3 ms·

Well, perhaps only those 3 of the big names in that domain (is IBM completely out of the game?), but e.g. General Dynamics is the commercial player for seL4.

by hga 11y ago

pjmlp 11y ago
I was only thinking about the mainstream. As far as I am aware, IBM is mostly busy making GNU/Linux run on their mainframes. Aix has lots of cool features, but it is still a fairly typical UNIX. OS/400 kernel is quite cool, using bytecodes as executable format with a kernel level JIT and being object based. But there is very little more to innovate, most likely. I left out General Dynamics, only because I didn't thought of them while writing.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  > As far as I am aware, IBM is mostly busy making GNU/Linux run on their mainframes. I don't think that's right. IBM's main (no pun intended) mainframe OS is zOS, which is derived from OS/390. Linux can run on those mainframes (maybe on top of zOS, I'm not sure), but Linux is not the primary OS for IBM mainframes. And I don't think that IBM is letting zOS stand still while all the effort goes into Linux.
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    Yes, but nothing ground breaking in terms of overall architecture.
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      Neither Microsoft (outside of Research, which let's face it is not too significant on practical Windows), Google or Apple do anything groundbreaking "in terms of overall architecture". You're trying too hard to put the free Unixes in a negative light when, in reality, DragonFly BSD (for instance) is quite more daring than especially XNU, or NT. Most worthwhile OS research these days comes from universities. RPC in monolithic kernels is some 40 years old, I recall the old TRIX kernel at MIT that the GNU project was supposed to adopt way back, being based on that. IBM is actually one of the more progressive companies, the GP is correct. Undoubtedly much more so than Google and Apple, and dare I say Microsoft (outside Research).
      - pjmlp 11y ago
        > outside of Research, which let's face it is not too significant on practical Windows Well, WinRT (Ext-VOS), MIDL compiler for WP 8 (from Singularity toolchain), .NET Native, driver validation framework for DDK all started there.
        vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        And just what is so great about MIDL, an MSRPC-derived product, over any other RPC system based on generating client-server stubs, such as MIG or SunRPC? The idea is ancient and actually the classic RPC model is starting to show its age, being quite eloquently critiqued by Andrew S. Tanenbaum as far back as 1988 [1]. WinRT is an application framework out of many historical ones, some impressive and others less so, you're well aware of that. By driver validation, you mean the Driver Verifier tool, kernel-level signed drivers, or...? Those seem incremental, if useful. .NET Native is just another entry in the currently popular line of optimizing language runtimes and VMs, I don't see why it's singled out as particularly impressive. My point is you're overinflating things outside Unixland (and even inside, in the case of Apple - so it's more like free-Unixland) and selectively ignoring the lower profile work going on in free Unixes, even though in general I'd like to see an evolution beyond its paradigms myself. [1] https://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/publications/euteco-1988.pdf https://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/publications/euteco-1988.pdf
        pjmlp 11y ago
        Well, I mistyped it should have been MDIL not MIDL. MDIL is the Machine Dependent Intermediate Language, which was the format produced by the Sing# compiler in Singularity, given as input to Bartok, the native code compiler for Singularity. The work was reused for Windows Phone 8 to generate .NET applications compiled ahead of time in the Windows Store, using just a dynamic linker at installation time on the devices https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mani-Ramaswamy-and-Peter-Sollich-Inside-Compiler-in-the-Cloud-and-MDIL https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mani-Ramaswamy-an... WinRT is the second coming of Ext-VOS, the initial idea that triggered .NET by making an OS ABI based on an improved COM. Then .NET happened and the idea kind of died. With the going native wave gaining speed back at Microsoft, the project was reborn with some improvements like C++/CX and using .NET Metadata instead of the old COM type libraries. Since Vista, the majority of new APIs are COM based and with WinRT, Windows is one of the few current OS with an OO ABI. One of the driver validation tools makes use of the Z3 theorem prover as its verification engine https://github.com/z3prover/z3/wiki https://github.com/z3prover/z3/wiki http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/z3/smtatmsft.pptx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/z3/s... https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff552808%28v=vs.85%29.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff... .NET Native might be just yet another compiler, however it is the continuation of the work that started in Singularity with Sing# and Bartok, followed by MDIL in WP8. Also shows the direction of having .NET Native and C++ as the backbones of the OS, while moving away from C. I am ignoring the work in free UNIX, because from the outside they appear to keep on copying commercial UNIXes. Everyone is so high on Docker, yet I was using HP-UX containers in 2000 aka Virtualvault .
  - krylon 11y ago
    > Linux can run on those mainframes (maybe on top of zOS, I'm not sure) z/OS has its own Unix Subsystem (Unix System Services, formerly known as MVS Open Edition or something like that). Linux can run either in an LPAR or on top of VM inside a virtual machine - I think I read somewhere that the latter is far more common, because people that run Linux on zSeries tend to use it for replacing lots of smaller servers rather than a few big ones.

Well, perhaps only those 3 of the big names in that domain (is IBM completely out of the game?), but e.g. General Dynamics is the commercial player for seL4.

by hga 11y ago

Well, perhaps only those 3 of the big names in that domain (is IBM completely out of the game?), but e.g. General Dynamics is the commercial player for seL4.

pjmlp 11y ago

I was only thinking about the mainstream. As far as I am aware, IBM is mostly busy making GNU/Linux run on their mainframes. Aix has lots of cool features, but it is still a fairly typical UNIX. OS/400 kernel is quite cool, using bytecodes as executable format with a kernel level JIT and being object based. But there is very little more to innovate, most likely. I left out General Dynamics, only because I didn't thought of them while writing.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
> As far as I am aware, IBM is mostly busy making GNU/Linux run on their mainframes. I don't think that's right. IBM's main (no pun intended) mainframe OS is zOS, which is derived from OS/390. Linux can run on those mainframes (maybe on top of zOS, I'm not sure), but Linux is not the primary OS for IBM mainframes. And I don't think that IBM is letting zOS stand still while all the effort goes into Linux.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  Yes, but nothing ground breaking in terms of overall architecture.
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    Neither Microsoft (outside of Research, which let's face it is not too significant on practical Windows), Google or Apple do anything groundbreaking "in terms of overall architecture". You're trying too hard to put the free Unixes in a negative light when, in reality, DragonFly BSD (for instance) is quite more daring than especially XNU, or NT. Most worthwhile OS research these days comes from universities. RPC in monolithic kernels is some 40 years old, I recall the old TRIX kernel at MIT that the GNU project was supposed to adopt way back, being based on that. IBM is actually one of the more progressive companies, the GP is correct. Undoubtedly much more so than Google and Apple, and dare I say Microsoft (outside Research).
    - pjmlp 11y ago
      > outside of Research, which let's face it is not too significant on practical Windows Well, WinRT (Ext-VOS), MIDL compiler for WP 8 (from Singularity toolchain), .NET Native, driver validation framework for DDK all started there.
      - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        And just what is so great about MIDL, an MSRPC-derived product, over any other RPC system based on generating client-server stubs, such as MIG or SunRPC? The idea is ancient and actually the classic RPC model is starting to show its age, being quite eloquently critiqued by Andrew S. Tanenbaum as far back as 1988 [1]. WinRT is an application framework out of many historical ones, some impressive and others less so, you're well aware of that. By driver validation, you mean the Driver Verifier tool, kernel-level signed drivers, or...? Those seem incremental, if useful. .NET Native is just another entry in the currently popular line of optimizing language runtimes and VMs, I don't see why it's singled out as particularly impressive. My point is you're overinflating things outside Unixland (and even inside, in the case of Apple - so it's more like free-Unixland) and selectively ignoring the lower profile work going on in free Unixes, even though in general I'd like to see an evolution beyond its paradigms myself. [1] https://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/publications/euteco-1988.pdf https://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/publications/euteco-1988.pdf
        pjmlp 11y ago
        Well, I mistyped it should have been MDIL not MIDL. MDIL is the Machine Dependent Intermediate Language, which was the format produced by the Sing# compiler in Singularity, given as input to Bartok, the native code compiler for Singularity. The work was reused for Windows Phone 8 to generate .NET applications compiled ahead of time in the Windows Store, using just a dynamic linker at installation time on the devices https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mani-Ramaswamy-and-Peter-Sollich-Inside-Compiler-in-the-Cloud-and-MDIL https://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Mani-Ramaswamy-an... WinRT is the second coming of Ext-VOS, the initial idea that triggered .NET by making an OS ABI based on an improved COM. Then .NET happened and the idea kind of died. With the going native wave gaining speed back at Microsoft, the project was reborn with some improvements like C++/CX and using .NET Metadata instead of the old COM type libraries. Since Vista, the majority of new APIs are COM based and with WinRT, Windows is one of the few current OS with an OO ABI. One of the driver validation tools makes use of the Z3 theorem prover as its verification engine https://github.com/z3prover/z3/wiki https://github.com/z3prover/z3/wiki http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/z3/smtatmsft.pptx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/z3/s... https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff552808%28v=vs.85%29.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff... .NET Native might be just yet another compiler, however it is the continuation of the work that started in Singularity with Sing# and Bartok, followed by MDIL in WP8. Also shows the direction of having .NET Native and C++ as the backbones of the OS, while moving away from C. I am ignoring the work in free UNIX, because from the outside they appear to keep on copying commercial UNIXes. Everyone is so high on Docker, yet I was using HP-UX containers in 2000 aka Virtualvault .
- krylon 11y ago
  > Linux can run on those mainframes (maybe on top of zOS, I'm not sure) z/OS has its own Unix Subsystem (Unix System Services, formerly known as MVS Open Edition or something like that). Linux can run either in an LPAR or on top of VM inside a virtual machine - I think I read somewhere that the latter is far more common, because people that run Linux on zSeries tend to use it for replacing lots of smaller servers rather than a few big ones.