Thread

Cloudflare OS: an open platform for agents, apps, and work

658 points · 326 comments · speckx

thehamkercat · 1785939135 · focus · HN ↗
Why are companies slapping "OS" in their product naming? it's stupid
1. NetOpWibby · 1785939803 · focus · HN ↗
  From the GitHub page:
  This is not a traditional computer operating system. We use the term "operating system" in two senses: - An operating system for the company to be productive with AI, in a way that is safe, so that the security team can sleep at night. - An operating system for AI workloads, analogous to the sense in which a traditional operating system manages compute workloads.
  1. alt227 · 1785944374 · focus · HN ↗
    It looks to me like they just wanted to distinguish their product from other AI agents/sandboxes, so they called it an OS to make it sound bigger and better.
  2. orphea · 1785946976 · focus · HN ↗
    It's awful naming if they have to explain it.
  3. brazukadev · 1785947252 · focus · HN ↗
    the people criticizing the vibecoded name knows what they meant, it is just not correct. It is the same as vegan meat.
    aziaziazi · 1785957106 · focus · HN ↗
    Excluding vegetables from what convey “meat” was also not correct around 1300-1500. Definitions changes with usage and only time will tell the future of vegan steaks, meats, milks, sauvages, butters and other parties.
    > food, nourishment, sustenance
    > Narrower sense of "flesh of warm-blooded animals killed and used as food" is attested from c. 1300
    <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/meat" rel="nofollow">https://www.etymonline.com/word/meat
  4. arandomhuman · 1785961880 · focus · HN ↗
    Wow this is really poor justification for its name, the folks at cloudflare really should not be overloading the term "Operating System" pointlessly like this.
    MattyRad · 1785978887 · focus · HN ↗
    They even put it in quotes, because they know what they did.
    Maybe just take out the word "traditional" and be honest: "This is not an operating system. We're redefining the term because it is convenient for marketing."
    lern_too_spel · 1786036810 · focus · HN ↗
    It is standard English writing style to quote words you are talking about.
2. Havoc · 1785939984 · focus · HN ↗
  Cause they’re trying to build an ecosystem
3. radlad · 1785940770 · focus · HN ↗
  I think because the idea of an "agent operating system" is starting to feel more and more inevitable. Since I can use AI to:
  - Pull information from external sources - Transform and/or augment that information - Publish information
  I almost do not need a traditional OS anymore. This obviously isn't entirely true: I still use it to interact directly with humans, and it's the way I access my LLM. For now.
  1. tkel · 1785943397 · focus · HN ↗
    Does your LLM have hardware drivers in it? this is silly.
    alt227 · 1785944873 · focus · HN ↗
    Agreed, its like OSes have become so invisible people have actually forgotten what they do.
    jryle70 · 1785953474 · focus · HN ↗
    But "virtual machine" is not? Maybe "Virtual OS" is more acceptable?
    arandomhuman · 1785961591 · focus · HN ↗
    This is really approaching peak AI psychosis
    radlad · 1785983547 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm obviously not saying that LLMs replace the glue between hardware and software. That would be absurd.
    An operating system is just the interface a user has to the programs they run on their computer. Surely you can imagine a world where you boot into a ChatGPT-like interface instead of the desktop OS you are familiar with?
    Different computing paradigms already exist: mobile OS sure, but also ChromeOS... heck, install Arch Linux and you're dropped into a shell by default - not a GUI. How is this so different?
    And it doesn't even have to replace your existing OS to be your operating system: If you purchase a cloud VM (say from AWS or DigitalOcean), you're likely running an operating system on top of another operating system already.
    alt227 · 1786013112 · focus · HN ↗
    You seem to have a wrong definition of operating system in your head. The definition of Operating System is "The main software that manages a computer's hardware and software."
    An operating system is definitely not "just the interface a user has to the programs they run on their computer."
    > If you purchase a cloud VM...
    Then the operating system there is the link between the interface you are accessing and the underlying hardware on the physical server.
    An operating system is not just something that opens apps, it is the thing that lets you type, use a mouse, and see things on a screen. LLMs cannot do any of that, they are an app which runs on an OS.
    radlad · 1786026596 · focus · HN ↗
    "The definition"? Whose? There are many definitions of "operating system" and I think it may be you who has it wrong: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system#Definition_and_purpose" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system#Definition_an...
    Having a kernel, drivers, or firmware does not disqualify an operating system focused on LLM-usage from being an "agent operating system."
    Do you agree that Android is an OS, or would you say that the OS is Linux and Android is simply a distribution? Is the operating system "Windows 11" or is it Windows NT kernel? Is UEFI an OS? ChromeOS? Language isn't always black-and-white.
    You seemed to miss the cloud computing point: are you running one OS, or two? Does one OS running on top of another OS with virtualized hardware count? If yes, then why do you think an agent OS is incompatible with a traditional OS?
    > An operating system is not just something that opens apps, it is the thing that lets you type, use a mouse, and see things on a screen. LLMs cannot do any of that, they are an app which runs on an OS.
    An OS is all of these things. I never once claimed that an agent operating system would have a kernel which "is" an LLM. This is an absurd interpretation.
    alt227 · 1786037975 · focus · HN ↗
    No, I disagree with everything you are saying here. You have a very misguided opinion of what an OS is.
    You linked the wikipedia page which clearly says OSes are defined by managing resources and have an always running kernel. LLMs do not meet either of these points.
    > You seemed to miss the cloud computing point
    You seem to misunderstand how VMs work. They are not OSes running on top of OSes, they are multiple OSes sharing the same hardware resources simultaneously side by side.
    You also seem to keep avoiding the fact you wrote:
    > it's the way I access my LLM. For now.
    Inferring that you think soon LLMs will either not need operating systems, or will become them. This is not true at all. LLMs will never boot your hardware into a prompt. The OS will do that and hand off to the LLM. This is the main reason you are getting backlash and being downvoted.
    radlad · 1786043940 · focus · HN ↗
    Are we reading the same Wikipedia page?
    > An operating system is difficult to define,[7] but has been called "the layer of software that manages a computer's resources for its users and their applications".[8] Operating systems include the software that is always running, called a kernel—but can include other software as well.[7][9] The two other types of programs that can run on a computer are system programs—which are associated with the operating system, but may not be part of the kernel—and applications—all other software.[9]
    > You seem to misunderstand how VMs work. They are not OSes running on top of OSes, they are multiple OSes sharing the same hardware resources simultaneously side by side.
    This is not true. KVM is built-in to the host kernel. Maybe you're referring only to Xen VMs?
    > Inferring that you think soon LLMs will either not need operating systems, or will become them.
    You removed the key point of context:
    > I almost do not need a traditional OS anymore. [...] it's the way I access my LLM. For now.
    I believe we will move to something that resembles microkernels and/or thin clients.
  2. EasyMark · 1785946556 · focus · HN ↗
    smells like lock-in to me.
    radlad · 1785983507 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm not advocating for this model. But I'm also not sure it has any more lock-in than choosing an OS today: Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, iOS.
  3. [deleted] · 1785946961 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
  4. arandomhuman · 1785948752 · focus · HN ↗
    You need a "traditional" operating system to even run your LLM, or do you have your own custom collection of drivers you flash your machine with? :p
    radlad · 1785983355 · focus · HN ↗
    I already mentioned this:
    > This obviously isn't entirely true: [...] it's the way I access my LLM.
    It doesn't change my opinion that there's a very real possibility that we move to thin clients or microkernels intended primarily to run chat interfaces (or some other UI that organizes LLM sessions and their outputs) either locally on the hardware, or against cloud computing environments. An operating system is just the interface a user has with their computer.
    More to the point - it is possible to run an operating system on top of another operating system: this is what VMs are. I'm obviously not claiming that LLMs replace the glue between hardware and software(?!)
  5. thehamkercat · 1785958703 · focus · HN ↗
    > I almost do not need a traditional OS anymore.
    You sure about that?
    [deleted] · 1785983473 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
4. mrcwinn · 1785941597 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
  1. thomastjeffery · 1785942470 · focus · HN ↗
    I disagree. Harness is a pretty great word, and it doesn't already have another familiar meaning.
5. shostack · 1785941963 · focus · HN ↗
  Because AI enables a new layer more akin to an actual OS. But also because I imagine they all want all the things running through them and an OS is the widest net they can cast in that direction.
6. orsorna · 1785943341 · focus · HN ↗
  Same reason why grifters adopted web3 when Web 3.0 was already an established term.
7. ikania2026 · 1785943480 · focus · HN ↗
  i too clicked the link by this exactly 2 characters, "OS" should NOT be used in this way.
8. bearjaws · 1785943889 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
9. ignoramous · 1785944004 · focus · HN ↗
  Andy Jassy et al didn't quite name it that, but AWS was being thought of internally as "Internet OS".
  1. lern_too_spel · 1786037173 · focus · HN ↗
    AWS as an OS also makes sense to me. An OS abstracts the underlying hardware, so the user doesn't have to worry about other users of that hardware if they don't want to and restrict interaction with other user programs in ways that protect those other programs. This is different from OS-less embedded programming, which does have device driver libraries but does not have an OS. People here seem to have a completely wrong idea of what an OS is and are really adamant about it.
10. 1bpp · 1785946021 · focus · HN ↗
  Because it sounds impressive to clueless people ($).
11. dwroberts · 1785946954 · focus · HN ↗
  I agree, it has now become a cliche buzzword that product managers slap on boring non-technical things to make them sound important.
  Isn’t there even a bug tracker that some company calls an ‘issue OS’ or something absurd?
12. kentonv · 1785951972 · focus · HN ↗
  Mostly to get trolls to retweet and complain about it for free advertising. It's working. ;)
  1. ncr100 · 1786034911 · focus · HN ↗
    Is this a public-relations policy at Cloudflare?
13. sixdimensional · 1786024295 · focus · HN ↗
  You're missing the subtle marketecture trick here they are doing..
  Non-technical people don't always think of an OS as the computer OS. To them, sometimes it means more like standard operating procedure or process - a standard way of doing things.
  Secondly, for tech products, calling yourself an OS, you are associating yourself with things like Windows, Mac or Linux. You are indirectly trying to grandstand and position yourself as meaningful enough to be an "OS" when clearly, that is far from what an app layer + AI/LLM on top of a real OS is.
  The biggest giveaway is this, and I'm exposing it right here -from a technical perspective, what operating system computer technology was built from scratch from first principles around AI/LLM?
  Someone wants to be the first company to get huge sums of money/funding to be that startup/project, so that is also a positioning tactic.
  The issue is of course, most people are standing on the shoulders of giants at this point... and OS has this conflicted meaning with nontechnical users also about work process vs the software that runs my computer.
  1. fl4regun · 1786027317 · focus · HN ↗
    >you are associating yourself with things like Windows, Mac or Linux
    But this is nothing like those things.
    sixdimensional · 1786034785 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes - I agree - that is what I am trying to say in fact. But the association gets made because of the naming.
    The only dictionary definition of "operating system" I see is like the technical one on Wikipedia [1], which IS more like Windows, Mac or Linux.. not like an app or platform.
    From my concise Oxford English Dictionary, for example.. "operating system, n. the low-level software that supports a computer's basic functions".
    Like, would it be better if it was just called the "Cloudflare App"? Or the "Cloudflare App Platform"? or the "Cloudflare Platform App"?
    Those aren't clear winners either, they could easily be confused for product offerings or other things.
    They could name it, like, "Cloudflare Rocket" (random product name) or "Cloudflare Jane" (e.g. personality) and then say, "this is the desktop app for Cloudflare Jane, which is a platform where we put all these tools and capabilities that combine with agentic powers".. but then it wouldn't have the marketing flair either.
    [1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system
  2. kentonv · 1786031871 · focus · HN ↗
    You are reading WAY too much into it.
    We aren't that clever about naming at Cloudflare.
    Do you know how we named Wrangler, our local dev tool for Workers?
    Literally, the person that created it said: "I named this Wrangler because I wanted to give it a name so dumb that we definitely won't release it under that name and will come up with something better."
    We didn't come up with something better later.
    Honestly Cloudflare OS is kinda same thing. We brainstormed names last week trying to come up with something better but nobody could agree on anything so it just went out as Cloudflare OS, which is what we'd been calling it internally for no particularly good reason.
    sixdimensional · 1786034095 · focus · HN ↗
    Ah, my friend, I'm talking about the broader trend of people adding "OS" to the end of everything, not just Cloudflare. My apologies, I was not singling out Cloudflare here, but I see why you thought that! Cloudflare is very "on trend" I would say by using "OS", however.
    FWIW, I am a sociotechnical specialist so I watch these things carefully.
    Actually, I think Cloudflare OS quite possibly a good name for this case - especially with some of the history of coming from Sandstorm and what Sandstorm was trying to do for users. I super appreciate the background you shared about what you were doing here (and the secret master plan), and it makes complete sense to me actually.
    I am also very sure of what I am saying about so many other things popping up with the "OS" tagged on - from both technical and non-technical use cases/companies.
    I also appreciate your honesty about cleverness - LOL.. two hard things right? :)
    Just as one example though of the larger trend I am watching, look at the launches on ProductHunt that have OS in the name (some are old, of course, but even in the last few weeks I've seen about 5 new things in this vein) [1].
    I think this is a case of the hive mind actually coalescing around an idea (and even I was having the same idea), and I am not sure yet what the result will be, but my strong suspicion is some sort of new real operating system (potentially built with current OS foundations) that is built from AI-first principles, and a lot of other people trying to make it seem like their app is an "OS", either because they are using a nontechnical definition (or trying to piggyback on a technical one).
    [1] <a href="https://www.producthunt.com/search/launches?q=OS" rel="nofollow">https://www.producthunt.com/search/launches?q=OS
    sixdimensional · 1786035688 · focus · HN ↗
    P.S. And maybe not clever about naming at Cloudflare, but I'd say with high certainty, quite clever about technology!
    Thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment, I appreciate all you do!
14. pizzafeelsright · 1786038361 · focus · HN ↗
  People do not use an 'OS' anymore. Anything internet is a hundred pieces of hardware over 1000 kilometers apart providing an interface to an application with a KVM (for now)
15. clhodapp · 1786072139 · focus · HN ↗
  [delayed]
16. neop1x · 1786109794 · focus · HN ↗
  It's such a bad decision. It just creates more confusion.

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