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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 o

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 .
    - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
      Again, MDIL falls into the VM research craze, it's a no doubt useful bytecode for Microsoft's purposes, but not a radical rethinking intrinsically. Microsoft has a tradition for language extensions, so C++/CX seems right at their ballpark. I concede these are all noteworthy tooling improvements, but none radical, nor all relevant to the subject of microkernels. C++ as backbone is quite clearly an incremental evolution and not even much safer. Everyone is so high on Docker, yet I was using HP-UX containers in 2000 aka Virtualvault. Basing your assumptions on Unix work over Docker woo is like basing Microsoft assumptions over Slashdot comments.

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 .
  - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
    Again, MDIL falls into the VM research craze, it's a no doubt useful bytecode for Microsoft's purposes, but not a radical rethinking intrinsically. Microsoft has a tradition for language extensions, so C++/CX seems right at their ballpark. I concede these are all noteworthy tooling improvements, but none radical, nor all relevant to the subject of microkernels. C++ as backbone is quite clearly an incremental evolution and not even much safer. Everyone is so high on Docker, yet I was using HP-UX containers in 2000 aka Virtualvault. Basing your assumptions on Unix work over Docker woo is like basing Microsoft assumptions over Slashdot comments.