java/PocketC/AppForge/SuperWaba to launch apps as needed..."

NetFront is a *browser*, moron. It can't be a "core OS". :)

Like, duh.

Still, I won't be too hard on you. 50% of people are below average IQ. :)

------
"People who like M$ products tend to be insecure crowd-following newbies lacking in experience and imagination."

Hold a sec, I am no programmer and so pardon my questioning, but from the looks of EyeOS (the AJAX browser based operating system in current development), it would be possible to run PalmOS apps via a plugin type application within the NetFront Browser. Yes, I understand the current modus operandi in that a browser needs an OS to run on etcetera; but if Access has their own small footprint OS, does the work to rework the kernal to support a Linux-based one, and then turns their browser into a shell (see yahoo's mail plus beta, eyeOS, and a other AJAX offerings), then it could well be possible right?

mobileministrymagazine.com
antoinerjwright.com

I won't pretend to know whether NetFront or the PalmSource middleware will be the "dominant" API. The market will tell. But the two will be entirely different things with different languages, APIs, tools, and architectures. ACCESS already has an SDK for NetFront and from what I can see they'll build that out and gradually make their browser work as a UI rendering engine for applications using the APIs documented in that SDK. The PalmSource middleware will provide a way to run a different set of third party apps, whose GUI will be generated entirely by that middleware, not by NetFront.

Beersy, nice to hear you expand on what dumba$$es like Dr Opinion is too dull to understand and what Marty pretends to not understand (i.e. that we're talking about a NetFront PLATFORM, not the PalmOS NetFront browser). The combination OS I envision would be more akin to PalmOS running within StyleTap Platform on Windows Mobile (rather than a pseudo dual-boot computer with 2 OSes [NetFrontOS and PalmOS/PACE] switching rapidly to do screen writes when each became the "active" OS. (It would be interesting to find out if it would be even technically possible to rapidly cycle between 2 different OSes on the same device without the user noticing. Saved states in PalmOS might make this feasible...)

NetFront on Palm OS has always been a Palm OS application. It uses Palm OS system calls to perform low level graphics operations and memory management, for example. I expect PalmSource's system to expose the same kinds of low level services for NetFront. This could also enable the browser to integrate with the PalmSource middleware in some interesting ways much like Palm Query Applications used to (remember those?). (Too tired to elaborate now, but I've written about it here before.) The browser will run inside a window created by the underlying system, not the other way around. And the developer who uses the NetFront SDK will probably not have to know much of anything about the Cobalt API because they will be working at a higher level, manipulating objects in the DOM with JavaScript and HTML--web development with some kind of local server running that enables you to run 3rd party NetFront apps even in offline mode.

Interesting ideas - for reasons of better overall integration, it might make more sense for the future NetFrontOS to have NetFront (the browser) remain a PalmOS app.

None of the disadvantages you describe to a "NetFront dominant" platform are in any way logical conclusions of such dominance, Voice.

If a StyleTap-like framework was used to run PalmOS apps, I believe these disadvantages still apply:

- Slower speed when running PalmOS apps
- Inability to truly multitask with PalmOS apps
- Somewhat of a KludgeOS compared to what a ground up fresh integration of PalmOS and NetFront could be.

Although it's possible that, as Marty has suggested, ACCESS will decide to start shipping only PACE so you'll have limited multi-tasking, that's not what ACCESS has said they're planning right now.

That's all I have time for right now.

Marty slipped up when he admitted that Access is "dumbing down" the next-generation PalmOS. It's too bad, but that's probably the most practical option for Access. I don't consider PACE to have what we should be calling "multi-tasking". (We should reserve that term for OSes that can easily have several apps open + working at the same time.)

Interesting discussion so far - too bad certain dumba$$es seem intent on spoiling it.

TVoR

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Ok, last one before I meet my bed and rest:

So what you are saying David is basically that Access could simply leverage the PalmOS as to only being a browser and then resort to running PACE within the browser (a plugin if you will). And then when they deem that the PalmOS oldies have had enough, they pull the plug and are left with a Linux-backboned, browser-based OS, that just might everage AJAX-like functionality and none of the headache of the PACE layer and PalmOS oldies. In their position, I'd do it like this.

TVOR, I agree to some extent about the sysstem performance taking a hit. But I wonder if there will be any "native" Netfront apps that would step into play here (if you will a rerun but done more correctly of a brodge OS). If so, then Access could do this as you state, and still have made for enough dev time to allow for the needed dev to make a truely browser interacted OS.

Marty, in some ways I think this convo is a bit knawing at you because it would probably be here that you know more than what you can say. Personally speaking, I don't want you to say anything that would compromise your former employers. But I do have to wonder that if even you making a comment here and there on a topic like this that was closely related to your job function would be looked at on their side as something to make a case over. Don't let us here get you so riled up that court fees have you using a Visor or Clie. I'd rather you stick around to the end of that time when you can talk and hear what went right and wrong from what it is that you know.

Well, that's all for me. Us young folk need to be heading to bed. Some kinda rest Ima need to get if the threads are going to be this much fun when I get into work in the morning. Cheers and blessings to all.

mobileministrymagazine.com
antoinerjwright.com

Don't let us here get you so riled up that court fees have you using a Visor or Clie.

I'll get you for that one, Antoine...

;-O

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Marty says:
"The reason I pick on Skippy's confused sloppy statements is because it leads people like Twizza to write So what you are saying David is basically that Access could simply leverage the PalmOS as to only being a browser and then resort to running PACE within the browser (a plugin if you will).

and the answer to that is no. PACE doesn't run within the browser, it runs along side it. There has to be a window manager that can cope with both the PalmOS UI for windows and the browser's requirements for window rendering. It would be, roughly, like running firefox and IE at the same time on windows.

What PSRC has to supply to Access, then, is the underlying Linux kernel, plus that window manager plus glue. That plus either PACE or Cobalt plus Netfront makes NPL."

I see what you mean Marty. Thanks for that explaination.

Weirdly enough, looking at what you said and then what TVOR has been saying sounds like a similar conversation, just at two different development points. Tis interesting none the less. Thanks much to all.

mobileministrymagazine.com
antoinerjwright.com

http://members.fortunecity.com/wavjunky/swl-h/hapyenuf.wav

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

Imagine what Netfront could deliver to their licensees: A Linux-based browser running 30 000 apps right of the bat, completely isolated from the hardware. It would be similar to Opera mini, which runs on dumb phones with java-lite browsers. It would certainly make the Netfront browser-based UI more of a platform.

Surur

They said I only argued for the sake of arguing, but after an hour I convinced them they were wrong...

>>>Imagine what Netfront could deliver to their licensees: A Linux-based browser running 30 000 apps right of the bat, completely isolated from the hardware.

Surur, that statement is so nonsensical it makes my head hurt.

Browsers don't run aps. GUI aps can't be completely isolated from the hardware given the current state of the art in software design. Having a JVM inside a browser won't do a thing to magically cause 30000 aps written in other languages to run on the platform.

Your head isn't hurting because of the statement, Marty. It's because of the cumulative effect of all those biotchslappings you've received here over the past few months. You might want to see a neurologist and get an MRI to delineate the severity of your cortical atrophy.

Don't play dumb, Marty. (You were only playing dumb, right?) I assume Surur is referring to the Access/NetFront next-generation OS (not just NetFront the browser) being able to run PalmOS apps as well. While the apps might have to be run more like StyleTap than like Java, I think you understand what he's getting at. I love how you and Beersy keep trying to obfuscate while contributing precisely NOTHING.

Here's an idea. If you can say anything without having PalmSource's lawyers rip you a new one for breaking your NDA, can you come up with a few ways to run PalmOS apps within the framework of NetFront-as-platform? How long would it take to code a PalmOS emulator? I would expect it could be done in less than a year.

Don't be a hater, Marty. It's time you "let go" of your baggage. Let's all be friends. Gather 'round the Palminfcenter campfire and hold hands, Marty. Kumbayah! Marty's cryin' my Lord, Kumbayah...

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

>>>While TVoR sings his campfire songs...

re StyleTap:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8387#118584

How long would it take to code a PalmOS emulator? I would expect it could be done in less than a year.

You could do it if you had an OS to run the emulator in. Now where would ACCESS go to find an OS for their Palm OS emulator? Hmmmmm. Hmmmmm. Hmmmmm. I'm sure they're just like you, Missy, sitting around in the dirt scratching their heads trying to riddle that one out.

The 5 Stages of Beersy's Grief over the Death of PalmOS:

DENIAL

ANGER

BARGAINING

DEPRESSION

ACCEPTANCE

It's time for you to "let go" of PalmOS, Beersy. You need to move on to "Acceptance" and achieve closure with PalmOS. Don't worry. We're here for you, Buddy.

TVoR

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823

>>>can you come up with a few ways to run PalmOS apps within the framework of NetFront-as-platform?

Skippy, I'm glad you take Neils Bohr's admonishment (Never express yourself more clearly than you think) to heart, but I'd rather express myself more clearly than you seem capable of, if you don't mind.

Penicillin may save you yet, Marty. Tabes dorsalis must be a biotch to live with...

See my comments elsewhere about what "platform" means in this context. Given that explanation, I can think of three: 1) the current public plan of record: Cobalt on top of Linux with NetFront running along side it; 2) Ressurecting Tapwave's PalmOS on Linux or 3) giving up on Cobalt APIs and running PACE

1) Would have taken too long. And you KNOW Access has dumped Cobalt, Marty.
2) The porting of Linux to the Zodiac is not quite the same as running PalmOS on a Linux kernel, Marty...
3) As you know all too well, this is a done deal. Cobalt and its lepromatous APIs are DEAD.

>>>How long would it take to code a PalmOS emulator? I would expect it could be done in less than a year.

How long did it take Tapwave?

I think Flores said it took less than 8 months to bring Linux onto the Zodiac. Of course, Tapwave's codemonkeys were an order of magnitude more skilled than the (barely) warm bodies PalmSource had on its payroll... PalmSource should have hired every single Tapwave engineer and dumped some of the Sunnyvale flotsam when they had the chance.

------------------------
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.
------------------------

The Palm eCONomy = Communism™

The Great Palm Swindle: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=7864#108038

NetFrontLinux - the next major cellphone OS?: http://www.palminfocenter.com/comment_view.asp?ID=8060#111823