Redox: A Rust-Written, Microkernel Open-Source OS

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Redox: A Rust-Written, Microkernel Open-Source OS

Several Phoronix readers have been writing in recently about Redox OS, a new project aiming to be a "next-gen" operating system...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Redos-OS-Intro

[duby229]

Too bad. It'll be another project that gets abused by corporations, used in dozens or hundreds of products and the authors will never see any of it. A shame really that people can't see the compromise in a copyleft.

[bitman]

Nowdays people:
1. Create market for themselves
2. Fill in the created gap

They can and should sell paid support/development. Benefits everyone. Not that copyleft license would be any worse choice though. Now we can get kernel modifications for devices that run linux as vendors are bound to provide them. With this kernel we could see more locked down devices. If kernel is of any good that is.

[zanny]

Too bad. It'll be another project that gets abused by corporations, used in dozens or hundreds of products and the authors will never see any of it. A shame really that people can't see the compromise in a copyleft.

Absolutely this. We cannot fathom - as even free software developers - how many companies (Sony is probably just the most well known abuser) have taken FreeBSD kernels and OSes and used them to make incredible profits, with significant code investment, without ever contributing it back to the original project and while denying the users of their products any semblance of software freedom.

Linux is flawed, certainly - it doesn't actually enforce its own GPL in the context of proprietary drivers, it will never adopt anti-DRM clauses in the GPLv3 because both Linus doesn't want to and there would be no way to get all Linux contributors to relicense their code. But anyone writing a new OS must see how we are only where we are today because of its copyleft nature. If it were MIT licensed like Redox it would have been picked apart into obscurity years ago, with companies taking the parts they like and doing whatever they wanted with them without ever contributing back.

I mean, just look at Android - every phone release goes as far as they can towards not supporting upstream Linux. They fork a modified Android kernel at a fixed release, build proprietary drivers against it, never upstream any of their work, and then release that one kernel for that device one time and then never update it. It creates absolute planned obsolescence in every phone made, but at least they are still forced to release their modifications, so that if any user wanted to see any non-proprietary changes they made they could. Does not mean we can actually forward port these devices into mainline Linux anyway - the blobs they inject will break against newer kernels, and again, nobody is actually enforcing the GPL with Linux - but the alternative in an MIT world would be even worse.

[Hi-Angel]

If the kernel doesn't have API compatible with Linux modules, Redox gonna be abandoned. Because even rewriting drivers just for GPUs would take decades, not to say about the rest.

You know what? I didn't find any mention about compatibility with Linux modules.

[Shimon]

Redox is important for showing Rust off as a systems programming language. It's not going to try replacing Linux any time soon and its developers are sane people who never put such claims forward.

[Hi-Angel]

I found though some mention of compatibility with Linux executables. There is also some vague mention of «compatbility», and I am not sure whether they mean the same possibility of running Linux executables, or are they talking about modules.

[duby229]

http://www.redox-os.org/book/book/in...n/why_mit.html

I don't like how they associate the word "steal". You can't steal something the license allows, but you can abuse it. Abuse is a far better word to use. Also the GPL is not the only license with a decent copyleft clause. I personally like the GPLv2 only license the best, but that's just preference.

[Shimon]

Redox uses a microkernel with drivers implemented in userspace. The compatible aspect of the system involves POSIX. That also makes stuff like this possible.

TL;DR
It should be possible in the near future to run Redox CLI binaries using the usercorn emulator.

[pal666]

isn't it nice when real programs in your 'safe' language consist mostly of unsafe blocks?

Redox uses a microkernel with drivers implemented in userspace

i.e. it will be as successfull as hurd