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SerenityOS is interesting because of its monolithic repository concept with everything from the kernel to the web browser as a single unified project. They even

SerenityOS is interesting because of its monolithic repository concept with everything from the kernel to the web browser as a single unified project. They even write their own image and video codecs and stuff like TLS and OpenGL that everybody just lifts from somewhere else. I would say that creating their own language to write the system in is pretty innovative. The power of the mono repo is really going to come through when they convert everything from C++ to Jakt. Perhaps the most impressive and innovative thing about SerenityOS is the way they are building their community though. I cannot think of another project with so many contributors developing so openly on YouTube. The rate at which the project is evolving is amazing. The SerenityOS project is extremely pragmatic so it is not going to charge off in truly experimental directions. That said, they borrow an impressive number of ideas from a fairly diverse set of influences. The pledge / unveil stuff from OpenBSD is interesting. The way they propagate errors throughout the stack is cool, and the fact that they built their own standard library for C++ is quite interesting. One area where SerenityOS may truly innovate is in the browser since the project founder used to build web browser engines for a living. If you do not think SerenityOS is interesting, maybe take a deeper look.

pjmlp 4y ago
So far they have been quite clear that there is no plan on converting everything into Jakt, because they are quite pragmantic about their need to keep using C++ in some parts.
- LeFantome 4y ago
  They have been clear that they are not even writing anything new in Jakt because it is not ready yet. If you start seeing them wrote stuff in it, you will see them re-wrote stuff too. They can make the change whenever they want because of the mono repo. You can make changes all across the project on any given check-in. As you said, it is a very pragmatic project.
still_grokking 4y ago
Sorry to be so direct but exactly the things on which you expanded here are a very large part of my deep skepticism about SerenityOS. All that NIH without improving anything on the status quo is imho pure insanity! But OK, the project is mainly meant as a "therapy" for some mental illness, so this "makes sense" actually… (Just coding without thinking or carrying is quite some fun and liberating, indeed!) Besides the crazy amount of NIH the rate at which this project evolves is another very bad sign. (Reminds me strongly of "80% boy & his Redux OS"…). If you rush everything there is no time for planing or evaluating ideas. OTOH this is of course not needed if you do not intend to innovate on anything—and just rebuild once more things that already been built hundreds of times. I think alone scope creep will be deadly to this projects in the long run. For example one of the strongest reasons for Linux's success is imho that Linux concentrated solely on the OS. Where you end up when you want to do everything at once (especially without any research projects backing that effort!) at least I'm quite sure to know. Alone building a serous programming language is a life's work! (But OK, once again, Jakt isn't serous. It's not going to be even competitive with Carbon, as I see it, which itself isn't of any interests at all besides "Google is selling" it. Jakt is just the next fun NIH project, "because we can"). Regarding the community: Well, this dude attracted quite some attention with his personal life story. People seem to feel compassionate about him. So there is a lot of momentum. And sure, he's a nice guy. Only that he's quite off to when it comes to what he's producing. (Which is once again a very good prove of the fact that social circumstances have much more weight than any technological considerations; people care in the end about people, never really about the tech). Bottom line: I came to my conclusions about SerenityOS because I've looked at it. I try hard to not have any opinions on things I don't at all know about.
- LeFantome 4y ago
  This sounds very much like the Tannenbaum ( sp? ) vs Torvalds argument all over again. GNU scoffed at Linux as you do SerenityOS but where is HURD? Even BSD was better than Linux technically. So, why did Linux win? Obviously I have no desire to argue you out of your opinion. For somebody that is claiming the technical high ground however, I find it notable that you went straight for the emotional angle. You and I clearly disagree about what drives progress in the world. I think Linux changed the world because it ignored the argument that it was pointless and offered nothing new. The joke is that Linus did not expect to build “anything big and professional”. There is nothing else like SerenityOS. If it succeeds, it will be a new status quo. There is no guarantee at all that it will be successful but an engaged and growing community may be the most important element. How many active contributors does HelenOS have. Where will it be in 4 years? The one “engineering” argument I will make though is that the mono repo idea is not driven by NIH in the way that you imply. Your core point is that SerenityOS is too derivative and steals too shamelessly from everybody else. The project founder has stated multiple times that the motivation for a mono repo is the reduced complicity, greater agility, and velocity that it brings. The Linux ecosystem is characterized by massive complexity and massive dependency. Innovating in Linux is more politics than technology a lot of the time. Think Wayland, Systemd, GUI toolkits, or many other areas where progress has been slow and fractured for years. SerenityOS can change whatever it wants in the core ecosystem. Of course, not everything is in the core ecosystem. The project has a large and growing ports collection that they celebrate. They just do not want to depend on it. That idea is quite novel if you ask me. Given the progress in the last 4 years, they may be on to something. Oh, and I cannot resist one emotionally technical argument. Carbon is going nowhere. Time will tell but I am happy to have that on my score card.
pmarreck 4y ago
I'm kind of biased towards hypothetical OS'es built from the ground up in a memory-safe system language like Rust (assuming one exists, which I'm not sure). All you have to do is look at the litany of security holes of the past decade or 2 to see how often a lack of memory safety led to a security bug. Do you know of one?
- still_grokking 4y ago
  SerenityOS isn't a memory safe OS. That's for sure. No innovation here… But anyway, there are not much safe OSes out there I guess. There are all the Rust experiments (with usually a shitload of `unsafe` code in there). There was the Midori experiment by MS (no clue whether there is source code available). There have been Java based OSes. But all in all, there doesn't seem to be anything that has got any traction.

pjmlp 4y ago

So far they have been quite clear that there is no plan on converting everything into Jakt, because they are quite pragmantic about their need to keep using C++ in some parts.

LeFantome 4y ago
They have been clear that they are not even writing anything new in Jakt because it is not ready yet. If you start seeing them wrote stuff in it, you will see them re-wrote stuff too. They can make the change whenever they want because of the mono repo. You can make changes all across the project on any given check-in. As you said, it is a very pragmatic project.

still_grokking 4y ago

Sorry to be so direct but exactly the things on which you expanded here are a very large part of my deep skepticism about SerenityOS. All that NIH without improving anything on the status quo is imho pure insanity! But OK, the project is mainly meant as a "therapy" for some mental illness, so this "makes sense" actually… (Just coding without thinking or carrying is quite some fun and liberating, indeed!) Besides the crazy amount of NIH the rate at which this project evolves is another very bad sign. (Reminds me strongly of "80% boy & his Redux OS"…). If you rush everything there is no time for planing or evaluating ideas. OTOH this is of course not needed if you do not intend to innovate on anything—and just rebuild once more things that already been built hundreds of times. I think alone scope creep will be deadly to this projects in the long run. For example one of the strongest reasons for Linux's success is imho that Linux concentrated solely on the OS. Where you end up when you want to do everything at once (especially without any research projects backing that effort!) at least I'm quite sure to know. Alone building a serous programming language is a life's work! (But OK, once again, Jakt isn't serous. It's not going to be even competitive with Carbon, as I see it, which itself isn't of any interests at all besides "Google is selling" it. Jakt is just the next fun NIH project, "because we can"). Regarding the community: Well, this dude attracted quite some attention with his personal life story. People seem to feel compassionate about him. So there is a lot of momentum. And sure, he's a nice guy. Only that he's quite off to when it comes to what he's producing. (Which is once again a very good prove of the fact that social circumstances have much more weight than any technological considerations; people care in the end about people, never really about the tech). Bottom line: I came to my conclusions about SerenityOS because I've looked at it. I try hard to not have any opinions on things I don't at all know about.

LeFantome 4y ago
This sounds very much like the Tannenbaum ( sp? ) vs Torvalds argument all over again. GNU scoffed at Linux as you do SerenityOS but where is HURD? Even BSD was better than Linux technically. So, why did Linux win? Obviously I have no desire to argue you out of your opinion. For somebody that is claiming the technical high ground however, I find it notable that you went straight for the emotional angle. You and I clearly disagree about what drives progress in the world. I think Linux changed the world because it ignored the argument that it was pointless and offered nothing new. The joke is that Linus did not expect to build “anything big and professional”. There is nothing else like SerenityOS. If it succeeds, it will be a new status quo. There is no guarantee at all that it will be successful but an engaged and growing community may be the most important element. How many active contributors does HelenOS have. Where will it be in 4 years? The one “engineering” argument I will make though is that the mono repo idea is not driven by NIH in the way that you imply. Your core point is that SerenityOS is too derivative and steals too shamelessly from everybody else. The project founder has stated multiple times that the motivation for a mono repo is the reduced complicity, greater agility, and velocity that it brings. The Linux ecosystem is characterized by massive complexity and massive dependency. Innovating in Linux is more politics than technology a lot of the time. Think Wayland, Systemd, GUI toolkits, or many other areas where progress has been slow and fractured for years. SerenityOS can change whatever it wants in the core ecosystem. Of course, not everything is in the core ecosystem. The project has a large and growing ports collection that they celebrate. They just do not want to depend on it. That idea is quite novel if you ask me. Given the progress in the last 4 years, they may be on to something. Oh, and I cannot resist one emotionally technical argument. Carbon is going nowhere. Time will tell but I am happy to have that on my score card.

pmarreck 4y ago

I'm kind of biased towards hypothetical OS'es built from the ground up in a memory-safe system language like Rust (assuming one exists, which I'm not sure). All you have to do is look at the litany of security holes of the past decade or 2 to see how often a lack of memory safety led to a security bug. Do you know of one?

still_grokking 4y ago
SerenityOS isn't a memory safe OS. That's for sure. No innovation here… But anyway, there are not much safe OSes out there I guess. There are all the Rust experiments (with usually a shitload of `unsafe` code in there). There was the Midori experiment by MS (no clue whether there is source code available). There have been Java based OSes. But all in all, there doesn't seem to be anything that has got any traction.