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Why don't Apple & Google spend a few billion dollars over a few years to rewrite their (non-crypto) unix stack from scratch? It seems like that would be an endu

Why don't Apple & Google spend a few billion dollars over a few years to rewrite their (non-crypto) unix stack from scratch? It seems like that would be an enduring competitive advantage, good for their users, and reduce future liabilities. Every programming language can result in bugs, but some are worse/more frequent/harder to solve afterwards than others. Better yet, why wasn't "rebuild commonly used standard libraries" in the US Infrastructure bill last year? The government could pay programmers a lot, and pay whitehat pen-testers a lot (+ per bug discovered) and in a few years of iteration, we'd have incredibly hardened, durable software infrastructure that would benefit us for decades to come, in the public domain.

joshgachnang 5y ago
Isn't Google (allegedly) already doing this with Fuchsia?
- Natsu 5y ago
  They've done their own version of a lot of things, but then have open sourced what they can to grow the base of people familiar with that tech who can make things with it. I mean, on some level you can try to make your own custom TempleOS for everything, but that only gets you (possibly) reduced scrutiny and hiring issues simply because nobody knows how to use it. But if you're already a target, the reduced scrutiny is probably a bad thing since the good guys won't point out the bugs to get them fixed.
- Dinux 5y ago
  Fuchsia isn't Unix afaik
  - lupire 5y ago
    "Fuchsia implements some parts of Posix, but omits large parts of the Posix model." -- fuchsia.dev
    - spankalee 5y ago
      There is an RFC for full Linux binary compatibility: https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/governance/rfcs/0082_starnix https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/governance/rfcs/0...
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    IMHO that's kind of the point; to get a substantially different security posture, it's not sufficient to just rewrite the code but it's also necessary to change the design, and that would not be fully Unix anymore. It would not be enough to provide new, more secure options; and not enough to make them the default - to actually reduce the attack surface, you'd want to remove the nonsecure options, if required, at the cost of compatibility.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bo1024 5y ago
I think to a large extent this is a mythical man-month thing. Beyond a small scale, you probably can't improve or speed up operating system design by throwing money and person count at it.
Natsu 5y ago
Mostly because it's not clear that from-scratch rewrites produce better results. They can if the entire architecture needs to be different, but for many libraries it just devolves into an exercise in bikeshedding. This is particularly true of the US government which, if you've seen their IT systems, is not going to be anyone sane's first choice for doing from-scratch rewrites.
- thelittleone 5y ago
  I disagree. I think governments prioritise spending, jobs and votes over "better results".
  - gmadsen 5y ago
    so you agree with the comment then? you are both criticizing the government
    - thelittleone 5y ago
      I wrote "governments"... plural. And while both comments are critical of "governments", my comment clearly disagrees with the parent's assertion that governments do not fund whole rewrite projects "Mostly because it's not clear that from-scratch rewrites produce better results".
      - Natsu 5y ago
        I don't dispute that governments do such things and I'm not sure how you can read that sentence to say that they do. I just said they don't generally get good results from it.
kdioo88 5y ago
mrtksn 5y ago
Remember when Apple replaced mDNSResponder with Discoveryd? It was total disaster, %95 CPU usage and all kind of connectivity issues. They had to bring back mDNSResponder not long after. So there's no guarantee that the replacements would be bug-free. If anything, the current stuff is battle tested through the years and gets better with each scar. I would guess that they are also employing all kind of hacks, i.e things that are not supposed to be like that but are like that and they will break a lot of things if they make the new code work the way it is supposed to work. There's even XKCD for that: https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/
- contravariant 5y ago
  See also Hyrum's law: > "With a sufficient number of users of an API, it does not matter what you promise in the contract: all observable behaviors of your system will be depended on by somebody."
qualudeheart 5y ago
It’s a good long term investment. Just not viable in the short term. Too expensive.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

joshgachnang 5y ago

Isn't Google (allegedly) already doing this with Fuchsia?

Natsu 5y ago
They've done their own version of a lot of things, but then have open sourced what they can to grow the base of people familiar with that tech who can make things with it. I mean, on some level you can try to make your own custom TempleOS for everything, but that only gets you (possibly) reduced scrutiny and hiring issues simply because nobody knows how to use it. But if you're already a target, the reduced scrutiny is probably a bad thing since the good guys won't point out the bugs to get them fixed.
Dinux 5y ago
Fuchsia isn't Unix afaik
- lupire 5y ago
  "Fuchsia implements some parts of Posix, but omits large parts of the Posix model." -- fuchsia.dev
  - spankalee 5y ago
    There is an RFC for full Linux binary compatibility: https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/governance/rfcs/0082_starnix https://fuchsia.dev/fuchsia-src/contribute/governance/rfcs/0...
- PeterisP 5y ago
  IMHO that's kind of the point; to get a substantially different security posture, it's not sufficient to just rewrite the code but it's also necessary to change the design, and that would not be fully Unix anymore. It would not be enough to provide new, more secure options; and not enough to make them the default - to actually reduce the attack surface, you'd want to remove the nonsecure options, if required, at the cost of compatibility.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bo1024 5y ago

I think to a large extent this is a mythical man-month thing. Beyond a small scale, you probably can't improve or speed up operating system design by throwing money and person count at it.

Natsu 5y ago

Mostly because it's not clear that from-scratch rewrites produce better results. They can if the entire architecture needs to be different, but for many libraries it just devolves into an exercise in bikeshedding. This is particularly true of the US government which, if you've seen their IT systems, is not going to be anyone sane's first choice for doing from-scratch rewrites.

thelittleone 5y ago
I disagree. I think governments prioritise spending, jobs and votes over "better results".
- gmadsen 5y ago
  so you agree with the comment then? you are both criticizing the government
  - thelittleone 5y ago
    I wrote "governments"... plural. And while both comments are critical of "governments", my comment clearly disagrees with the parent's assertion that governments do not fund whole rewrite projects "Mostly because it's not clear that from-scratch rewrites produce better results".
    - Natsu 5y ago
      I don't dispute that governments do such things and I'm not sure how you can read that sentence to say that they do. I just said they don't generally get good results from it.

kdioo88 5y ago

mrtksn 5y ago

Remember when Apple replaced mDNSResponder with Discoveryd? It was total disaster, %95 CPU usage and all kind of connectivity issues. They had to bring back mDNSResponder not long after. So there's no guarantee that the replacements would be bug-free. If anything, the current stuff is battle tested through the years and gets better with each scar. I would guess that they are also employing all kind of hacks, i.e things that are not supposed to be like that but are like that and they will break a lot of things if they make the new code work the way it is supposed to work. There's even XKCD for that: https://xkcd.com/1172/ https://xkcd.com/1172/

contravariant 5y ago
See also Hyrum's law: > "With a sufficient number of users of an API, it does not matter what you promise in the contract: all observable behaviors of your system will be depended on by somebody."

qualudeheart 5y ago

It’s a good long term investment. Just not viable in the short term. Too expensive.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]