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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • Reminds me a little of the old Jonathan Shapiro research OSes (Coyotos, EROS, CapROS), though toned down a little bit. The EROS family was about eliminating the filesystem entirely at the OS level since you can simulate files with capabilities anyway. Serenum seems to be toning that down a little and effectively having file- or directory-level capabilities, which I think is sensible if you’re going to have a capability-based OS, since they end up being a bit more user-visible as an OS.

    He’s got the same problem every research OS has: zero software. He’s probably smart to ditch the idea of hardware entirely and just fix on one hardware platform.

    I wish him luck selling his computer systems, but I doubt he’s going to do very well. What would a customer do with one of these? Edit files? And then…edit them again? I guess you can show off how inconvenient it is to edit things due to its security.

    I just mean it’s a bit optimistic to try and fund this by selling it. I understand he doesn’t have a research grant, but it’s clearly just a research OS.







  • In a certain light, you could argue that Linus doesn’t really have any control at all. He doesn’t write any code for Linux (hasn’t in many years), doesn’t do any real planning or commanding or managing. “All” he does is coordinate merges and maintain his own personal git branch. (And he’s not alone in that: a lot of people maintain their own Linux branches). He has literally no formal authority at all in Linux development.

    It just so happens that, by a very large margin, his own personal git branch is the most popular and trusted in the world. People trust his judgment for what goes in and doesn’t go in.

    It’s not like Linux development is stopped because Linus goes offline (or goes on vacation or whatever). People keep writing code and discussing and testing and whatnot. It’s just that without Linus’s discerning eye casting judgment on their work, it doesn’t enter the mainstream.

    Nothing will really get slowed down. Whether something officially gets labelled by Linus as “6.8” or “6.whatever” doesn’t really matter in the big picture of Linux development.