Internet as Generative Operating System
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In The Future of the Internet, Jonathan Zittrain shows how the Net and PC operating systems are generative by locating them at the waists of hourglasses:
See graphic at http://www.linuxjournal.com/files/linuxjournal.com/ufiles/hourglasses_med.jpg
Both make possible an endless variety of invention and innovation both above and below them. They are like a universal joint making the stuff above independent of the stuff below.
Yet being in the middle presents a conceptual problem Because Linux and the Net run on media and hardware, they seem to be dependent variables of those. They are higher up in "the stack", and therefore less infra than the stuff below them." (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/understanding-infrastructure)