From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: bakul@bitblocks.com (Bakul Shah) Date: Wed, 03 Jan 2018 19:31:35 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] OT: critical Intel design flaw In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 03 Jan 2018 18:26:04 -0800." <20180104022604.GL1534@mcvoy.com> References: <20180103134358.3F16818C098@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <20180103234025.GA23371@thunk.org> <20180104005103.GF1534@mcvoy.com> <20180104021414.6EF88156E523@mail.bitblocks.com> <20180104022604.GL1534@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <20180104033151.04D5A156E523@mail.bitblocks.com> On Wed, 03 Jan 2018 18:26:04 -0800 Larry McVoy wrote: Larry McVoy writes: > > > > The problem is that most people / companies are not that disciplined. > > > > The whole idea is not to hack on the ukernel endlessly but to > > build apps on top of it. On something like Mill you won't even > > Um, I've been reading about Mill for at least a decade. It's not > real until it ships. It's still vaporware, no? It is vaporware mainly because it's a largely self/unfunded effort led by one guy and a very lean volunteer team. I don't know if it will actually get funded -- in my view there are enough interesting things in it that it is worth supporting by one of the big 3 or 4 companies (or a 3 letter govt agency). Its architecture certainly seems realizable (of course, proof is in the pudding etc). But even just with ukernels we can achieve similar isolation & security. Here is a recent paper: http://ssrg.nicta.com.au/publications/csiro_full_text//Elphinstone_ZMH_17.pdf They show that seL4+rumpkernel is actually faster than native NetBSD on the same hardware (atleast on some TCP throughput tests). > I *love* the idea of a microkernel with a bunch of processes implementing > the OS, it's so much a better design. I also have been in the real world > long enough to think that I'm not going to see Linux replaced with a > microkernel in my lifetime. I wish, but I don't see it happening. It won't *replace* linux but linux API can be made available via such processes and a shared lib. You may be right about real world inertia. And Security is simply not taken seriously enough. I still think it would be well worth it for knowledgeable OS folks like you to /actually/ explore this design space and see what is possible. It would certainly be more fun than hacking on Linux or FreeBSD!