The Hurd is still doing its thing. "Jeremie Koenig started working on his Google Summer of Code
project: bringing not only Java to the Hurd, but also fixing or adding missing parts in the Hurd's components along the way. For example, he already contributed a set of signal handling improvements. Samuel Thibault created the first Debian GNU/Hurd CD set with a graphical installer. You can dowload it at the usual place for Debian CD images."
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Member since:2005-11-15
Why use a hybrid kernel when there is a true microkernel?
This is a good question, and I think it is the source (heh) of a lot of confusion here and on many other sites. I think there may be some practical reasons to use a 'hybrid microkernel'. But without being able to cite actual kernel source code, most discussions are hand waving, and ego arguments.
Member since:2010-08-06
The Tannenbaum&Torvalds debate is probably one of the most high profile kernel comparison debates in recent years.
http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/reliable-os/
Member since:2010-08-06
Member since:2011-07-13
When you say that GNUstep has had a lot of progress the last 15 years, what exactly do you mean?
While I can understand that Webkit is important in order to create a modern browser - that is not the goal and never has been the goal of GNUstep.
The goal for GNUstep is to track Cocoa as close as possible and only deviate when it makes sense. Foundation and AppKit are production ready and are used (maybe not to the extent that I would like to see but, used!) in both commercial applications and opensource.
GNUstep now has a working ObjC2 runtime (with garbage collection) that is more or less equivalent to Apple's either using GCC 4.x or clang.
There is a UIKit implementation in progress.
There is an implementation of Core(xxxx) libraries going on with steady progress.
There are a lot of things happening.
In terms of code quality I cannot really comment between Cocotron vs GNUstep - I leave that. I did notice that Cocotron claims to have only AppKit for Windows? GNUstep has it for Windows, *nix (X11, Cairo, LibArt).
And I fail to see what the relevance to Hurd is? True, GNUstep is a GNU project and it should be working for GNU Hurd but GNUstep is in no way dependent on GNU Hurd or the other way around.
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Member since:
2006-11-19
I can't figure out what's the deal with GNUStep, why has there been SO LITTLE progress in the past 15 years. Probably because they're wasting time making things like freaking "simple web kit" because they're implementation of Cocoa is so broken that its "too hard" to port WebKit, so they waste years writing a "simple" version of WebKit, freaking insane. Just fix your Cocoa implementation so that WebKit just compiles.
Anyway, I guess I understand the seemingly slow progress of GNU Hurd, operating systems are hard to write, especially when your starting from a clean slate like HURD.
But on the Cocoa front, have you heard of Cocotron, its a fully compatible implementation of Cocoa that allows you cross compile your apps to OSX, Windows and Linux, http://cocotron.org/
Cocotron is MIT licensed, and it just a few years they have made about a 1000% more progress than GNUStep.