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The Microsoft Singularity

jose parinas writes ""Microsoft Research has published the first details of a wholly new operating system under development called Singularity, designed new from the ground up, built on a new language and designed with emphasis on dependability instead of performance.""

88 of 615 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, let me be the first to say it! by RobertB-DC · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've heard that Microsoft Singularity sucks.

    (Go ahead, mod me down... I deserve it.)

    --
    Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
    1. Re:Oh, let me be the first to say it! by NickFortune · · Score: 3, Funny

      Is the name not a reference to their policy on IP? They pull in ideas from all over, but none of them ever make it back over the threshold....

      --
      Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
  2. Singularity... by pwnage · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Because when we blue screen, all of your data goes down into a black hole."

    --
    Reminder: Apple owns 1/255th of the internet.
    1. Re:Singularity... by NanoGator · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Because when we blue screen, all of your data goes down into a black hole."

      Tee hee giggle snort. That was funny! I'd say more, but Full House is on! Cya!

      --
      "Derp de derp."
  3. singularity by technicolor.cavalry · · Score: 3, Funny

    so this one is going to be *so bad* that it's impossible to predict what will happen after its release?

  4. MS-DOS 7.0 by simetra · · Score: 2, Funny
    Yeah baby!

    --

    "Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
    1. Re:MS-DOS 7.0 by WMD_88 · · Score: 2, Informative
      MS-DOS 7.0, is, officially, Windows 95.

      Sorry, try again.

  5. Like a Black hole? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, a new OS that can distroy all data AND matter.

    So much more advanced than a BSOD.

  6. /.'ed by wiggles · · Score: 4, Funny

    Reliability, eh? Obviously, their web server isn't based on this OS.

  7. Server Error in '/' by jpsowin · · Score: 3, Funny
    Server Error in '/' Application.

    Runtime Error


    Wow, that page came up pretty fast. I guess their web server is built for performance instead of dependability.
  8. Except that by Pike · · Score: 2, Interesting

    except that this implies that their other OSs emphasized performance over dependability.

  9. Slashdotted in six comments. by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny
    > We're sorry -- you have reached this page because a web server error occurred. There are many possible causes for this type of error, so we can't be more specific.

    Current setup was slashdotted within six comments.

    Future setup will place an "emphasis on dependability instead of performance".

    I'd say it sucks galactic black holes through buckytube, but that still wouldn't approach the Singular suckitude we're looking for.

    Bite my dimly red-shifted neutronium ass.

    1. Re:Slashdotted in six comments. by Entrope · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Premature optimization is the root of all blah blah blah. The web server isn't be running on Singularity anyway. OpenBSD shares a similar (albeit more human than mechanical) focus on correctness over performance, but nobody seems to think it is doomed to failure because of that.

      I think "Singularity" is not worth a hill of beans, but mostly because its novel ideas have already been tried and made little headway. Java systems have applied similar approaches to securing multiple processes within an address space in the past; microkernels have applied similar approaches to communications between processes. To the best of my knowledge, neither have resulted in software that is used outside of the initially targeted niche. Singularity mostly looks like the application of those previously tried approaches to a Microsoft virtual machine.

  10. New UI? by Pinback · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will the user interface be called Event Horizon?

  11. At last, an honest ship date! by n6mod · · Score: 2, Funny

    Glad to see they're sticking with their naming convention... This just confirms that it will take MS until the end of time to ship a stable OS.

    --
    You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
    1. Re:At last, an honest ship date! by Dirtside · · Score: 2, Funny
      This just confirms that it will take MS until the end of time to ship a stable OS.
      Well, duh. What do you think Milliways runs on its terminals?
      --
      "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
  12. Well.... by Petaris · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Quote:
            "designed with emphasis on dependability instead of performance."

    Well since there goal has always been to have both dependability and preformance and they never succeded I suppose it is rather wise for them to cut back on the complexity and just try to get one of them.

    --
    ~Petaris "The world is open. Are you?"
  13. Re:Reliability he says... by BronxBomber · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Right. And /. has never taken down an Apache site. Mod me down, you haughty assholes. At least I've got the sack to post this using my real UN

    --
    ...both interiorlly, and exteriorlly.
  14. In other news... by Lendrick · · Score: 5, Funny

    Last week, the latest build of Windows Vista became so horrendously bloated that it underwent gravitational collapse... coincidence?

  15. Text from the second link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    anonymous so as not to whore karma:

    One interesting concept is the abstraction of Software Isolated Processes (SIPs).

    SIPs provide the strong isolation guarantees of OS processes (isolated object space, separate GCs, separate runtimes) without the overhead of hardware-enforced protection domains. In the current Singularity prototype SIPs are extremely cheap; they run in ring 0 in the kernel's address space. Singularity uses these advances to build more reliable systems and applications. For example, because SIPs are so cheap to create and enforce, Singularity runs each program, device driver, or system extension in its own SIP. SIPs are not allowed to share memory or modify their own code. As a result, we can make strong reliability guarantees about the code running in a SIP. We can verify much broader properties about a SIP at compile or install time than can be done for code running in traditional OS processes. Boarder application of static verification is critical to predicting system behavior and providing users with strong guarantees about reliability"
    Source: Singularity Site

    From the report we can read that:

    SIPs are the OS processes on Singularity. All code outside the kernel executes in a SIP.
    differ from conventional operating system processes in a number of ways:

    SIPs are closed object spaces, not address spaces. Two Singularity processes cannot
    simultaneously access an object. Communications between processes transfers exclusive
    ownership of data.

    SIPs are closed code spaces. A process cannot dynamically load or generate code.
    SIPs do not rely on memory management hardware for isolation. Multiple SIPs can reside
    in a physical or virtual address space.

    Communications between SIPs is through bidirectional, strongly typed, higher-order
    channels. A channel specifies its communications protocol as well as the values
    transferred, and both aspects are verified.

    SIPs are inexpensive to create and communication between SIPs incurs low overhead.
    Low cost makes it practical to use SIPs as a fine-grain isolation and extension
    mechanism.

    SIPs are created and terminated by the operating system, so that on termination, a SIP's
    resources can be efficiently reclaimed.

    SIPs executed independently, even to the extent of having different data layouts, run-time
    systems, and garbage collectors.

  16. Re:another longhorn? by filesiteguy · · Score: 4, Informative
    Nah, that was XP, which was built from the ground up. No relation at all to NT.

    Come to think of it - has MS EVER written their own OS from scratch?

    • DOS - Borrowed from Tim Patterson's QDOS.
    • Windows - Shell extention to DOS
    • Xenix - AT&T/Berkley clone
    • OS/2 - Co-built with IBM
    • NT / XP / Vista - Built off of OS/2

    Go figure.

  17. Google cache by sachu · · Score: 2, Interesting
  18. singularity on MS' channel 9 vlog by lopati · · Score: 4, Informative

    here's jim larus and galen hunt talking about their project.

  19. I hacked on this... by megabeck42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I saw and worked on this a bit while interning at Microsoft. Although what I say is my own and doesn't reflect Microsoft in any way, it's important to remember that this is a research operating system, so its not challenging or replacing Windows. They have some very good, solid ideas. I hope that, someday, it will be released.

    --
    fnord.
  20. It was designed for performance? by MECC · · Score: 2, Funny

    Wow.

    --
    "We are all geniuses when we dream"
    - E.M. Cioran
  21. Re:another longhorn? by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is just a research OS written in C#.

    Microsoft Research is always making things Microsoft never uses. Remember all the 3D navigator stuff they were crowing about years ago?

    I think Microsoft Research is a place to keep eggheads working and happy so they don't go working somewhere else.

    --
    "Sufferin' succotash."
  22. Re:Papers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    For what it's worth, HotOS is an actual respected academic workshop. It was sponsored by Microsoft, but then again, Microsoft sponsors lots of real, respected academic conferences.

    The Singularity project is run by top-notch researchers with very good reputations in the academic community. This is the real deal.

    I think Slashdot has an acronym for things like the parent post... FUD, was it?

  23. pseudo-academics should be careful what they bash by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Have you actually read any of the papers?

    I am an OS academic, and we take Microsoft Research seriously, because they're fucking good.

    HotOS is a pretty serious workshop for Operating Systems research. Microsoft Research, among others, pays for the conference room. Singularity isn't far enough long yet to get into a bigger conference like SOSP or OSDI, but you can be sure it will in a year or two.

    I wouldn't call Singularity pseudo-academic.

  24. Re:Define "innovation" in that context. by zootm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Try checking out the Microsoft Research page, and their past systems stemming from there. You might be surprised.

  25. that's different by jbeaupre · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Security means your safe. Dependability could mean that or that you can depend on being shafted on a regular basis. This is MS, so I'm guessing they mean the later.

    --
    The world is made by those who show up for the job.
  26. Re:Define "innovation" in that context. by devilsadvoc8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The relentless bashing of Microsoft in this manner is tiring. Have they made flawed products? Absolutely, but to generalize their contribution to modern computing as nothing more than theft and good marketing is pure garbage. However such posts are good at karma whoring...

    --
    B O R I N G
  27. Re:another longhorn? by zootm · · Score: 2, Informative

    A few things they've come up with have been used (ClearType off the top of my head, and quite a few usability things, although I'm sure there's more), but it is quite disappointing that there's not been more — the quality and originality of the ideas that come out of Microsoft Research is really quite surprising.

  28. Re:another longhorn? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Come to think of it, has an written from scratch OS worked?

    CP/M. Some device specific OS's like the C64. The Apple Lisa (which begat the MacOS 1-9). I'm not even sure I'd count Unix, since there's so many flavors all based on something from before. Even Linux was heavily dependant on GNU, which pre-existed it.

    Look at the failures. BeOS. Rhapsody. Plan 9, etc.

  29. Re:Papers? by Kupek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't understand your complaint. They wrote some papers about their research project, why wouldn't they put them on their site? Before you dismiss the quality of the papers, you want to actually read them.

  30. Built on a new language? by PCM2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As far as I can see, the language in question is not exactly "new" anymore, being C#. In other words, this is sort of a demo OS written in a managed-code environment as a way to test various OS principles (which in this case sound a lot like the virtualization stuff that so many other vendors are also doing). Singularity seems like the equivalent of writing an operating system in Java for a school project.

    --
    Breakfast served all day!
    1. Re:Built on a new language? by Coryoth · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As far as I can see, the language in question is not exactly "new" anymore, being C#.

      Actually its an extended version of Spec# which is in turn an extension of C#. It might help to acquaint yourself with what that actually means. The first significant different is that Spec# allows for explicit pre and post conditions and other formal specificiation syntax, and hence allows for model checking, extended static checking, and formal proof if required.

      It's more like someone writing an OS in BitC because it can be formally verified and hence be more secure. It does make sense, and there is good logic behind it. Comparing it to an OS in Java is just silly. Comparing it to an OS written in Java using JML and associated theorem provers is getting a little closer. Of course that doesn't address the issue of designing the OS to be more secure and reliable from the outset, and not just relying on formal verification.

      If you actually bothered to read some of the material on Singularity you would see that it is an ambitious, but remarkably interesting and promising project. It is also, I would expect, something that will permanently remain buried in MS research like so many other projects. I would be interested in seeing a good open source equivalent though - such a project might have some hope of surviving.

      Jedidiah.

  31. good for niche marked by spectrokid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    An OS written in C#? Could be good. Not for a gaming machine, but what about an ATM? A controller in an industrial environment? Imagine a PC with no memory leaks,like ever. No buffer overflows. No monthly patching hell. Would make one tough SOB as a firewall.

    --

    10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then

  32. Re:My guess: by zootm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you read the paper, the idea is that, yes, it'll be slower, but the reliability will be built in from the beginning, rather than other systems which take something fast and bolt reliability on. They make a good point that they will be able to use optimising compilers for CLR languages in this context, too.

  33. Not really by I+Like+Pudding · · Score: 3, Funny

    Black holes can't destroy information nearly as well as an MS OS can.

  34. Re:another longhorn? by objekt · · Score: 2, Interesting

    BeOS worked well, still does, actually. And if Apple had bought BeOS it wouldn't be considered a failure.

    --
    -- Boycott Shell
  35. Re:Papers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I wouldn't call it FUD. Considering all the "independent" OS studies MS puts out, not to mention the outright lies their marketing department (or marketing firms hired by them) passes off, I think MS has very little credibility when it comes to announcements that aren't backed by much substantial. I don't doubt they have very good people doing very good research, but the company as a whole has no credible marketing capital.

  36. They aren't the first by ndogg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Check out EROS for an implementation that exists now. Granted, EROS itself is no longer being developed, it was definitely around before this OS, and EROS has spawned some new projects (look on the link for links).

    --
    // file: mice.h
    #include "frickin_lasers.h"
  37. It's agood thing and they Should be persuing it. by romanbway · · Score: 2, Insightful

    As software starts to take over from mechanical controls it needs to be super reliable. It looks like Microsoft is getting ready for a world where their software flies our planes and drives out cars.

  38. Re:Lack of Dynamic Loading by zootm · · Score: 5, Informative

    A quote from Galen Hunt (apparently someone working on it) from the Channel9 video page (I have to say I've not watched the video, at least yet, it's just interesting wherever developers actually reply to queries), says something about this:

    In Singularity, you can add new code to your application. However, instead of loading it into your own process, you load it into a child process. The OS facilitiates setting up channels between the child and its parent.

    While this is still very much a work in progress, the results so far look promising. For example, we have a dynamic web server that uses child processes. Also all of our device drivers run in child processes.

    I don't know if that directly answers your question, but I think it kinda explains how they're dealing with this sort of thing.

  39. Re:Papers? by joschm0 · · Score: 3, Funny
    I dare you to name one.

    Well let's see, there was Bob. Now that was real innovation.

    --
    01/20/09
  40. Re:This just in MS sucks...already Slash Dotted by EraserMouseMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yea, we've never seen a LAMP site /.ed now have we?
    So when /.ers kill a LAMP site do you post with the subject, "This just in LAMP sucks . . . already Slash Dotted"?

  41. Re:This just in MS sucks...already Slash Dotted by The+Bungi · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Just goes to show what IIS and SQL Server will do for you....

    Wow, and the last time I saw a /.'ed site spewing MySQL and Apache errors I thought it was just me. Because, well, I've heard that using open source will automagically upgrade your DSL to a T3. Free!

    Moron.

  42. Re:Define "innovation" in that context. by jcr · · Score: 2, Funny

    to generalize their contribution to modern computing as nothing more than theft and good marketing is pure garbage.

    Perhaps you can specify some of their alleged contributions?

    That's OK, we'll wait.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  43. Re:another longhorn? by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Come to think of it - has MS EVER written their own OS from scratch?

    Better question: when's the last time anybody wrote an OS from scratch?

    As far as I can see, the answer to that is really "never". Before there were OSes, there were collections of macros to act like device drivers and such. The first OSes were based on those, and added slightly more uniform interfaces and such.

    Pretty much everything since can be traced back to something previous.

    DOS - Borrowed from Tim Patterson's QDOS.

    Windows - Shell extention to DOS

    Xenix - AT&T/Berkley clone

    OS/2 - Co-built with IBM

    NT / XP / Vista - Built off of OS/2

    DOS 1.0 was based on QDOS, but DOS 2.0 was essentially a complete rewrite that was really based much more closely on UNIX than on QDOS.

    In fairness it should also be added that QDOS was based on (according to some, just a re-compile of) CP/M. Lest any CP/Mers get all holier-than-thou about it, in his original announcement letter about it to "Doctor Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics and Orthodontia", Gary Kildall openly stated that CP/M was derived from DEC RT/11. I'll assume there aren't enough DECies left to bother debunking the notion that RT/11 was entirely original.

    I'd say the others are much the same way: on one hand, MS contributed more originality than you imply, and on the other hand, others contributed less than you imply.

    --
    The universe is a figment of its own imagination.

    --
    The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
  44. Microsoft: ActiveX considered harmful by cbiffle · · Score: 2, Insightful
    My favorite bit from the research paper (linked from TFA) is the following:


    Extensions are a major cause of software reliability, security, and backward compatibility problems. Although extension code is often untrusted, unverified, faulty, or even malicious, it is loaded directly into a program's address space with no hard interface, boundary, or distinction between host and extension.


    Okay, Microsoft, I think I'm with you on this one...you're telling us not to use ActiveX, right?
    1. Re:Microsoft: ActiveX considered harmful by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 2, Interesting


      No, they're saying that the OS should only run software from the original developers and never be enhanced by anyone else - ESPECIALLY anything that could remotely be considered "open source."

      In other words, users must only run Microsoft Windows - and stop asking us for updates and security patches because updates and patches are not reliable or secure.

      In other words, give us your money and shut the fuck up.

      Oh, yeah, this project has Bill's seal of approval on it, all right.

      These are the sort of "brilliant guys" Microsoft hires - people with no fucking clue who accept the Microsoft way of doing things.

      The concepts mentioned, by the way, are 180 degrees opposite of mine: an application should just be one more thing the OS knows how to do. In other words, total integration of OS and applications by requiring the application to be developed in the same manner as the OS as - not an extension - but an integration with the OS.

      Not possible without an OS with conceptual processing ability, however.

      --
      Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  45. Re:Papers? by shadowmatter · · Score: 4, Informative

    Also it's worth noting that, first, HotOS isn't "invite only." That's why there is a call for papers on the web site referenced by the grandparent. Second, the review is double blind, so there's no chance of papers submitted by Microsoft Research getting special treatment by the reviewers. So I'm not really sure what the grandparent is alluding to.

    MSR isn't the first research group to think of using new language constructs to enforce security. Check out this paper on Asbestos, appearing at SOSP, for something similar. But one thing is certain: MSR has a large pool of talent and the money to push this research endeavor farther than any other company or academic institution could, and that is something exciting.

    - shadowmatter

  46. Re:Papers? by Kupek · · Score: 2, Informative

    No. It was not that it was sponsored by Microsoft; it is that it was sponsored almost to its enterity by Microsoft and it was "invitation only", where invitations could come only from... Microsoft.

    False. "Sponsored" by Microsoft means they donated money to it. It's a USENIX sponsored conference (which, if you're not aware, is an organization that sponsors highly respected systems conferences). It does not mean that Microsoft ran the show. Out of a 12 person committee, only two are from Microsoft Research.

  47. Re:another longhorn? by jcr · · Score: 2, Informative

    Better question: when's the last time anybody wrote an OS from scratch?

    Let's see.. There's EROS and Coyotos, just to name two within the last decade.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  48. I hope they market this SOB by WhiteWolf666 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Thoughts:

    1. Be nice to have some real competition versus Linux/OS X in terms of architecture. XP/2003 just aren't there. Vista won't be, most likely.
    2. Where such a beast (research OS) ever to become a product, would it demonstrate a high level of backwards compatibility? If not, would it actually have to compete on merits, rather than vendor lock-in?
    3. It's taken ~10 years to write Wine to the point where it is in _beta_. Now, I'm sure MS can do it faster, because they have the documentation; after all, they designed it. But how long will it take? Or will they use a virtual machine architecture?

    In any case, if MS switches to an entirely different OS architecture, I forsee the end of the MS monopoly. Release of a non-Win32 based OS, one that runs older applications (either desktop OR server) in emulation validates Linux/OS with QEMU/Virtual PC/VMware/Xen/Whatever.

    4. I doubt this will ever leave the lab. Singularity will be a test bed for MS researchers who want to play with various concepts. These things will be ported over to Vista, or whatever comes into the future. I cannot imagine a world in which MS actually started from scratch; having to market such a product against mainline-Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, AIX, and FreeBSD would be pure madness. It's already extremely difficult for MS to push Office against older versions of Office; this has generated substantial pressure towards alternative Office packages.

    It'll be significantly harder for MS to push towards a non-Windows MS operating system. Every single CIO willing to consider moving from Windows will be willing to consider moving to Linux/OS X/whatever instead.

    --
    WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
    1. Re:I hope they market this SOB by courtarro · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Wow, quick to judge. Once MS has given up the push for performance (as in this case), you can guess they're not aiming at the end-user desktop. They don't want this to compete with Vista or any future derivative, they will want it to be used in embedded systems that can't fail. They want it to compete with Linux for small devices, not on the desktop. In cars, IV drips, air traffic controllers, and voting machines, you need computers that never ever crash, so this is the sort of thing that can be used in those lower-performance-allowable situations.

      That said, this is research. They have barely even made it known to the public at this point, much less secured some sort of massive marketing campaign. They may later decide that it's pointless to compete with existing solutions (I couldn't say either way), but the only way to find out is to start something and see where it goes.

    2. Re:I hope they market this SOB by Bonobo_Unknown · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Microsoft didn't seem to have too much trouble in getting everyone to swap from 9x to NT (What version of NT are we up to now, is it 6??)

      --
      We don't believe in radical loony monotheistic religions from the middle east -- we're Christians.
    3. Re:I hope they market this SOB by drsmithy · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Be nice to have some real competition versus Linux/OS X in terms of architecture. XP/2003 just aren't there. Vista won't be, most likely.

      Architecturally, NT is better than both Linux and OS X.

      Release of a non-Win32 based OS, one that runs older applications (either desktop OR server) in emulation validates Linux/OS with QEMU/Virtual PC/VMware/Xen/Whatever.

      Except that Microsoft would expend a great deal of effort to make the emulation transparent, seamless and easy to use. It's doubtful the same would be true from the OSS community.

      It'll be significantly harder for MS to push towards a non-Windows MS operating system.

      Not if it runs existing applications relatively seamlessly, it won't.

      Every single CIO willing to consider moving from Windows will be willing to consider moving to Linux/OS X/whatever instead.

      Assuming they can provide similar functionality and performance at a competitive price. This is far from a given.

  49. Re:another longhorn? by LLuthor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I am going to be modded troll for this I am sure, but I have to say it anyway.

    How many OSes have ever been written from scratch?

    I can think of only 3, none of which has even 0.1% market share. In fact, Plan9 is the only one of them alive.

    What is the big deal with bashing microsoft for copying ideas from people?

    Isn't that what OSS is built around, copying good ideas?

    --
    LL
  50. Relativistic O/S by psbrogna · · Score: 2, Funny

    Perhaps due to time distortion effects, Singularity will reach production before Vista. : )

  51. And they are hiring ... by linumax · · Score: 3, Informative

    Maybe a good chance if you are interested!

    We are hiring! If you are interested in a full-time Researcher position, please email a C.V. or resume, a research statement, and the email addresses of three reference letter writers to Galen Hunt. You may also email copies of two publications you feel represent your best work. Minimum education requirement for a Researcher is a Ph.D. in Computer Science or equivalent.

    To facilitate our hiring process, we strongly encourage interested fulltime researcher candidates to submit their application materials as soon as possible and preferably by February 15, 2006.

    In evaluating candidates, we pay particular attention to demonstrated qualities of research taste, innovation, and first-hand system building. We value highly a proven research track record as demonstrated by strong publications in top venues.

    If you are an exceptional Ph.D. candidate interested in a research internship, please use the MSR Internship Application.

    Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer and supports workforce diversity.

    1. Re:And they are hiring ... by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 2, Funny

      "Microsoft...supports workforce diversity."

      Yeah, we keep you separate from anybody with a clue. Can't have you getting one.

      That's why we want PhDs with a proven track record of publication in top venues. Got forbid you've ever written a program for a real end user that has to do a real job.

      And no way we want anybody who knows what the words "antitrust" or "truth" means.

      --
      Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  52. Re:another longhorn? by shmlco · · Score: 5, Insightful
    You mean the way the FOSS community has managed to reinvent Unix from 30 to 40 years earlier? Yay for progress!

    Seriously, ALL operating systems borrow concepts from earlier versions and the existing state of the art. Trying to determine the degree (or not) of "innovation" is akin to arguing about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, with no prior agreement as to the size of an angel...

    --
    Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
  53. Looks interesting, could lead to a better foundati by pstreck · · Score: 2, Insightful

    After browsing the pdf this os looks very promising. It's implementing a lot of technologies that have to this point only been theorized or tested in very small scale environments. I personally applaud microsoft for taking this initiative on dependenability, for it is something that they have lacked focus on for the past 15 years or so. And i'm honestly kind of disgusted with general microsoft bashing in these comments. Judge technology by it's merits and pitfalls not by it's creators past acheivement, or personal disputes with it's creator. -- nuff said

    --

    Later,
    Phil
  54. Re:another longhorn? by linguae · · Score: 2, Informative

    Err, Rhapsody was based off of OPENSTEP, which is based off NEXTSTEP, which is based off 4.2BSD (based off AT&T Unix 32V) and Mach from CMU. Mac OS X is based off of Rhapsody. Rhapsody was never released to the public, and the only reason why Rhapsody "failed" (i.e., Apple decided to abandon it and do a different approach with transforming OPENSTEP to OS X) is because Rhapsody would have forced developers to develop all of their applications for OPENSTEP APIs (now known as Cocoa). Developers didn't feel like re-writing all of their old Mac OS applications, so Apple had to spend the next few years developing Carbon (which contains much of the old Classic APIs, just updated for OS X).

    Plan 9 is a new operating system, but much of it is based off the concepts of Unix. Plan 9 improves from Unix in many ways. It "failed" in the sense of doesn't have any market share, but Plan 9 wasn't about taking over the world. It is just a research project, and many of the concepts invented there (such as UTF-8 support and /proc) has been used in many other OSes and applications. Plan 9 has a very neat design and environment.

    In a sense, all of the modern OSes that we use now are based off of a predecessor OS, either by sharing code or sharing concepts/functionality.

  55. Direct Link to Microsoft PDF by Skier4Life · · Score: 5, Informative
    --


    [SIG] Far better to be thought a fool then to post on /. and remove all doubt.
  56. Re:another longhorn? by Al+Dimond · · Score: 4, Informative

    Windows NT and VMS isn't a conspiracy theory or a myth. It's not dirty.

    Recently I heard a talk about the Windows kernel given by a guy from Microsoft. At the beginning of a talk, he said, "There are only two operating systems that matter." After the audience buzzed for a while, saying to eachother, "That jerk, Linux matters too!" or "That jerk, OS X matters too!" or "That jerk, BSD matters too!" He said something like, "You guys don't seem to like that, so what's the third?" One guy shouted out, "Windows!" The MS guy said, "Well, if you mean 'evil Windows', that is, Win95/98/ME, then it probably isn't even third. There are two operating systems that matter and they are Unix and VMS." He explained that for the most part ideas from VMS, rather than from Unix, shaped the design of the NT kernel. Looking at the Russinovich article, many of the things he lists as similarities are also similarities with Unix and many are similarities with any modern OS. Some, like the Object Manager, are specific to VMS and Windows. But overall, as long as DEC and MS came to some kind of agreement over any shared concepts or code, it's no knock on Microsoft, just as it's no knock on Linus for implementing a Unix-like OS. Better to borrow some things from a proven design and get a good product than to forge off on your own and make wierd mistakes.

  57. Re:another longhorn? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    VMS's "relationship" with NT has to do with Dave Cutler,

    You're ignoring the fact that the relationship was Dave Cutler, and 20 of his team members.

    a respected former DEC engineer who worked on later versions of VMS, being the primary designer of the original NT kernel, and using many of the same ideas (as you'd expect him to do.)

    The story actually goes much farther than that. You see, when Cutler was working at DEC, he was pushing a complete rewrite of the VMS Operating System. His new version of the OS would have all kinds of neato features that no one had ever seen before. DEC gave him the go-ahead and development commenced. After the project had gotten far along, DEC decided to pull the plug on it, and moved Cutler elsewhere. Cutler (predictably) quit.

    Microsoft then sapped up Cutler on the agreement that Microsoft would also hire all the team members who'd been working on the Next-Gen VMS project with him. Microsoft agreed, and development on "Windows NT" (which doesn't actually mean anything, the marketdriods just liked the "NT" letters) began in earnest.

    DEC eventually found out about the whole thing, and wanted to sue. However, an agreement was reached to where Windows NT would run on Digital Alpha hardware. DEC *thought* they got a good deal (all the technology, none of the development costs) but didn't realize quite the deal they were getting into. The Alpha version of NT worked, but absolutely no one targetted software to it. Oops.

    Some people, as you appear to suggest, have chosen to go further than this and claim there's code from VMS in NT.

    It's irrelevant if that is true or not. (Though it might be, given the amount of resources directly transferred to Microsoft.) What's relevant is the fact that each engineer carried a metric boatload of proprietary technology to another company. That's simply not legal for employees, especially when they're under contract. Thus Microsoft benefitted from all the work that DEC had already paid for.

    As for the similar naming scheme, I had to chuckle at that. I had never read the Windows NT Magazine article on this until just now. While his ducks are mostly in order, the comparisons are a bit silly. No, I actually learned from a much more interesting source: DiskKeeper. They used to make Defrag software for VAX VMS, then converted it to run on NT when it came out. Funny thing that. You'd almost think that the two systems were so similar that it would be a natural port, now wouldn't you?

    (Sarcasm aside, DiskKeeper actually had to distribute a custom version of NT 3.x because Microsoft hadn't provided any method of relocating file system blocks. Microsoft eventually worked this feature into NT 4.0.)

  58. Yay, 1979 Again! by nate+nice · · Score: 3, Informative

    Have they ever heard of "Non-Stop"? You know, the Tandem kernel? These machines have 99.99% up-time. They don't perform great always but they are bullet proof....and essentially non-hacked because....well, they don't really make root-kits for these things.

    In case you never heard of them, they are a mainframe based computing system that is used heavily in stock markets, banks and ATM devices. Basically in places where up-time and reliability is rather important. I personally don't like programming on them too much (COBOL anyone!..language with no stack...just wrong) but it can be a fun learning experience. At least there is a program called "OSH" that emulates the bash shell, rather poorly I'll admit...but nice for a guy like me anyways.

    I guess a neat thing about Tandem, that also makes them awkward to use initially, is that they don't have a typical file structure. Everything is "Volumes" and you write all these "Servers"....just different. In the end, there is a one-to-one mapping of their file system to something most of us find traditional.

    --
    "If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer ..."
  59. Re:Papers? by GileadGreene · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Please keep in mind that MS Research is quite a different beast than the production departments of MS. MS Research does a lot of respected work. They also employ some of the most reputable researchers in software and OS development, including:

    I dislike MS production software and business practices as much as the next guy. But don't make the mistake of underestimating MS Research just because you dislike MS.

  60. Device Drivers by miller701 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    While this is still very much a work in progress, the results so far look promising. For example, we have a dynamic web server that uses child processes. Also all of our device drivers run in child processes.

    Does anyone know if this means no restart required after a driver update?

    1. Re:Device Drivers by zootm · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Interesting point! I guess that's exactly what it would mean, yes, since they seem to be treating all of these things at similar levels.

  61. There was a rewrite of OS/2 in... by Karma_fucker_sucker · · Score: 2, Interesting
    progress before Gerstner killed it.

    The rewrite was based on the Mach kernel and it was done for the PPC. It was really nice. It's a shame it was killed - as far I as know. IBM is a huge company and I haven't worked there in 10 years, so take what I've said with a grain of salt or two.

    --
    Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
  62. Re:Nope. by SlashSquatch · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Maybe the animosity towards microsoft stems from the feeling of persecution derived from being forced to hard reboot to often (among other ridiculous things). This occuring in stressful situations, coupled with any other quirky behavior, makes the user harbor very negative feelings of being held captive, resulting in frustration, feelings of unproductivity and anger toward the perceived captor. When the captor is a monolithic corporation, incapable of assimilating true user feedback, the feelings are compounded. Slashdot is a healthy release of this animosity.

    "You think your Commodore 64 is really neato What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito? You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?"

    --
    Autonomous Retard -- Is your camp safe? UnsafeCamp.com
  63. Re:another longhorn? by renfrow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    GP post was correct so far as I can tell. Every succesful (where succesful means it actually made it into significant use in the real world) OS was a refinement of a previous attempt, and every new, innovative, designed from scratch OS project has ended in dismal failure, usually bankrupting the designers (or at least the corporation they formed) in the process.

    Sooooo.... Where is the bad in this if Microsoft does it?

    Tom.

  64. apples and oranges by idlake · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The two are very different beasts.

    EROS uses C and relies on memory management hardware for isolation. EROS also can't analyze or verify code it loads.

    Singularity uses C# and does not use memory management hardware for protection; it guarantees isolation via runtime checks, and it can perform extensive code analysis on load.

    I don't know whether Singularity is going to make it, but I have used and developed on systems like it (the idea isn't new), and it is a lot nicer than either UNIX kernels or EROS-like kernels.

    1. Re:apples and oranges by naasking · · Score: 2, Insightful

      EROS uses C and relies on memory management hardware for isolation. EROS also can't analyze or verify code it loads.

      I don't want to re-hash our previous argument on this subject, but the above statement is trivially falsifiable. Singularity is built on a microkernel. EROS is built on a microkernel. Anything that can be built on Singularity, can be built on EROS, including verifiers, virtual machines, Software Isolated Processes, etc.

      EROS has a default mechanism for isolating faults and loading untrusted code in the absence of any safety guarantees: the constructor.

      I don't know whether Singularity is going to make it, but I have used and developed on systems like it (the idea isn't new), and it is a lot nicer than either UNIX kernels or EROS-like kernels.

      Not that you know what developing on an EROS-like system is like, considering it's a completely revolutionary architecture comparable only to KeyKOS from which it's derived.

    2. Re:apples and oranges by cartman · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Singularity is built on a microkernel. EROS is built on a microkernel.
      You completely misunderstood the point of Singularity. The point of Singularity is that all code (except OS code) is subject to verification, and any code that isn't verifiable is runtime bounds-checked. Furthermore, in Singularity, inter-process communication is structured, such that the OS can verify IPC traffic. Furthermore, the languages for Singularity are strongly typed at the object code level, and garbage collection is performed by the OS--explicit deallocation is impossible for any application. These facilities make it impossible for any application to have buffer overruns, segfaults, or overruns of other apps' data--as a result, all applications can run in ring 0 and virtual memory is not required.

      All that has nothing whatsoever to do with Eros. The two projects are not even similar.

      Of course a verifier could be written as an application for Eros (or for DOS, for that matter). That statement is like saying that C++ is no different from assembly, because they're both built atop similar hardware and can be used to implement the same things.

      Not that you know what developing on an EROS-like system is like, considering it's a completely revolutionary architecture comparable only to KeyKOS from which it's derived.
      The Coyotos OS is based on Eros and is quite similar. Additionally, Eros is not completely revolutionary. From the eros web page, What's new about Eros?: "Each of these faclities is...essential to providing scalable reliability, and all of them have appeared in prior systems. No prior system, however, has ... this particular combination ... in quite the same way.".
      Not that you know what developing on an EROS-like system is like
      Your arrogance is unjustified.
  65. IMPORTANT by MountainMan101 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm only replying to the parent so that this post is high up the screen.

    Look at page 31 of this PDF. Microsoft publish benchmark statistics showing Linux (and FreeBSD) to be better than Windows.

    ftp://ftp.research.microsoft.com/pub/tr/TR-2005-13 5.pdf

    1. Re:IMPORTANT by sstidman · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'll admit that I don't know much about kernels, but I'll try to summarize. The chart compares performance between the new OS Singularity, FreeBSD 5.3, Redhat Fedora Core 4 (kernel version 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4), and Windows XP (SP2). The goal of the chart, stated in the paragraphs above, is to show that the new Singularity architecture does not suffer any performance hits in order to make a more secure system.

            The table shows the CPU cost of six different types of operations: "Read Cycle Counter", "ABI Call", "Thread yield", "2 thread wait-set ping pong", "2 message ping pong" and "Create and start process". For the first one, Windows seems to kick the butt of all others handily with Singularity being the worst of the bunch. For "ABI Call", each OS used different system calls that "operate on a readily available data structure in the respective kernels." The system calls seem to be completely different so I don't know if this test is valid, but the results show Singularity an order of magnitude more efficient than the others, with Linux beating Windows by a considerable margin and Windows beating FreeBSD by an equally considerable margin.

            For the "thread yield" tests, FreeBSD & Linux are equal, Windows beats them by a reasonable percentage and Singularity is more than twice as fast as the Unixes. For the "2 wait-set ping pong", which measures "the cost of switching between two threads in the same process through a synchronization object", the chart shows that Singularity is somewhat more efficient than Windows and Windows is more than twice as fast as the Unixes. For the "2 message ping pong", which shows the cost of sending a 1-byte message back and forth between two processes, Singularity is 4 times more efficient than Linux, which is somewhat better than Windows, which kicks FreeBSDs butt decisively.

            Lastly, for "Create and start process", Singularity is twice as fast as Linux, which is about 50% faster than FreeBSD. Windows comes out 7 times slower than Linux on this test. I don't know how much that matters in the real world since creating and starting a process is not something that is done hundreds of times a second.

            All that said, it should probably be pointed out that there are many ways to measure an OS. The M$ guys may have simply picked the ones that support their "see we don't suck" position. And given that Singularity is not a complete OS, I would expect that more overhead will be added later that will bring down these numbers. I guess we'll see.

      --
      Send/track messages to 100K people: www.xPressAlert.com
  66. I heard of this by Anonymous+Writer · · Score: 2, Funny

    Isn't it used in Romulan Warbirds?

  67. Re:another longhorn? by Coryoth · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is just a research OS written in C#.

    No, it's written in Sing# which is an extension of Spec# which is an extension of C#. People really ought to pay more attention to Spec# - it's a nice extension of C# that allows for more formality if and when you require it. It's in the same class of language as SPARK which is an extension of Ada, JML which extends Java with specification semantics, BitC, Extended ML, HasCASL, and I guess to a lesser extent things like Eiffel and D.

    Think of it this way: static types and type signatures for functions allow you to specify things about the software that the compiler can statically check and make sure there aren't any silly errors. The languages listed above (to varying degrees) allow for more exacting specification about the software, and hence you can (with the right tools) do far more comprehensive static checking and ensure various properties of the software. The difference is that, with most of these languages, the amount of specification is optional - you can be as exacting as you want where you need it, and not bother where you don't. It's like a dynamically typed language that lets you declare and use static types (and check them)just for those areas of code where it matters (except you start with static types and can provide more exacting specification where it matters). It's well worth checking out.

    Jedidiah.

  68. I think the point is somewhat murky, myself by jd · · Score: 2, Insightful
    The first implementation is indeed innovative. I'd call Gopher and WAIS truly innovative as information delivery systems and the web as innovative as a presentation system. For plain information, Gopher and WAIS are still technically superior.


    I would argue, however, that later generations can be innovative - provided they do something revolutionary in and of itself. For example, CERN's webserver was the first (and therefore innovative by being first) but I'd consider NCSA's webserver to to have posessed qualities that the CERN server did not have, in a manner such that NCSA's webserver (IMHO) deserves the title of innovative as well. Although Apache has yet more qualities, I would not consider those to be in a manner that justifies such a title.


    By implication, I'm saying that a quality must have some attribute that distinguishes itself above and beyond being a mere addition, for the idea/project to be called a true innovation. To me, that attribute is that the addition not simply be an extrapolation or an interpolation of what already existed but must exist outside of the covered space, yet intersect the covered space in such a manner that the extension is a natural extension, not forced.


    The "dumb person's test" for true innovation is that it must be so difficult to see in advance that it had truly occured to nobody at all. EVER. Yet be so obvious once found/developed that nobody really realizes it hasn't always been there,

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  69. Re:Define "innovation" in that context. by stretch0611 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Absolutely, but to generalize their contribution to modern computing as nothing more than theft and good marketing is pure garbage.

    Ok, that's your opinion. I however beleive that they have only copied and stolen products without any real innovation.

    Microsoft started by selling BASIC intepreters for the old Altair computers. However, their compilers were mainly based on public domain alternatives at the time. (Copy and/or stolen, not innovation)

    As we progress to the era of DOS, When M$ was approach by IBM, they said they had a CP/M clone (but didn't) and bought the rights to QDOS which they resold as their own. (Clone of CP/M which they bought)

    Further history of Microsoft reveals much more of the same.

    • Windows - Copy of the Mac's Gui which was stolen from Xerox PARC
    • Word - There were some many prior entrants I do not remember which was the first, but it wasn't M$. (unless maybe it was EDLIN which was horrendous to work with)
    • Excel - Clone of Lotus 1-2-3 which was a clone of Visicalc
    • Access - one of the first PC database I remember was dbase - but there was probably something earlier.
    • Money - This was only developed because a judge refuse to let M$ buy Quicken
    • Drivespace (Disk Compression) - wasn't around until after Stacker. (there was a big lawsuit on this one too! (Microsoft Lost)
    • Visio - This was written by a seperate company until M$ bought them in 2000.
    • Tablet PCs - Another lawsuit on this one a few years back because it is based on prior "Pen Computing"
    • Even M$ Bob, the OS flop which came back to haunt us as the stupid paperclip in M$ Office was a copy. I think it came from the avatar from the now defunct Sierra Network.
    • Internet Explorer, Recycle Bin/Undelete, Disk Defragmenter... - All are more examples of other people's ideas that Microsoft incorporated into the OS as their own.

    Microsoft is a monopoly and does not innovate. I have shown multiple examples of this. Microsoft will buy or copy things that are truly innovative and then try to rewrite history as if they were their own all of history.

    You have not given even one example of Microsoft innovation. When you do I may consider your post valid.

    --
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  70. Yawn by Salamander · · Score: 5, Informative

    I already wrote about this four days ago so I won't repeat the whole thing here. Short version:

    • Microkernel design, single-address-space implementation: good
    • Extensive compile-time checking of code that eventually runs native (not interpreted/JIT): good
    • Checking protocol behavior as well as lower-level function contracts: great
    • No deadlock/livelock checking: ok for now (it's a hard problem)
    • No checking of responses to component failure: oops
    • Not even a mention of making it distributed: weird

    Even shorter version: lots of great ideas, lots of work still to be done. Anybody with a clue about operating systems should be following this with interest.

    --
    Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
  71. Heres one: by 0kComputer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about IXMLHTTPRequest, or what everyone now so fondly calls AJAX now that its all the rave.

    --
    Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
    10.
  72. Partial Summary and Comment by RedLaggedTeut · · Score: 3, Informative

    Results are mixed;

    According to the benchmarks published there

      - at most OS jobs like threading/process creation, Singularity is at least twice as fast as linux, Linux is very fast at process creation, while XP is good at threads

      - in File Operations FreeBSD and Linux beat XP and Singularity at random reads

      - in File Operations XP beats Linux and Singularity at sequential reads, with the exception of FreeBSD being fastest if blocksize is high(and very bad for small blocksize)

      - linux executable size are larger than these of the other OSes, (whatever that means, more good coding, or less bad code SCNR)

    Please bear in mind that a benchmark does not it tell whether the "slower" OS actually invested more time in doing some smart stuff that pays off in some other way.

    --
    I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
  73. Re:another longhorn? by DavidBurns · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Parent wrote:

    --
    OS/2 - Co-built with IBM

    NT / XP / Vista - Built off of OS/2
    --

    Correction; NT was not "Built off of OS/2" but was designed by David Cutler based on concepts in VMS. About the only commonality between OS/2 and NT is their shared heritage of compatibility with MS-DOS.