WebRes: Towards a Web Operating System

The success of the World Wide Web has broaden the way for general distributed computing using a large set of heterogeneous computers. Unfortunately the resources made available on the Web are almost information only and interaction between users is limited to a few special applications. A Web Operating System (WOS) 8] tries to provide solutions for this problem and generalizes the use of diierent resources on the Web. In this paper we solve the problem of resource presentation on the Web by developing resource sets that act as an interactive meeting point of users and (Internet) resources. Resources can range from abstract concepts such as CPU-power to physical resources such as printers. Multiple users can participate in a resource set and share their local resources through a graphical user interface similar to today's desktop environments.