Re: A niche for the Hurd - next step: reality check

[Michal Suchanek]

2008/11/13 Arne Babenhauserheide <arne_bab@web.de>
>
> Am Donnerstag 13 November 2008 23:17:29 schrieb Michal Suchanek:
> > The security model used by EROS and Coyotos uses capabilities instead.
>
> As far as I understand Neals research paper, he's also thinking in that
> direction.
>
> But please see below for the timeframe.
>
> > However, this requires fundamental redesign of the current Hurd. This
> > is why some people think that it would be also a good idea to drop the
> > now-obsolete Mach and start with a modern kernel which is also
> > incidentally designed to support capabilities.
>
> While I think that this sounds interesting, it doesn't seem like a viable way
> to go in the Hurds current situation.
>
> When more and more people join in, so larger projects can be tackled and
> finished, this might become a good option, though.
>
> The Hurd is to a good deal a collection of servers and communication APIs
> after all, so why shouldn't these be ported to different kinds of microkernels
> (preferable with a compatibility layer of sorts, so developments can be shared
> easily).

The problem here is that these servers and communication APIs built
around the wrong concept. So some of the ideas could perhaps be reused
but the redesign must be thorough one way or another to support
capabilities.

Thanks

Michal