Among the many reactions to my review of 10 online operating systems posted a couple of weeks ago, one sentiment was recurring: many people have claimed that the name WebOS is wrong. Many reasons were cited for this, but one that had appeared often was that applications such as Goowy, DesktopTwo, Orca, YouOS and others cannot be called operating systems simply because they don’t fall into that definition.

OK, first let’s check out what Wikipedia has to say on the definition of an operating system.

“An operating system (OS) is a computer program that manages the hardware and software resources of a computer.”

I can generally agree with this definition, and if you go by it, then none of the WebOSes I’ve mentioned in my roundup would deserve to be called operating systems.

However, I will argue that the above definition is not the only possible definition for an OS. For example (and as many readers pointed out in the comments), Windows or Linux, run in a virtual environment like Virtual PC, doesn’t control the hardware of your computer much more than Goowy does. But they are still operating systems, right? On the other hand, you could make an argument that BIOS is really the operating system that controls the hardware while Windows or Linux or OSX are just another layer on top of it. Generally, like with most things, defining an OS is not that easy.

Here are some more definitions, this time from Google’s definitions. As you can see, some of them aren’t even similar.

On the other hand, Wikipedia defines WebOS as specific concept pretty different from the applications I’ve considered to be WebOSes. However, What I call WebOS, Wikipedia calls Internet OS, which is semantically more or less the same. Now, hang on for Wikipedia’s definition of an Internet Operating System, because it’s really interesting.

“An Internet operating system may be defined as software containing sets of procedures and functions that provide the framework for the implementation and operation of high-level Internet-based applications in a uniform manner. When a web platform includes functions pertinent to Internet media including wireless cards and other devices as well as web pages, then the more general term of an Internet operating system becomes appropriate. ”

Basically, what Wikipedia is saying here is that if we’re moving to the web as a platform, the rules for defining an operating system will change.

This is exactly why I’ve called these applications Web Operating Systems (WebOS). The move to the web as a platform is, in my opinion, imminent. In this new environment, your computer, as it stands on your desk, is not unimportant, but the focus is no longer on it. The focus is on the web, the Internet. Your computer is a tool to get you online. Once you’re online, real work begins. So, if in this new environment you have an application that enables you to run many other applications, store files and customize its GUI, what do you call it? Let’s go through several possible options.

- Online application suite? Well, application suites, like Microsoft Office, are just a collection of mostly independent programs that happen to be in the same package. Personally, I don’t think that this is a good name for an application such as Goowy. Goowy also offers a common workspace for all the apps which can be personalized and many other things you won’t find in application suites.

- Online operating system, Internet operating system? - these are pretty much the same as a WebOS. You could search for nuances in meaning, however if you take three similar names like this, the one with the most easily pronounceable name will win. So, for sake of simplicity, let’s say they’re synonymous with WebOS.

- Webtop? Well, this would imply an online desktop. One definition for the word “desktop” is “The main workspace in a graphical user interface”. Desktop is a visual tool, a GUI to make it easier to manage stuff on your computer.

So, if you have a web application that is just a visual tool from which you can run other applications which are normally available and completely independent outside of this framework, then the name Webtop might suffice. Furthermore, if you view the web as a platform, and all the web apps as apps on this platform, then an application from which you run other apps could easily be called a webtop. However, what if an application runs only its own set of applications? Furthermore, since most webOS applications in some way mimic a desktop operating system, they have their own desktop space, their own GUI. What would this be - a desktop of a Webtop? This causes a fair amount of confusion.

The line is blurry here, but I’ll try to draw it anyway. I would say that an application such as Netvibes could easily be called a Webtop. It’s basically a visual way to organize shortcuts, pieces of information and small apps - widgets, if you will - in a web browser environment. It saves your settings, which is a very important part of the definition of both Webtop and a WebOS. All this goes for WebOS, however, a WebOS should take this a step further, giving programmers an API, a framework to create applications on. Basically, when a programmer sets out to write a program, he’s writing with in a platform with an OS in mind. He’s not just writing it to exist in nothing - he’s either writing an application for Linux, or Windows, or OSX, or BeOS, or any other operating system. So, it leads us to…

- WebOS. I have previously defined it as a virtual operating system that runs in your web browser. I still think this definition stands. I’ll just add that no webos is complete without an API, an environment for coders to create new applications for the WebOS.

Besides these technical arguments in favor of the name WebOS, there are practical arguments as well. It’s not by accident that big and established internet blogs and news sites like ZDnet, Kottke, or Read/Write Web have more or less embraced the name. It’s simple, and it explains to the layman pretty well what he/she can expect: something similar to an operating system, on the web. The WebOS field is very young at this point, and it’s hard to say what will it represent in a couple of years. But all these sites, me included, consciously make a prediction that, as they progress, most of these applications will include more and more features and traits of desktop operating systems, possibly including some new and completely different paradigms.

So, to sum up, until someone offers a better solution, I’ll stick to the term WebOS under the definition above. It might not be perfect, but it is in my opinion the best alternative.

*For this article I’d like to thank many commenters in the original WebOS roundup. Some of these comments were pure gold, go ahead and read them if you haven’t.