Part of that magic is the trust in the network computer. This could work very well for a corporate setting with thin clients working with a distributed cluster of network services where everything is owned by the corporation.
I'm not so sure that this model of trust works with the way computers have evolved since then.
Comparing the issues E.G. X11 has vs modern workarounds for direct user IO for games I also wonder how the security model and composition of file layers could negatively impact the experience.
Taking the ideas of Plan 9 as inspiration, the more realtime elements could be filtered in kernel and message passed to other processes via a single centralized security model. That might also include exposing shared memory via a memory mapped file, or possibly via a higher level message passing abstraction.
> Part of that magic is the trust in the network computer
All network connections are authenticated. Thanks to the way everything in Plan 9 is implemented using it in a network will be closer to how a VPN works: your "view" of the network will be of only trusted computers, and going to the outside world will go through a machine that can act as a firewall.
> That might also include exposing shared memory via a memory mapped file, or possibly via a higher level message passing abstraction.
Distributed shared memory needs quite a bit more than the simple "read" and "write" primitives that something like 9P provides. You basically need to replicate a low-level coherency protocol in software. Of course, expect it to be quite slow.
I'm not so sure that this model of trust works with the way computers have evolved since then.
Comparing the issues E.G. X11 has vs modern workarounds for direct user IO for games I also wonder how the security model and composition of file layers could negatively impact the experience.
Taking the ideas of Plan 9 as inspiration, the more realtime elements could be filtered in kernel and message passed to other processes via a single centralized security model. That might also include exposing shared memory via a memory mapped file, or possibly via a higher level message passing abstraction.