We assume that current operating systems for individual computers---such as UNIX, Windows95, Apple Macintosh---will have less significance in the future. Rather, we will use the open non-proprietary WebWindows, which is the operating environment of the Web built from the collection of current and emerging Web technologies [12]. WebServers will ``run WebWindows'' and so this environment can manage systems at all levels of granularity---from individual machines to the full Web metacomputer. We can illustrate the meaning of this concept with a typical productivity tool like Microsoft Word. Currently, one develops a separate version of Word for each machine---PC or Macintosh---and lament its unavailability for UNIX. In the future, one will develop a single product WebWord, which uses a suitable combination of client and server Web technology so that the machine dependence is isolated in Web servers and clients, and applications are architecture independent so that through a universal browser, they present the same interface on all machines.
Wojtek Furmanski, at NPAC, has illustrated the WebWindows vision with a set of CGI programs, WebTools that implement such universal tools for file management (create, delete, copy) and navigation---roughly equivalent to finder on the Macintosh or program manager on the PC; a sophisticated Webmail built on top of mh, the UNIX mail system; and HTML editor.
As shown in Table 3, we see that there will be a complete set of ``Webtop'' productivity tools supplanting and extending functionality of Word, Excel, Persuasion and similar tools. These will join capabilities indicated in Tables 1 and 2, and further applications to create a WebWindows environment that cannot be matched on any individual computer running conventional operating systems. WebWindows draws its power partly from the distributed computing simulation and information processing power---as recorded in Figure 4; more important is the creative energy of the ``Web software engineers'' (hackers) community interacting in the design and implementatio of WebWindows. Critical to success is open standards for interfaces and protocols---quality proprietary modules but with open interfaces are quite consistent with continued success of the Web. It is interesting to contrast the dynamic organization of the WebWindows development ``team'' with the more traditional static hierarchical structure used by IBM, Digital or Microsoft in the development of their major operating systems.