]> PierrePronchery

khorben@defora.org

2004 2005 2006 Pierre Pronchery Nowadays mainly two conceptions of computing compete: open source and proprietary software. I believe that most software should be available with its source code, as a proof of quality, interoperability, and security, to state only the most obvious reasons. Most open source operating systems are based on UNIX. While this can be considered as a mature, stable and portable operating system, its use can be cryptic, and users often face the technical inner workings of this system. Moreover, most human-computer interfaces, either in textual or graphical mode, and even configuration files, are incoherent with regards to each other, particularly in community-written open source systems. It is also certainly worth thinking about a technical re-design of the UNIX system. It was originally designed along with C, with a monokernel approach, on computers where every bit of performance mattered. Now the power of even 10 year old computers are far beyond this, and researchers are working on micro-kernels, and safe programming languages for instance. Today I think my ideal operating system should be open source, micro-kernel based, usable on pentium-class computers, coherent, connected, and distributed. This paper explains in detail how I would design and implement it. Even though I am a fervent supporter of free software, this project is important to me, and also carries some convictions I have about software development (which I explain in this document). Consequently, I will remain the project leader, and will be the only responsible person for decisions taken in the project (of course I'll try to be fair). &ch01; &ch02; &ch03;