Rewrite the OS, Change the World | Hacker News Reader

Rewrite the OS, Change the World

medium.com

22 pointscindywu1237 comments

Is it just me or is there a trend these days to announce big 'lets-change-the-world-by-<some revolutionary scheme or other>' and then do pretty much more of the same ol' thing everyone is trying to do ? I mean, yeah, there are innovative 'world-changing-quantum-leap-moments' that have happened in history but even those happened ...ehe.. ^grew organically^ ..for lack of a better phrase, or in other words, happened when it was the right time for them to happen. Big leaps of development seldom occur by just announcing plans and throwing a bunch of money to the problem. They take time and incremental steps. The tone of this article is just annoying and offensive since it presumes nobody else sees the problems or wants to change the mess we are in, or even if they do, the only reason they are holding back is due to lack of funds or risks in 'long-term plays'. This directly conflicts everything that the articles starts off with and does a disservice to any one who is involved with solving large problems right now.

This is just confused. He appears, perhaps, to be using "OS" as a metaphor for "basic conceptual approaches" or maybe for "common assumptions and attitudes" -- but if that is the case it is just impossible to imagine what kind of "breakthrough" he hopes to get. Or, if it is talking about actual OS's, which one(s)? Does he even realize there are different OS's in phones, in laptops, in embedded systems? What kind of "breakthrough" does he imagine would change all of them?

The writing in this leads me to believe that this person knows very little about how operating systems work, or what they even are.

I was excited at the start. But then I couldn't figure out where this article was going because it started talking about us going to space and polio.My take on the headline is that I don't believe the OS needs to be rewritten;I think that GUI's and user experience on Linux needs to be redefined.I know we can do better so why don't we do better.

I got excited because I thought I could get paid for writing new crazy computer operating systems. But after reading the article, I was just confused...until I found this snappy headline on some news site:

"Bryan Johnson, founder of Braintree Inc., has launched a $100 million venture fund to pursue groundbreaking ideas"

  > The OS Fund invests

What now? Are they funding or investing?

Investing. From (http://osfund.co/working-with-us):

  > How We Invest
  > 
  > We seek to partner with future-literate entrepreneurs who understand our
  > unique time and place in history, and whose overriding ambition in life is to
  > author a better future for humanity.
  > 
  > We primarily invest in companies during the earlier stages of their
  > existence. However, we are most interested in businesses that *have a working
  > (or near) product and a clear path to commercialization*.
  >

...aaand like I said in another comment here, pretty much more of the same ol' thing.

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