Darwin at 200 and Linux at 20

On The Convergent Evolution of Desktop Operating Systems

This post is definitely not for the Creationists. I have learned my lesson: don't mention creationism in blogs, so I won't.

It is in fact an homage to Darwin on his forthcoming 200th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species comes in a week where for the first time it is shown conclusively that a group of Dung Beetles have switched from a dung to a millipede diet, heradling a start of a new species.

And so, with dung and new species in mind, we look to the future when Windows 7 is released and Linux will be 20.

This post is about things that look like other things but really are very different in origin and structure. For example dolphins and sharks look pretty similar ( grey, big, sleek, fast sea going creatures with fins) but under the hood neither are even fish; one has no bones at all and is covered in tiny teeth and the other is a mammal that breaths through lungs just like us.

Ok, so Bats and Swifts both have wings and can fly but admittedly few mistake Swifts for Bats and vice versa. The former is a mammal and the latter a direct 'reptilianish' descendant of the Dinosaurs. They occupy similar ecological niches but one takes the night shift and the other the day shift.

But, so too it is with Operating Systems. Desktop interfaces now look pretty similar to me. Is this an example of convergent evolution as the above biological phenomena are termed? Let's look closer at the OS phenotypes or GUIs as they are better known.

The GUI

In one single day I have experienced: Windows 7 beta and a bit more beta; the latest Mac OSx named after an endangered big animal (as usual) and the latest Linux Ubuntu named after a fantasy animal (as usual). Well what do you know?..they all sported snazzy docks, widgets, similar zeitgeist skins and.. guess what?. they all run the same applications...some newer netbooks are unashamed mashups of all three...

(By the way have you noticed it's getting tough nowadays to find a decent free open source application that does not run on all three traditional OSes)

...to all but the OS-taxonomist these GUI'd OSes look the much the same, act the same and do the same things.

However, from an evolutionary point of view they are very different creatures indeed. Does this matter?

Common Ancestors

OSx and Linux are direct descendants of an old beast, Unix, which inhabited an ecosystem defined by 'mainframes' and server-client networks. Unix itself seems to be have emerged spontaneously from A & AT labs in the late 60's (I can't admit it was 'created' or I'll be back to paragraph 1).

Windows 7 is however a direct descendant of the first Digital Operating Systems which were adapted to a new eco-sytem provided by the appearance of the first Microcomputers. Sudden radical and rapid code mutations occurred at this time, many betraying Unix-like features, which may have given rise to the following OSes which dominated the early Micro-period in the every late 70's:

MS DOS, Apple DOS (Apple II), CP/M, PC-DOS to name but a few; most are now extinct but one more than just survived. It was MS-DOS which was soon to acquire an odd looking but resilient GUI.

At first all of the early OSes were isolated by their interface with their users which was the infriendly command line.

Now think of the users as buyers or in biological terms, 'agents of selection and replication'. Then think of the emergence of the GUI: Mouse:Click:Pointer:Icon:Menu. It broke the barrier between the 'replicators' and the OS and suddenly evolution kicked in rapidly.

The OSes which replicated (sold) fastest would of course dominate less fecund rivals which would die out or find a distant niche to skulk un-oticed in.

We all know the story: Xerox and the mouse, Apple and the Mac, Windows and the bolt-on GUI, Unix and er..we'll get back to you..this X thing any good?

Anyway it's all settled now and we are in evlotionary terms living through the 'Late Gatesian Period'.

In the end Windows XP more or less defined the template 'skin' having benefited from unprecedentedly rapid replication. It is metaphorcally, grey, has fins, swims fast, and works(ish). For better or worse it has created its environment and so by definition is suited to it.

Others wanting to live in this niche will therefore have to look and do much the same. And as I observed earlier, so they do.

The OS does not matter any more?

Given the similarity of the user interface and the suite of applications that run on modern desktop OSes, who cares whether it is Linux or Mac or Windows when using Open Office 3, Skype or Google Earth? Does it matter any more?

Well yes it probably does. Windows 7 and upcoming Linux Ubuntu 'Jaunty Jackalope' may/will look and do the same stuff but they share only rudimentary bits of 'DNA'. This means as in the biological world that they have very different vulnerabilities to the free-riders, the parasitic worms, the viruses.

Natural Selection at work

Insects, acting as pollinators, were the vector for the dispersal and evolutionary success of flowering plants. In the same way, human selectors are the vector which has allowed grasses to come to dominate the planet's plant life in place of trees.

The proliferation of one desktop OS over another is too a result of our selection; we act as the vector for its dispersal and replication motivated by good marketing. But, and it's a big but, our reasons for choosing are irrelevant to other 'replicators' for whom this may be one big opportunity. The 'DNA' of an OS will reflect its origins so lets have a quick look.

UNIX

Unix and its offspring evolved in a multi-user network environment, full of threat and malfeasance. Thus Unix early on in its evolution if it were to survive would become hardened to these threats and ultimately pretty secure with a degree of 'natural' immunity.

Windows

Windows however emerged and evolved in personal computing niches populated by mini-computers. These machines once as isolated as Antarctica subsequently were networked and InterNetworked. This was akin to exposing the American aboriginal to Europe's bug-infested colonists.

Thus it comes as no surprise that without modern powerful anti-viral medicines, the native American Windows tribe would die very quickly and indeed does. It now costs as much to buy the anti-viral medicine from the likes of Norton as it does to buy the OS.

In the near future even if as seems likely desktop computers become indistinguishable from the outside (except in a trivial sense) they will remain very different under the skin and thus an 'extinction event' such as a meteorite strike or mass plague will affect them differently.

Predictions

The survival of the underlying host OS will be as always a function of their inherent robustness and ability to change rapidly to new threats. It follows that the only rational choice for users will be Open Source OSes since only here is the DNA descended from a robust ancestor and crucially open to inspection, modification and general rapid fixing.

Free, Open Source Applications will come to dominate thanks to the powerful free download 'vector'.

Companies like Apple, HP, Dell etc will become mere interface designers (Apple already are) they will simply choose the OS that is safest and easiest to modify.

Thanks Charles, good theory, hopefully it'll catch on.

PS. As a dyed-in-the-wool 'Penginista' disappointingly Darwin did not have a lot to say about Penguins apart from wondering how they got stuck where they were and being an ornithologist rather than an ontologist he wasted even less time wondering what purpose they served there.