OSNews:

OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/19100/SharpOS_Releases_First_Milestone Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:45:49 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?293983 http://osnews.com/thread?293983 Being a geek this project totally appeals to me. I wonder what happened to the OS that was supposed to be written in Java...I would like to know though isnt this something that Microsoft already attempted through Singularity? Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (suryad) Comments Point? http://osnews.com/thread?293986 http://osnews.com/thread?293986 Lisp Machines?
Smalltalk?
JNode?
SqueakNOS? Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:16:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Sophotect) Comments RE: Point? http://osnews.com/thread?293990 http://osnews.com/thread?293990 D!! Why aren't any of these pie-in-the-sky hobbyist projects developing an OS in D? It's a native, C-compatible language that supports inline assembly, imperative, object-oriented, and template meta-programming styles with concurrency and serialization primitives, built-in unit test framework, and other goodies. If you're going to write an OS kernel in a very high-level language, then why not go with one that compiles to native machine code? Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (butters) Comments RE: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?293991 http://osnews.com/thread?293991 Java OS: http://jnode.org/

I think the focus of Singularity was to create a more reliable OS by stronger isolation of processes. I'm sure it's much more complicated than that. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Aaron1) Comments RE: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?293992 http://osnews.com/thread?293992 Yes, and Singularity is much more advanced and has many different areas of research being made in it.

Writing a Managed Kernel is only the beginning, there is a much greater potential for a rich experience. It's still an area of active research, so it's pretty neat that these guys were able to at the very least boot a kernel written in C#.

Now, according to my reading the kernel isn't managed per-say, it seems like they translate the IL to x86 and execute that. It doesn't bring the benefits of managed code. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Nelson) Comments RE[2]: Point? http://osnews.com/thread?293993 http://osnews.com/thread?293993 It's all a matter of choice, the ultimate purpose of a managed Operating System isn't the language it's written in. It's the advantages of managed code vs native code.

It could target any language which compiles to IL, but the key is in what you do with these advantages at the kernel level.

There's a lot of potential, and the people working on Singularity have published a few papers outlining some of the advantages. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Nelson) Comments RE[2]: Point? http://osnews.com/thread?293995 http://osnews.com/thread?293995 I doubt I will ever use this however I think it great that people do this and other projects. Trying new ideas is where true innovation (not the MS type) comes from. Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Aaron1) Comments RE[3]: Point? http://osnews.com/thread?293996 http://osnews.com/thread?293996 Maybe you're forgetting that Microsoft has been doing this for about a year with Singularity?

Seriously, Microsoft is not even MENTIONED in this article. Why the flame bait? Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Nelson) Comments RE[2]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?293999 http://osnews.com/thread?293999

Now, according to my reading the kernel isn't managed per-say, it seems like they translate the IL to x86 and execute that. It doesn't bring the benefits of managed code.

For now, yes, managed code is not actually supported, but that is our goal. As you can imagine, doing the project the way we are doing it does not lend to expedient development at least for this early stage. Our next milestone focuses on implementing object support and all the things that that entails. Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fury) Comments RE: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294000 http://osnews.com/thread?294000

Being a geek this project totally appeals to me. I wonder what happened to the OS that was supposed to be written in Java...I would like to know though isnt this something that Microsoft already attempted through Singularity?

Thank you for your interest! Yes, Singularity is similar to SharpOS, but unfortunately Singularity is not open source (or shared source for that matter), and it also makes use of a runtime written in a non-CLR language. They also created a special version of C# for the project. We are free software, and we strive to use tools/languages that are already mature and freely available. Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fury) Comments RE[3]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294001 http://osnews.com/thread?294001 Yea, I hope I didn't come off as trying to downplay the project. It's still very impressive, and a step in the right direction. Wed, 02 Jan 2008 00:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Nelson) Comments RE[4]: Point? http://osnews.com/thread?294007 http://osnews.com/thread?294007 Good point. My bad. I should just leave it with the fact that I think it's great that people are trying new ideas. Wed, 02 Jan 2008 01:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Aaron1) Comments RE[2]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294009 http://osnews.com/thread?294009 "It doesn't bring the benefits of managed code."

Did I miss the point of Singularity? i.e. that the IL can be analyzed and given a safety rating. i.e. if the IL never dereferences pointers itself and uses safe API's, then the driver, etc..., can be labeled safe.

there are a lot of other nice things that can happen too.... Wed, 02 Jan 2008 03:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mrminnman) Comments Singularity http://osnews.com/thread?294016 http://osnews.com/thread?294016 I think this is a great project and it's perfectly fair to compile IL down to native code. That's in fact what the .NET JIT does. AFAIK, .NET never interprets IL... it's always compiled to x86, x64, IA-64, PPC, or ARM. Singularity is based on a different compiler system than the CLR... it compiles everything down to machine code ahead of time and there's a lot of work being done in that group to continue the theorem-proving properties of the compiler into the native code layer.

I hope this project does well and leverages the work done by Mono and the other open-source .NET runtimes. Wed, 02 Jan 2008 05:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PlatformAgnostic) Comments RE[2]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294017 http://osnews.com/thread?294017

We are free software

Erm... according to your wiki, you use the GPL. Unless that page was false, that makes SharpOS open source software, not free software.

The distinction is important, and you're apt to get ganked here on OSnews for less ^^; Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Almafeta) Comments RE[3]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294018 http://osnews.com/thread?294018 Actually by "free software" I meant free as in freedom, and yes, that is what GNU and other _free software supporters_ call software covered by GPL. Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fury) Comments RE[4]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294030 http://osnews.com/thread?294030 >Actually by "free software" I meant free as in freedom, and yes, that is what GNU and other _free software supporters_ call software covered by GPL.

Not only GPL licensed software is Free Software. BSD, X11, MIT, Apache,... licensed software is Free Software too.

BTW: Why have you added a linking exception to the GPL?Edited 2008-01-02 11:40 Wed, 02 Jan 2008 11:34:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (pinky) Comments RE: Point? http://osnews.com/thread?294035 http://osnews.com/thread?294035 IMHO the point is to have fun and just to prove that something like this is possible. There doesn't need to be any more reason than that, you know. Besides, this is a great challenge and for those who like mental challenges programming an OS is most likely pretty darn fun and interesting! I won't touch this SharpOS myself but I think this is a fantastic proof-of-concept and I wish all the luck to the devs :3 Wed, 02 Jan 2008 12:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (WereCatf) Comments RE[5]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294059 http://osnews.com/thread?294059 Even more, I wouldn't name GPL software "free as speech", because the license implies too many restrictions on its use. It is rather "free as cheese". Wed, 02 Jan 2008 18:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (vtolkov) Comments RE[2]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294065 http://osnews.com/thread?294065 Kudos for your fascinating work!

I have a question... (not politics, please) Why did you choose C# instead of Java [technically, they both provides similar features and architecture] (and Java is getting open)? Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (ebasconp) Comments RE[6]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294070 http://osnews.com/thread?294070 Use whatever license you prefer for your own works if you choose to release them. Respect the choices of others. And please refrain from trying to stir up a flame war here. There are so many *constructive* ways in which we can all interact. Why waste time and energy fostering conflict and bad feelings? Wed, 02 Jan 2008 19:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (sbergman27) Comments RE[3]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294094 http://osnews.com/thread?294094 Good question! But I think it could be cause you are all more knowledgeable in C# than Java? Thu, 03 Jan 2008 00:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (suryad) Comments RE[4]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294103 http://osnews.com/thread?294103 Well, we just like C# more I think. Besides, there is already a project to create a Java OS called JNode. Thu, 03 Jan 2008 05:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (fury) Comments RE[2]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294122 http://osnews.com/thread?294122 Except that Singularity and SharpOS are not that similar. The only thing they have in common are the CLR and C# except Singularity is written in Singh# which is C# with extensions that make writing OS's in C# possible.

The architecture is different. The three things that stand out are:

- Software Isolated Processes (SIP)
- Contract based Channels
- Manifest Based programs Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (andrewg) Comments I'm particularly fond... http://osnews.com/thread?294123 http://osnews.com/thread?294123 ...of the "Pinky and the Brain" quote on the screen

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (elektrik) Comments RE[4]: Very cool! http://osnews.com/thread?294134 http://osnews.com/thread?294134 "Erm... according to your wiki, you use the GPL. Unless that page was false, that makes SharpOS open source software, not free software. "

Smacks of ... yeah, you got it.

DNFTT

;) Thu, 03 Jan 2008 17:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (wannabe geek) Comments C strings? http://osnews.com/thread?294377 http://osnews.com/thread?294377 I see they use C-style NULL terminated strings there and a lot of unsafe code to deal with these strings. Doesn't it bring back all the security/safety implications typical for C code? The how is 100% C# in this case better wrt security than a plain C code? Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (como) Comments