I just had an idea - this may be huge in the relatively near future
 

The Longhorn thread made me think about what you could do to make an OS for the future (not implying anything about Longhorn, I don't know the first thing about it).

Then it occured. Just like some internal networks, the OS (or OSs) of the future will probably not be distributed to individual computers at all. Rather the extreme bandwidth increases that happens all the time will allow the producer to sustain ONE copy from which computers who have bought (or subscribed) access can stream. Personal settings and files could be saved either on the network or on the individual station.

This has an incredible amount of benefits, and technology will soon make it viable for large-scale, commercial purposes. People could switch systems just like they check their various online e-mail accounts today. The system would always be up to speed on the latest updates, as the producer can just throw them into the main kernel from which all clients stream. Not to mention the fact that personal computers could be made even smaller and cheaper, depending on how far you want to stretch the network dependancy.

On the more technical side of things, I believe future OS front ends may also be based more on easy to understand scripting languages, so that everyone can build entire custom systems on top of the hard system that really makes the wheels turn around.

Sure - there are details to be worked out, but I see large potential in it.

Writing this gave me a host of other ideas, but I think this post is already silly enough, so I'll stop. :1orglaugh