Re: [9fans] MS Research reinvents Inferno?

[David Leimbach <leimy2k@gmail.com>]

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On 12/13/05, Ronald G Minnich <rminnich@lanl.gov> wrote:
>
> LiteStar numnums wrote:
> > Let's see, first there was the Cyclone clone (Vault C), now there is a
> > Plan9-ish/EROS-ish kernel...
>
> I did read the report, and IIRC they do give inferno its due.
>
> These are not dumb guys, I think Jim Laros at least deserves a little
> respect. Sure, it's M$, but at least it's not another bolt-on to the
> linux kernel, right?
>
> There are no real new ideas in CS popping around at this point, so we
> are reduced to recycling each other's socks. So it goes. We're in an
> evolutionary, not a revoluationary, business. This may be permanent, it
> is hard to tell.
>
> ron
>

I agree with Ron here.  I'm not often one to rush to Microsoft's aid.  They
are clearly pulling from ideas from L4, MUNGI, Inferno, SpinOS, and to some
extend even House [Haskell GHCI runtime used as an OS] etc...

They are combining them in a slightly different way, and exploring the
result.  I guess this still qualifies as research but it's not as
groundbreaking as some people would like.


If I were doing OS research today what would I do?

I'd probably get some of those "new" Intel/AMD CPUs that will have
integrated hypervisor support and work on something that's more like an
Exokernel/Xen hybrid.

Why "switch" OS images when you can just make the new hypervisor hardware
just switch out whole applications which have an even more convincing view
that they each own the whole machine.

Hell you could probably get good performance out of a Xen version of DOS
these days and do something interesting.  Yes, it's recycling ooooold stuff
to do this, but in a newer way.

It may not be as earth-shattering OS research as people might like to see,
but it's a hell of a lot better than just dorking around with Xwindows or
making yet another Unix clone.

So really, I'd just give em a break, at least they had the good taste to
look at Inferno :).

Dave

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