Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sat 28th Jul 2007 09:02 UTC, submitted by Kelly Rush
SkyOS has received an update to the Viewer application (system file browser). Many changes have been implemented, including a tabbed interface, universal drag-and-drop, and many others. Head on over to the SkyOS website to see a video of the new Viewer features in action. Thanks to the recently implemented Profiler, an interesting system bottleneck has been identified and fixed in SkyOS. This has allowed for increased performance across many functions within SkyOS.
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Member since:
2005-07-12
Putting stuff on kernel space is stupid. Anything thats not core functionality needed to actually run binaries should be implemented outside of the kernel space. Why? Well, for starters there's no such thing as memory protection in kernel sapce. That means that if something goes wrong, say, a stack overflow, the whole system goes down in flames. That's why some guy invented the microkernel design: to remove as much stuff as possible form the kernel space so that in the event of something going seriously wrong, the system remain fully operational. Isn't this approach to OS design you've defended time and time again on this forum? So why does anybody need to explain himself to you as to why putting stuff in kernel space is bad?!?!
But that's not all. The single worst thing anybody can implement on kernel space is the GUI subsystem. Why? Well, because it makes every single GUI interact with the kernel. A poorly programed application with a bad pointer can bring the whole system down, and even a malicious web page can result in privilege escalation. It's the encyclopedic definition of a bad move. The performance gains obtained from doing such a thing can be matched and even surpassed by a properly designed userspace resided GUI subsystem. Like QNX Photon.
I for one think SkyOS is the new poster child of the proprietary/closed source development model. I'll just wait for the final version to see how much BSD code this guys are using. No, I don't think it's possible for just a bunch of guys to develop something like this. Well, at least not without some outside help or inspiration. Anybody who thinks otherwise is living in the pony-fairy-magic land where every thing is possible and hasn't got a clue of how hard it is to actually develop software completely from scratch. Not to mention that developing an OS with the features found in SkyOS is probably as hard and time consuming as developing a next generation action game, and that takes a team of 50+ guys laboring over the course of many many years.
I mean, they sure are entitled do rip and use BSD/MIT code or even just check out for inspiration, that's fine with me... I'd just love they'd cut the crap and admit they're using it. But i guess that would be admitting that the proprietary development is not as superior as some people claim it is.