Lately there's been a lot of talk about web operating systems. EyeOS is the one I hear about most often and it seems they managed to release version 1.0 a couple days ago (whatever that means). After reading their announcement and visiting their web site, I was left with one question lingering in my head; "Why?" The best answer I could find was in a video on their about page that shows the OS in action.

• You can take your life everywhere.
• You can share your files with friends.
• It's all free and open-source.
• They then show someone using the OS.

After watching the video, I then though, "But why?" Their are other players on the field, most notably Google with their rumored GoogleOS, then there's Goowy, Desktop Two, Xin, and YouOS. With all this activity, there must be some compelling arguments for working so hard on such a product. I just can't see them.

I think the work Firefox is doing that will let you take an online application and use it offline is much more useful. I'm able to use a system I'm familiar with and it takes the light-weight sharing aspect, which to me is the only benefit I really see. I mean how powerful can an OS really be when it's running in a web browser which runs on top of another OS? If my browser can do enough to simulate an entire operating system, then let's just cut out the middle-man and make online apps that can run on my browser. Oh wait, we already have that.

Don't get me wrong, these things are pretty cool. But only as a novelty. I don't see any usefulness here. In my tests of EyeOS I couldn't even press the delete button to remove an appointment - instead it defaulted to my browser's use of that key and took me back to my last page.

I remain open to input though. If anyone can convince me why this would be useful or make something in my life actually easier then let's hear it.