[Oberon] And Not Through Eastern Windows Only . . .

[Soren Renner]

Let me run something up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes...

I announce... Thorn!

I was looking at Thomas Leonard's "Zero-Install" for Linux and wishing we had an equivalent in Bluebottle. Then I realized that we almost have it already. Doesn't RFS provide a remote filesystem that looks just like a local one? 

1. User "X" boots Bluebottle from CD.
2. If a DHCP connection to the Internet is made, the Thorn filesystem is automatically mounted via RFS.
3. Icons appear somewhere, each representing an "application": e.g. a raytracing demo.
4. User X clicks on the raytracing demo icon.
5. The system performs a scriped action: in this case, "Builder.Compile srBase.Mod srVoxel.Mod . . . ~
6. Since these files do not exist locally, they are read off the Thorn filesystem (RFS server) and compiled: the object code goes to RAM:
7. A second scripted action is performed: "srRender.go"
8. User X is baffled and alienated by an unfamiliar form of computer graphics,

All that has to be added to the release CD is code to mount Thorn via RFS and download the icons and scripts. That done, anyone can write an application or demo for Bluebottle and package it by moving the files to Thorn and adding an icon and a script. If Bluebottle apps were huge it might be worthwhile to have a local persistent cache for downloaded files.

"thorn" is a character representing the voiced th-sound in Old English. "Thorn" is short for "Thero-Inthtall".

sr