Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Singularity Now "Open" Source
Alex_Ionescu writes "Microsoft's Singularity operating system (covered previously by Slashdot) is now open to the public for download, under a typical Microsoft academic, non-commercial license. Inside is a fully compilable and bootable version of what could be the basis for the future of Windows, or maybe simply an experiment to demonstrate .NET's capabilities. Singularity, if you'll recall, has gained wide interest from researchers and users alike, by claiming to be a fully managed code kernel (with managed code drivers and applications as well), something that would finally revolutionize the operating system research arena. The project is available on CodePlex."
Non-commercial, academic license. Nothing to see here.
If this is super-stable-hacker-resistant then there must be some uses where performance is not really an issue: ATM's, Kiosks,... Does anybody know what software exists for this thing? Does it run IE?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
60mB zipped. That is relatively small.
The question is whether I can compile it using make or Xcode. Doubt it.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
It's a microkernel. This project is named singularity, but it's a collection of services. The name appears to indicate some level of suckiness.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Please don't add to the confusion. This is not Open Source. Why say so in the title other than for trolling purposes?
In today's news
"Microsoft releases open source operating system"
"Mans head explodes from intense confusion after reading news article about Microsoft releasing Open Source OS"
I've heard nothing about this previously (and I'll RTFA as soon as I post this), but as a science-aware techie, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear "singularity" is "black hole"... kinda negative, don't you think?
It's kinda like calling an image manipulation program "Gimp"
Or prefixing all programs bundled under a certain desktop environment with the letter "K"
and not Free Software.
When will people learn? Or Slashdot editors do their jobs?
(Never, but whining fanboys like myself will never stop either).
The singularity is here!
Badass Resumes
... they couldn't make it closed. Being written in a managed language means it's easily reversable.
Spin this into something bad! Your honour is on the line!
The licence only allows non-commercial use, and therefore does not meet the requirements of the Open Source Definition.
Given MS's propensity for muddying (or FUDdying?) the waters as regards open-source/free software (with terminology like "shared source"), a site like /. really shouldn't be doing their work for them...
Yeah...Rare kind of advertisement...The question is, will it work on slashdotters?
hilarious
Managed code! Look at that! Microsoft has managed to prove...
:-/
:-)
What OSS developers already proved years ago.
Actually, I'm still pretty happy about this. Regardless of whether Microsoft was first or not, they're going to manage to market the concept far better than a conglomeration of OSS developers ever could. (Sorry, guys!) If everything goes well, perhaps the public impression of managed code being "nothing but an interpreter" can finally get turned around and Computer Science can keep moving forward.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
However, considering that Vista has become something of a "black hole" for them, I think they were a little late with the "singularity" moniker. Is the next Windows going to be called "Event Horizon?"
That black hole has surely sucked in a few dollars of mine, and sucked in a lot of little companies that were pulled apart by Microsoft's huge gravity well.
-mcgrew
(Apologies for the lack of journals lately)
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Singularity? Did Ballmer finally disappear up his own ass and create one?
You're using her as bait, Master!
A non-commercial, academic license is not "open source". Parent makes a perfectly legitimate point.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I know a huge performance hit when I see one. It might be more flexible than "conventional" operating systems out there, but the closer you run things to the bare metal, the better the performance is going to be.
Does it run linux?
* Of or relating to source code (eg, computer code) that is available to the public.
plan2005.cancer.gov/glossary.html
* of or relating to or being computer software for which the source code is freely available
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn It is Open Source. It is not public domain, GPL, CC, or under any usable license.
All Open Source means is that the source is open. We want Dibold to Open Source their black boxes, not so that we can change the code and sell it, but so that we can review it and audit it.
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
will it run Linux ?
http://opensource.org/docs/osd
also, STFU when you clearly have no clue.
http://opensource.org/docs/osd
also, repost is repost
I think you meant:
shared source = source code is made available
Very nice. It's sad, though, that Microsoft is making it available as open source, because that means it's not going to become a Microsoft product.
Singularity is an interesting system. Most of the individual ideas aren't new, but the combination of them is well chosen. It's a message passing microkernel, like VM and QNX, the OSs that actually work reliably. The storage management and of enforcement of process separation at compile time comes from the ALGOL compiler for the Burroughs 5500, circa 1960, for example. They recognized the problem of interaction between interprocess communication and the scheduler and dealt with it; QNX probably has a better solution, but the one in Singularity is OK. Singularity tries a bit too hard to avoid interprocess copying; so did Mach, and it made things worse.
There's a reasonable design-by-contract language. The language knows about marshalling for interprocess communication, which encourages its use. That's borrowed from Mesa. In most languages, a subroutine call is much easier to code than an interprocess call, which encourages bloat of individual processes.
Drivers aren't in the kernel and aren't trusted, although drivers that can do DMA still present a security problem. This is a problem with insecure PC hardware; IBM mainframe channels have DMA that goes through MMU checking. That could be fixed, especially since most new peripherals are on USB or FireWire ports. Add-on boards are on the way out.
Makes me wish I was still doing OS R&D.
because it is too good and would make their current stuff look like ****?
Seriously, I guess this means it isn't in their mainstream OS roadmap,
which seems like bad news for those who would hope M$ might eventually
produce and sell a simple, safe, easy to use non-strongbad product.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
It's kinda one of those things where a term with a very obvious semantic meaning was hijacked, politicized, and became something entirely different. It may have been the case that at one point, before all the lawyering or whatever, availability of source code actually meant you could do whatever you want with it. Thus, "open source" implied free use, redistribution, etc. And clearly, people who support Open Source support those ideals, even if open source code does not necessarily imply that anymore.
It's kinda like Democratic vs. democratic. One is a political party with lobbyists, fake politicians, etc., and the other is a type of system where the people make the decisions.
http://opensource.org/docs/osd
disclaimer: repost is repost
This is not open source. It's just another "you can play with it but don't you dare do anything real" license.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I'm sure alot of people will be very excited about this, I mean almost everything is done in c#. Looking at the build instructions it goes something like this:
That looks sweet to me, and it would be perfect if you want to develop an operating system without doing bit masking on stuff from a obscure bus.
I'm afraid stuff like this is reducing my hate of MS. For several reasons, I am finding MS products less and less frustrating.
1). Open sourcing weird stuff like this.
2). Silverlight is pretty good.
3). I disabled UAC in Vista. Now Vista is just like XP, but it has a prettier (albeit inconsistent at times) UI.
4). Realizing that as much as I may like free as in freedom with Linux, in XP, my stuff just works, and it's fast and snappy and doesn't get bogged down (of course I'm not doing stupid stuff like using IE visiting sketchy websites that install things). It works great for all my games, etc. Solid OS; I just had to get over my Linux vigilatism to notice it.
5). I just found the speach recognition built into Vista 2 nights ago. For just about everything but typing, it works flawlessly. As much as I love my mouse; sitting back, relaxing with both hands comfortably unbound from a keyboard and mouse, feels absolutely wonderful. So instead of clicking minimize/maximize/close, alt+tab'ing until you see the window you want, clicking start, etc; you just say into your headset "Minimize" "Maximize" or the name of the window you want to use. So to change focus back to Firefox, I would say "Mozilla Firefox". Then you can say things like "Bookmarks" and it opens the menu for your bookmaks. Say the name of the bookmark and it selects it, then "ok" or "enter" to open it. If you've got several bookmarks it thinks you're saying, it highlights all of them with a transparent bar that you can see through, and places a number in the middle of that bar. So if I say "Slashdot", it highlights the 8 slashdot bookmarks I have, and then I say "7" and it opens the one under the bar labelled "7". "Scroll Down", "Scroll down 10", "Press control w" to close a tab. If you have a list of sites you usually like to go to, and have them all bookmarked (for me they're all in the bookmarks toolbar folder), then browsing your favorite sites that you check daily is easy. "GM [gmail]" "Reddit" etc. Since I have all these bookmarks on the toolbar, it automatically finds them and clicks them. When you're surfing the net, just say the name of the link on the page and it opens it for you.
The Start Menu works nicely too. Just say "Start" and then the name of the program you want to open. Then it opens it. If it thinks there's several things you could be referring to, it shows these in the search results pane and uses the same number scheme to select which one you want. You can access windows here as well; after saying "Start" say "Show numbers" and then the number of the window you want to restore.
This is the same tech they're putting in Ford/Lincoln/Mercuries for the GPS and music system that you've been seeing commercials for lately. After using the Vista version for just about 30 minutes, I've quickly gotten used to it; the commands are very intuitive. Gotta say it's really cool stuff. Yes I know OSX has had this since who knows when, but meh, OSX can't play my games. It feels much closer to what I'm thinking I want to do, because there's no physical motion besides just speaking what I want to do and it does it. Seems like they're progressing towards the synergy between brain and computer control very nicely.
Microsoft has proven time and time again that they don't have the discipline to do a properly layered operating system.
When they had OS/2 available to them, they switched back to DOS and stuffed everything into Win16.
Then when they had the original NT microkernel available to them, they stuffed everything into the Win32 layer, where it didn't belong.
Do you really believe Microsoft when they say, again, "This time we're going to design it properly" ??
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
You're confused. Open source is an adjective that describes a piece of software as having the original source code publicly available. "Open Source" is also the name of a marketing campaign and licensing lobbying movement. So this release is open source as the code is being made available. It does not comply with the desires of the "Open Source" movement though. The two are entirely different.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Seriously though, I wonder how long it will be until Ballmer will be throwing chairs at closed-source solutions. I can see MS doing quite well with this new model, and any move to go back to the closed-source will result in fits from Ballmer.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
Since Singularity is supposed to run every application, driver, service, or whatever, would it take your entire computer out of commission if it crashed? When Explorer gets locked up and has to restart it takes everything that had anything to do with it out of commission. At least then it's not doing a dump of my drivers, running programs and etc.
That would be the crash heard around the world... thanks to my screaming!
The game.
FTA: "Haptic technology has uses ranging from remote medical breast checks and exploring distant lands, to recreating the feel of fabrics."
Yes, but when can I remotely feel and explore distant breasts?
Gotta have priorities, mate.
Get... Get your hand away from that moderation button, you! Don't mod me, bro! It's a legitimate, technical and inherently geeky question of a viable, important and distinctly boob related issue that I'm sure I'm not alone in... Oh bugger, you modded me down, didn't you?
smeg.
From the ars technica link below :
QUOTE:"Although the Singularity research development kit (RDK) is available for download, it is not technically open source. The source code is distributed under the terms of the restrictive Microsoft Research License rather than one of Microsoft's two OSI-approved open source licenses."
ars technica
To be "open source" you need a tad little bit more than having the source readable in plain text, IMHO.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
/ /
( -. |
| ) |
(`-. '--.)
`. )----'
also, STFU when you clearly have no clue. In fairness to the GP, there is an argument that a Californian non-profit organisation can't suddenly spring up and decree that the words "open source" suddenly have whatever meaning they say they have. The OSI is neither a standards organisation nor a dictionary. Nor are the words "open source" a trademark (or, indeed, trademarkable, since they're descriptive).
What is trademarked by the OSI is the phrase "Open Source Initiative Approved", and you (and the OSI) would have a perfect right to object to anyone describing Singularity as Open Source Initiative Approved, since it isn't. But the same, I'm afraid, does not apply to a non-trademarked, commonly used phrase such as "open source", any more than Microsoft could set up a non-profit organisation that gives its own definition of "secure" and hire people to tell anyone who describes Linux as "secure" to "STFU when you clearly have no clue"...
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Source is now available for download in OOXML format.
Won't someone fix the title? It's just plain wrong. A non-commercial license is not Open Source.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
A singularity in physics is rather like dereferencing a null pointer in C. Seems an odd name for a project aimed at reliability.
...if a bunch of the concepts in this thing are patented.
To continue fighting this redundant spewage...
Open Source != Open source.
Just because some guy with a political agenda picks a common word loosely related to his goals as a name, doesn't mean that the word changes it's meaning to match that guy's goals.
There is a world of difference between Democratic process and democratic process.
Real life runs on *nix, case is sensitive.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
"non-commercial" is not Open Source.
I thought the advantage of Slashdot over Digg was that there were editors to fix things like this before going live, if not, then why visit this site anymore?
the fact remains that this could be a trap
If you are a large entity, revealing your source via restricted license has become one of the best ways to cause your ideas to be protected, since you can argue that anyone else who had access to your source code, and then subsequently wrote something competitive, has "stolen your intellectual property." Even if you don't win the case, or the case is weak to begin with (as was SCO's), at the very least you can make a lot of trouble for a competitor, mire them in an expensive multi-year court case, and cause Casper Milquetoast prospects to avoid a "possibly infringing" solution.
This could very well be Microsoft duplicity at its finest. It is built-in protection for Windows 7. Let's assume that software patents are overthrown by the SCOTUS, Microsoft's SCO friends die the zombie death they so richly deserve, and that Microsoft is forced, kicking and screaming, to obey standards by the EU and others -- in other words, all of Microsoft's existing weapons to maintain its monopoly position are defused. This strategy becomes a key defensive position.
Do not look at this code. You must be able to answer, "I never saw it," under oath, if you ever expect to build something competitive.
You mean, like replacing a windows desktop?
My first try:
Since It's Not Gnu Us Linuxers Are Redmonded I Tell Ya.
The Hacker's Guide To The Kernel: Don't panic()!
Of course, Firewire also does DMA - which is the source of the security hole which appeared on /. a couple of days ago.
My Journal
Opensource my ass, it's about as open as OOXML.
Imagine taking the OOXML "standard" improving it and releasing the changes to the world.
Microsoft would fall on you like a ton of bricks. That's how open Microsofts Shared Licenses are.
Any other opinions on managed code out there? Preferably from people who have actually used it?
Klingon programs don't timeshare, they battle for supremacy.
I wanna try it out on their Virtual PC product to see if I like it better than the millions of other Linux distros out there....
Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
Singularity Installation Tips & Screenshots at singularityos.blogspot.com
You should never be forced to trust any program to do what it's told. The OS should make sure it stays within the boundaries you set for it... or better yet... only gets to use the capabilities you offer it.
Hopefully they'll get over the fixation in time, before a random mix of computer virii and malware "mate" and produce a sentient rootkit that takes over the internet. (I'd estimate we've got 10 more years before this is going to happen)
This is just another blue sky project from the Microsoft Research, a division that is tasked with coming out with cool stuff without regard to commercial viability. Every big high-tech company has such a division. My own employer, Sun, has Sun Labs, which is always coming out with interesting stuff that mostly has nothing to do with our business model. I think it's mainly a prestige thing, to convince folks that you're a cutting-edge company.
Something to see, and it's done far far ago. For extra safe kernel believers.
:).
And efficient, too
http://opencm3.net, http://www.nongnu.org/gm2/
It's the Free Software movement that demands what others make MUST BE provided freely to all. So technically, they are the fascists. Open Source is far more liberal and accepting that an authors work may be given/shared willingly.
But a headline mistake like that is very unbecoming of slashdot. The license is very clearly not anything remotely qualifying as Open Source. And, that is a critical point to make. Non-commercial, academic only is useful only as a curiosity and private pet project.
Perhaps 60 Mb is only the portion of the code base that resides in our universe. The rest of the O/S could be running on a cluster of quantum computers beyond the event horizon which communicate via a wormhole with the instance on the user's PC. Hence the name. Microsoft's future OSes running in an alternative universe is a win-win as far as I'm concerned. In fact, I'd be thrilled if they moved their HQ there. Can we vote them off the planet? Sorry, sarcasm and ideology aside (and assuming there's no nefarious agenda which there may well be), I think it's great that they've established a group to experiment with new OS concepts. Welcome to the '90's MS.
The supposed advances are:
1) It's a managed-code OS
2) It's a microkernel design but with faster interprocess communication
However,
1) In order to be an OS its compiled from VM bytecode (the definition of managed code) to machine code, so it is not in fact managed code.
2) Interprocess communication is fast because everything actually runs in the same context and is basically on its honor not to screw with other bits of the system. (Marketing name "Software-Isolated Processes") Basically a monolithic design and not a microkernel.
So, what was the point?
For great justice.
That doesn't even remotely resemble open source. It is NOT open source.
This is Microsoft's attempt to redefine what Open Source means. It is an aberration of their "embrace, extend, extinguish". They are trying to confuse the market into a non-understanding of what open source means.
That license is not even close to the GPL. People who develop for open source need to understand and spread the word that this is simply a matter of intentional obfuscation of the ideals behind open source and what it attempts to achieve. Giving up is giving in, so don't give up on spreading word.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
"Academic, non-commercial" is not "open source".
Technically, Singularity is intellectual masturbation; ignore it.
Does it compile under Linux ? /me doesn't have windows @home since even the GF adopted Ubuntu...
:"Its 60MB compressed and compiles in 40 seconds" : Do we have the same understanding of the time needed to compile a 60Mb+ file / You are using Distcc on a Top500 cluster / I really should upgrade my personnal server)
And can I run it under VMWare Server just after that ?
And I'm too lazy to launch VMWare to run 2K3 to compile the stuff.
(also
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
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Wow, I figure you might just have been someone with a difference of opinion looking for a debate. But seeing as how you are replying to all of the posts clarifying the difference between OSI's definition, and the common English language definition with drivel like "STFU Microsoftie", it seems pretty clear that your opinion as a whole should be dismissed.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
A single bug in the verifier, even a really subtle one, could allow an attacker to access any memory in the machine.
This is equivalent to having a true microkernel like L4, and having a bug in it that allows the attacker to get access to all the memory in the machine. Which is pretty damn unlikely for something as small and heavily-scrutinized as L4.
Note that the reason L4 is able to be that small, and thus the reason we are able to have high confidence that there are no bugs in its implementation of address spaces, is because it relies on the protection features of the hardware. I don't know anything about this SIP stuff but since it doesn't use the hardware I think it will be very difficult to guarantee its integrity.
So, it's managed, and won't let you do things like access outside the bounds of an array, etc. So I suppose that there's some software that checks these things and essentially kills your program if it misbehaves.
Sounds slow to me. Maybe someone can invent some hardware implementation of this. It could be a little managing unit which you build in to the CPU. Since it's managed and it's memory accesses, you could give it a cool name, something like managed... memory...unit? Maybe? That doesn't sount quite right, but you get the idea.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Silverlight is good? Come on, what have people been doing in that that they haven't been doing in firefox extensions or flash or javascript for a long time?
I don't really care, I just want the free karma.
"Having done some (well, little) work in this area I'm really impressed by what they've achieved already."
So were's the Open Source equal?
Frankly, this is stupid.
The "vaunted" MS Research team has put out a "concept" OS that doesn't run _any_ applications, and cannot be used for any commercial purpose, and has no indications that it can be licensed. It's only claim to fame is that its an MS OS; there have been 100% managed code OSs before.
Just last month Arstechnica had an article about two similar OSs, except they are written entirely in C#, without the C++ HAL in Singularity.
Both are REAL opensource. As is jnode.
In short, who gives a flaming f**k? As usual, MS is a day late and a dollar short, which is impressive considering that the "research team" working on singularity seems to be 30-40 people.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Instead, use another term when you mean "you can read the source code". I suggest "source available".
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
In other words, Microsoft finally discovers Erlang.
While I wouldn't go so far as to say that the guys at Redmond lost the habit of inventing anything new a long time ago, the above concepts have been in industrial use in Erlang-powered PTT exchanges since the dawn of time.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The name seems awful close to the math program "Singular" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SINGULAR
Read this PDF: http://www.research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/publications/OSR2007_RethinkingSoftwareStack.pdf
.NET. Performance doesn't seem to be a huge problem given the ground up implementation.
What's cool isn't that it's C# or managed code, it's that they've established some fairly rigorous design principles that gain you a lot of security and reliability guarantees that you don't get just by writing an OS on
It's actually not written in C#, it's written in Sing#, an extension of C# that supports the principles they're trying to implement: full process isolation in software, communication by contract, and full memory management.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Remember this comes out of the research lab of MicroSoft. They arent expected (though it would be nice) to produce commercial products that corner the market. In this way they resemble Bell Labs and Xerox PARC which were attached to less-reputable parent companies.
A Discerning Look At Microsoft Singularity License
"Opening up my newsreader today and being exposed to cacophony of news bits about Microsoft's Singularity platform, and seeing all the likely PR mouthpieces like Om Malik blogging about it, I decided to take a closer look at their license agreement."
I'm somewhat agnostic on the question of whether or not Open Source is a good thing, but it does us no good to have someone call any license their cat coughs up "Open Source".
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Want an open source managed OS? Get sharpos http://www.sharpos.org/
I think this is a very neat idea. Just one more step on the progression of languages down the software stack. A while back no one would have dreamed of writing OS code in anything but assembler. Now the Linux scheduler is written in C. Times change. Maybe a managed OS will be future. Garbage collection is really nice to have.
So they have some prototype of the OS kernel, releasing it under non-commercial free license?
It has just occurred to me that a guy named Linus Torvalds did the same back in 1991, releasing an OS kernel called Linux under a free, strictly non-commercial license. He later got the clue and changed it to GNU GPL.
Apparently Microsoft is 17 years behind; will they get the clue? I doubt it.
-- Kir Kolyshkin, OpenVZ project leader.
Singularity looks like testing the waters of an OSS kernel. This is (IMHO) a direct result of the pressure applied by PC vendors deciding to ship Ubuntu and friends. Microsoft sees the need for a move, and as you put it, the "concept car" is there to be scrutinized rather than realized.
It is in Microsoft's best interests to get the hell out of the kernel business. I don't understand why this isn't plainly clear to their executives. If they want to kill Linux, they should jump on board some other train ... probably a BSD. Sure, purposeful incompatibility would be in the mix, so it won't be so interchangeable with other BSD incarnations like OS X or FreeBSD, but it would solve many of their security issues right off. This would move Microsoft's OS team from competing with Red Hat and Ubuntu to competing with GTK+/Gnome and Qt/KDE, which is wise because the BSD and Linux kernels beat the pants off of the Windows kernel, whereas it's a far closer race in the desktop environment arena, and Microsoft has the office suite battle pretty much in the bag (so this line of logic would suggest an official Linux release for Office further down the line).
There is also pressure on the mobile front, with MS solutions looking like they will lose to Google's Andriod (Java), Nokia's Qtopia (C++/Qt), and FIC's OpenMoko (C/GTK+). C# isn't half bad, so if they start developing something along the lines of an Andriod/Qt/GTK+ killer that also fuels their desktop GUI, they stay in the game. Otherwise, their mainstay will fade into X-Box, Office, and perhaps Visual Studio.
Alternatively, they could use their obscene wealth to flat-out buy Google's biggest competitor... *shudder*
As a note
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
A large number of people are missing the point. Singularity is not meant to replace any version of Windows. Singularity is not meant to be competition for Linux. Singularity is not meant to be open source in any useful sense of the term.
/. understands the term.
Singularity is a research project. It's meant as a testing ground for new and interesting ideas about operating systems. It's especially a project to see what you can do with an OS if you control the entire software stack, particularly the compiler and runtime system. It's not meant to be an OS anyone would actually use for anything; instead it's meant to give people an idea of what's possible in such a setting, and what problems you can solve in new and interesting ways.
So, why are they releasing it? Probably for a few reasons. The first is that Microsoft Research is a research lab, and Singularity is an academic research project. MSR is interested in advancing the state of the art in computer science, and operating system design is one of the things that they particularly care about. Singularity is part of this effort, and so MSR wants people to see it, understand how it works, and use that understanding to push forward new ideas about how operating systems could someday be written. Go to http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/#publications ; you'll find a dozen or so technical academic papers describing the workings of Singularity, so that other researchers in the field can know about the advances made by MSR.
Another reason is that, as MSR is mostly unconnected from the commercial sections of Microsoft, they have no reason to hide their work from competitors. I'm sure the people involved in Singularity are happy that the project is now in a place where they can show others all of the details of the awesome stuff they've been working on for a few years.
I'm also sure they have little interest in building a community of developers. They have that; dozens of people at MSR work on singularity. They don't care about receiving patches from the community, or other people pushing the project in new directions. It's their project, and they want to continue working on it themselves. They are more interested in showing off their work than in recieving contributions to it. There's no intention for it to be "open source," as
Finally, all the Microsoft bashing going on in this discussion is entirely missing the point. MSR has little connection the rest of the company. They have no interest in producing commercially viable projects or crushing competition. Their job is to push forward the state of the art. Remember Xerox PARC and Bell labs? It's the same idea. They give Microsoft ideas about future projects, generally increase the amount of knowledge in the world and give the company some academic prestige (as someone pointed somewhere in the discussion earlier).
So all of the MS bashing and confusion over whether this is intended on being true open source or a product is misplaced. It's neither. It's an experiment, to see what can be done.
I'm not sure, but when it comes to names, I don't think copyright law applies, but instead, trademark / service mark law.
I found out about this a day or two before it hit slashdot via programming.reddit.com or something. I was the second post on the singularity site. Right after the current first post "I'm glad Singularity has been released. When I first read about the project a year or so ago, I wondered what would become of it."
I said that this isn't open source and that this is why I prefer Free Software and that the confusion of Free as in freedom vs free as in cost is better than the confusion over open source you can't actually do anything with.
They have deleted my post. Bastards.
The current second post which says "Please do not worry about the "free software" demands. I'm very pleased to see the source of the (hopefully) next windows kernel." was in reply to my post about free software.
Sleezy. Just sleezy. And this is why I don't do business with them.
Some fool took me literally....
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Someone explain a concept to me. I am not a kernel developer, so to my mind this is all black magic. How the frak do you get a managed code kernel? Is this a pure virtual machine? If not, then who the hell is managing the kernel? Who's running the environment that's running the kernel?
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
From what I know of Singularity, it's basically Microsoft's attempt to replicate the Inferno OS, but using C#/CLR instead of Limbo/Dis. At least the people behind Inferno had the balls to use real Free/Open Source licenses for their stuff. Sheesh, does anyone else find it a coincidence that Stephen Hawking applied the phrase from Dante's Inferno: "Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here" when describing black hole singularities? Or perhaps the designers of Singularity were well aware of the work done in Bell Labs by Ken Thompson and the like that led to the design of Inferno, and chose the name consciously?
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I was an intern on Singularity and the Singularity HAL is written in safe code. Not one line within the architectural abstraction that is the Singularity HAL. There is unsafe in the kernel and it's hard to avoid at the lowest level because the compiler does not know about the details of context switches, page tables, model specific processor registers, interrupt control, etc. [BTW, that native directory in the JNode sources contains unsafe code].
:- researchers, interns, and engineers. They span different areas: OS design, memory design, networking, language design, compiler design, etc. Some of them write a lot of code, most very little, and almost all of the contributors have a non-Singularity day job. I suspect the other C# OSes will soon be more fully featured, but will be a lot less advanced on the tools side. The MSR guys are really into code verification and that's not something that most recreational hackers tend to be very strong at.
Singularity has had 30-40 contributors
I think Singularity is being released as piece of code for teaching and research. If you read the license, it basically stops you building products from Singularity or the tools distributed with it. That's mighty onerous (sic), but the tools and code are research quality aka "a bit rough around the edges". You really really wouldn't want to build a product using them anyway -it's just a proof of concept system.
Minix 3 has a BSD style license so it does not preclude looking and using the source. Versions released prior to 2000 were under a more restrictive license (personal copying only, no redistribution with your changes already merged in, non-commercial use and so on).
I would not consider Singularity to be under an Open Source license myself though. It is more in the vain of pre-2000 Minix (educational/academic use). However the technology in it is interesting and Google's Mike Hearn has a good series of blog entires giving an overview of the ideas within Singularity.
arstechnica are a pack of idiots and morons, period. Jeremy Reimer is a clearcut case of that: He has no years of professional hands-on experience in this field actually doing the job, nor does he have comp. sci. related degrees, or even a certification (not even an A+, much less something along the lines of an MCSE). No thanks, I don't need analysis from a pack of wannabe charlatans that read what others write and spit it back out, as "their own material" @ best.
No, you mean "arstechnica spits back already long known news that has been reported on by others already previous to arstechnica", like they usually do. Most of their "authors" are hacks with no education or professional decades of hands on experience in this field, such as Jeremy Reimer was proven to be. A mere fake.
1. What would be the point of having a global, static variable?
2. Of course, the original post also threw-in "Constant" which, of course, makes the other designations moot anyway.
...if you dismiss me as a grammar nazi.
...and so on.
"Doesn't quality"
Doesn't qualify
"They are trying to confuse the market into a non-understanding of what open source means."
They are trying to confuse the market into misunderstanding what open source means.
Your post was good, great points, a valuable contribution, but reading it made me feel like my brain was being whipped with a spatula.
Is this their first official UNG release? Maybe they should have called it SiUNGlarity ...
Who cares if something is "Open Source" or not?
.NET.
It's like talking about "Chiquita(TM) bananas are better than non Chiquita(TM) bananas"!
Maybe a bad example... all I want to say is that I don't give a f***k whether something is original or not! Anyway... it depends on what you define as original, commercial or non commercial.
Sorry, but this discussion leads us to nowhere... When I find something free to play, modify(is Singularity modifiable? I don't know, but it sounds interesting), educational, maybe constructive for taking some ideas for own projects, then I spend a bit of my time on it. For my part... I'll take a look into singularity. If I like it, I'll continue playing with it. If not, then I'll ignore it.
Liking or disliking was and is a matter of taste. Does anybody know if he/she likes something without trying it first?
I don't think the first hackers considered about from who a product came from... It was the passion of creating and modifying things in another usable creative way.
Discussions were really about technology... not about flaming somebody else's work. If I don't like something, I just give a constructive comment and then I ignore it. In case it gets better, *then* maybe I'd touch it again.
I'm programming and playing around with linux or other unix derivates (because I like it... I love it... *yeah*)... At work I'm (unfortunately) programming in
Managed or not... Micro$oft or Open Source or any other thing depending on how you name it... Everything has positive and negative sides.
Just take the best of everything and give the world something better.
No... I'm not a religion guy who separates the good from the evil! *lol*
It's just my opinion...
Greets and thanks for reading,
Andy
P.S. Dammed my first post in here (and almost off topic)... maybe it's a stupid reply, but I had to get rid of this! Oh... and sorry about my english.... I'm not a native english speaker.
Not only is this a pointless shill post, but it's wildly offtopic. Singularity? Interesting, but not mentioned once in this post. Who cares if people love or hate Vista... this topic is about Singularity.