How much of one's work day can be handled by browser based software. Can we get it to 100% ?

[Oren Beck]

I wonder if the  path of moving everything to a server except for a
local terminal browser is practical? As in having all the applications
be web browser accessible which makes geographical location
functionally irrelevant. All that matters is a net link from the Linux
based browser to the server/s. Most of the hassles of local user
support go away. Yes- we could argue about Dumb Terminals reincarnated
or perhaps just examine the server concepts. The reason for my
mentioning this comes from an observation on hardware already out in
the wild. We have a deluge of computers being replaced largely because
of gaming and bloatware. Arguing about the elements of a distro suited
to lightly load hardware have been beaten beyond dead. The concept of
what older hardware could serve as servers- pun potential eh? is the
new question.  I see it as we take that 2ghz 2gig ram "last year's
model" and stuff several 500 gb drives in it  for a family or small
office server. Then the users take whatever suits their fancy for a
terminal-from the 7K alienware gaming laptop down to a $5 from surplus
exchange T30 thinterm. Thus whatever disaster befalls their "local
hardware" the data is safely replicated on their server's drives and
perhaps mirrored elsewhere. For a reason. It's how we can make the
typical users have a bit more assurance that their sweated over data
is safer than other ways we've been doing this. As  reassuring users
that their "world" is safer being distributed so to speak gets easier
if it's true...  The Long term path I see is colo's having a farm of
replicant application web servers to mirror local servers.. With
enough hot replication that the user's sessions etc are "safer" for
it.



-- 
Oren Beck

816.729.3645