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."
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
Congratulations you pointed out something that was clearly not in the summary. Thank you for a worthwhile addition to the discussion. Your mother must be proud.
+----------------- | What is the question!
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"
Can't you look past your own ideology to see that this is actually a remarkably good thing, even if it possibly could be better.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
... 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!
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!
I'm sorry but if you can't modify the code and redistribute it yourself, then I don't consider the source to be open. Still, I agree, it could be useful as an educational tool.
open source = source code is made available
free software = source code is not only made available, but you are free to use that source however you wish, assuming you abide by the guidelines presented in the free software license, assuming there are any
That's also fine, until Microsoft decides to go after you once you've reviewed the source, but happen to work on a parallel product, say Linux. This may be a cynical analysis, but the fact remains that this could be a trap, and slashdot previously covered similar problems with the source code releases of XP to Gov't, etc staff.
will it run Linux ?
http://opensource.org/docs/osd
also, repost is repost
your right. Now compare Minix and Linux. One has a license for you too look at the source code and the other one allows you to actually use the source code and ideas in it.
It's not Open Source until you can use it. BSD, MIT, Apache, GPL, allow you to actually use the code.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
In your opinion (I haven't formed one myself yet) how is this a "remarkably good thing" ?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
I know very well that Microsoft Research and Microsoft are very loosely-coupled, however the article was submitted by a Microsoft proponent (judging by his account history) which "has signed an NDA with Microsoft" and one can very well see how this benefits to Microsoft (they're working hard to make everyone think they do "Open Source" too with their SharedSource initiatives and such -- btw they do have a few projects under true F/OSS licenses afaik).
Microsoft (as well as other proprietary software companies) is (and has been) very interested in spreading FUD regarding Open Source (such as "if the source is available then it must be Open Source", obviously using a flaw opened by the Open Source Initiative which put the emphasis on the openness of the code rather than on its freedom from the start), and with such an headline on a site such as Slashdot (ie, where a lot people go but don't browse further than the main page) I'm sure to take a coffee next week with someone who will tell me about Singularity now being Open Source... Is that your definition of "news"?
Singularity is a great research project but it's not Free/Open Source by any means. So grand-parent is right (as are others), and you are just as much as a fascist than the F/OSS zealots you criticize since your critics are based on them being OSS fascist and not on the facts being right or wrong. Let's call a cat a cat. Open Source is a well-defined term (just like "Windows-compatible" and nobody would like to see the Wine project tout itself of that feat unless it's 100% true), so let's respect it.
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.
It's not an ideological point, it's a practical one. Why should anyone spend any time learning and working with this tool if their efforts cannot be used commercially? It's not a bad thing that they allow people to look at their source, but it's hardly a "remarkably good thing" either.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
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.
Don't be lame.
You ever think that maybe I don't exactly have a lot of room for an extra OS partition due to all the porn on my HD?
Seriously, some of us have actual jobs and don't have oodles of time in mom's basement to wank around with stuff like this.
Je me fous du passé
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
"open source = source code is made available"
http://www.opensource.org/
They may have coinded tghe term, they certainly promoted it and made it polular. They disagree.
all the best,
drew
http://zotzbro.blogspot.com/
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Come out from under that cave... last I checked Minix had been BSD-licensed for several years.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
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.
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
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.
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.
people 'wanking around' with stuff like this move things on. You know, the stuff you're only using. Yes, those lifeless curious nogood hax0rgeeks. Damn them for wanting to understand/improve things.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
My understanding is that the security model is actually pretty old, and has been around since at least 1979.
I think you mean:
gscb_hungarian_use = FALSE
(global static constant boolean)
Layne
Singularity and Linux are so completely different that the chances of successfully prosecuting somebody for "stealing code" or even ideas is zero. Not only is Singularity written in a custom derivative of C# rather than C, but it has very different concepts of what a process is, what a kernel is, how system components communicate, and so on.
I, for one, am very happy to hear this and will definitely be checking it out. Singularity is probably the most interesting research OS out there right now, in multiple dimensions. The main challenge they have to tackle next is one that most microkernels never really reached (because their performance was too poor to make it worth bothering with) - once a component does fail, how can you rewind the system to a safe recovery point? I emailed the Singularity guys about this and got back a very nice reply, which basically said "we don't know, that's still a research problem we need to investigate".
Anyway. Good on MS Research. Let's see if anything interesting comes of this. It doesn't have to be useful, mind you, just interesting.
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.
I think you're confusing "open" with "free" (as in freedom). Generally, free software means it can be freely used and open just means you can view the source code.
I am appalled at how many people dont get this, but I'll say it again.
The US California non-profit organization OSI does not own, copyright, or hold a trademark on the term 'open source'.
They are also not a government or dictionary in that they get to arbitrarily redefine words and mandate that they are the new definition for the entire human race.
The term 'open source' has been around alot longer than the OSI org, and had the same meaning then as it does now. It means the source is availble to read/view.
For a pretty substantial portion of our industry, the term 'open source' used in this context is accurate.
And what happens when you take some of those ideas you learned with this academic license, implement them in your own OS, and release it for free? What's to stop microsoft from bullying those who looked at this code from ever working on an open source operating system again?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
Everything you do on this project, whether just asking a question on a forum or posting a small patch will give MS more momentum, and takes away the same momentum from true free software. So you are not only giving your time away for free, you are also adding value too a commercial research project.
Microsoft finally innovates something, and this is the response.
Of course people who are actually interested don't much care for your tribalist attitude. Hey maybe in 20 more years the open source world can reinvent another Unix.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
It is certainly true that "open source" is subject to some semantic unclarity (which is one reason why I personally dislike the term, preferring "free software" - albeit that has problems of its own, of course).
However, that doesn't mean that the likes of MS should be allowed to get away with their bait-and-switch tactics of attempting to gain the perceived kudos and good marketing karma of promoting "open source" (in the OSI sense) and then turning around and saying, "Oh, we only meant it was 'open source' as in 'the source is available, on restrictive terms'". Nor that, as I said in my original comment, /. should be adding to the confusion over the term.
My guess is that the original submitter didn't appreciate that "non-commercial" takes the licence outside the scope of the OSI's definition of open source - not that they meant to use "open source" in some broader sense of "source is available".
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)
I would point out that there are a couple other microkernels out there that have reached that point. The main one I'm familiar with is BeOS, which is currently being reborn in Haiku.
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
No one said they were. But as the OSI definition is the longest standing and it is a definition that really has ever been challenged except by proponents of close software, the attempt to redefine results in confusion as the the real meaning of open source and foss and the GPL. It is like working away at the chink in the armor. Sooner or later it'll bust unless you have knowledgeable folks repairing it.
OSI is not some random organization that popped up and created a website. Proponents of open source are not fascists. There's no religious ferver here. The individuals are simply protecting their homes. This is where they live when it comes to their community spirit. Soon you'll be redefining their definitions of terroristic toward Microsoft. It is insanely stupid to do so but once you attack and the open source folks defend sooner or later the battle will get much more heated and we'll begin to see terms like terrorism used in software because one party wants to ensure that their homeland is safe.
This is not an open source project and doesn't meet the established definition, one which has been long standing for years and has not been challenged except by a company that has stated they are hell bent on destroying "open source" and is a convicted monopolist. We aren't going to get a court ruling on the term "open source" and those that established it are the ones to define it. Just as I write the book I have the right to name it. BTW, did the court give Websters the right to define words? Or Blacks? I think it is that these were the first entrants and they have been accepted for years. They didn't form some world wide standards organization to create their dictionaries (legal the Blacks law dictionary, or Websters for the English language).
You can't redefine it because you disagree with the meaning given to it by those that invented it.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
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."
HermMunster's reply is very accurate imho, I'll just add one thing. Before the OSI made up the "Open Source" term, we would simply call the fact that the source of a program is available (whatever the license) "available source code" and not "Open Source" (especially not with capitals). The proper headline would be "Microsoft Singularity code now available for download". Regardless of anyone's views on F/OSS, the fact is that Open Source now mostly (99%) refers to the Open Source Definition by the OSI.
;). Words and expressions are meant to carry concepts, and Free Software (with capitals) as well as Open Source (with capitals) carry two (slightly different) concepts; those expressions were not used anywhere as much and with capitals before their respective inventors (RMS & the FSF, & the OSI) introduced them. So really, your argument is moot and imho such way of thinking (shown in other comments too) only slows down the debate and general awareness.
Now, I have myself always been in the Free Software side of the Force (considering the Open Source term only for business related matters) and I agree with Richard Stallman that having the emphasis on the openness rather than the freedom of the code could only lead to the current misunderstanding. Since the Open Source term was coined to avoid the free (as in beer)/Free (as in freedom) ambiguity I find it rather ironic that the Open Source term now suffers from it too -- but let's just keep in mind that it is so only because closed source companies either want to surf on the Open Source wave or spread FUD.
Then again, there is no solution because we can't trademark everyday words unless we're extra rich (then, we can trademark words such as windows or apple! but well) so whatever the term chosen to define the underlying concept behind any new idea that makes rich conservative people afraid, they will try to discredit it by calling their own, non-compliant products, the same way. We still have people, whom after having been explained the concept 20 times, will say "Who are you redefine the meaning of 'free', I have the right to call my 'freeware' 'free software' if I want to". According to my dictionary, these people are typically what we call "morons"