January 31, 2008 - The software industry is currently experiencing a major disruption. In the past few years, the World Wide Web has become the de facto deployment environment for new software systems and applications. Software applications that were previously targeted to specific operating systems, CPU architectures or devices, are now written for the Web, to be used from web browsers from all over the world.

Web applications have major benefits. In particular, they require no installation or manual upgrades, and they can be deployed and shared instantly worldwide. This "instant gratification" aspect will dramatically change the way people develop, deploy and use software. Ultimately, this will cause a paradigm shift in the software industry — in the same fashion as the Web has already transformed the sharing and distribution of documents, books, photos, music, videos and so many other artifacts. The long-term implications of this paradigm shift will be at least as significant as the dramatic transformations that are currently taking place in the entertainment and publishing industries.

In this paper Sun Labs researchers Antero Taivalsaari, Tommi Mikkonen, Dan Ingalls and Krzysztof Palacz investigate the use of the web browser as an application platform. As a concrete example, they use the Sun™ Labs Lively Kernel: an exceptionally interactive application development environment that runs in a regular web browser without any installation or plug-in components. The Lively Kernel system presents web pages as interactive "worlds" of live objects that can be manipulated directly. These worlds may include various types of objects, ranging from simple widgets — such as stock tickers or weather maps — to full-fledged desktop-style applications such as games or productivity applications. The system even includes interactive development tools that can be used for inspecting and modifying the system and the applications on the fly.

The Lively Kernel running in the Safari web browser

Based on their work on the Lively Kernel, Taivalsaari, Mikkonen, Ingalls and Palacz summarize their experiences in using the web browser as an application platform, and provide recommendations for future improvements.

Related Links:

• Contrarian Minds: Dan Ingalls - The Lively Kernel
• Project page: Sun Labs Lively Kernel