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Europe Funds Secure Operating System Research

Posted by kdawson on from the software-heal-thyself dept.

narramissic writes "A Dutch university has received a $3.3 million grant from the European Research Council to fund 5 more years of work on a Unix-type operating system, called Minix, that aims to be more reliable and secure than either Linux or Windows. The latest grant will enable the three researchers and two programmers on the project to further their research into a making Minix capable of fixing itself when a bug is detected, said Andrew S. Tanenbaum, a computer science professor at Vrije Universiteit. 'It irritates me to no end when software doesn't work,' Tanenbaum said. 'Having to reboot your computer is just a pain. The question is, can you make a system that actually works very well?'"

19 of 376 comments (clear)

  1. Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I thought Windows was secure. Why not use that? *cough* *cough*

    1. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I though Minix was dead for some 15 years....

    2. Re:Wait a second... by Zumbs · · Score: 2, Funny

      I thought Windows was secure. Why not use that? *cough* *cough*

      I thought OpenBSD was secure. Why not use that?

      I thought DOS was secure. Why not use that?

      I thought stone tablets were secure. Why not use them?

      --
      The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
    3. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      It was. Appearantly Tanenbaum is renaming Minix to Lazarus as we speak. In a non-related story A.T. is renaming himself to Jesus.

    4. Re:Wait a second... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think I'd rather get raped by a polar bear than use Windows. It hurts much less.

    5. Re:Wait a second... by plus_M · · Score: 1, Funny

      *cough* *cough*

      Oh shit guys AC has the swine flu, we're all fucked!

    6. Re:Wait a second... by jaroslaw.fedewicz · · Score: 2, Funny

      > In a non-related story RMS is renaming himself to Jesus. RMS is St. IGNUcius already, he doesn't need any renaming.

    7. Re:Wait a second... by DickeyWayne · · Score: 3, Funny

      I though Minix was dead for some 15 years....

      No, *Linux* is dead. Those monolithic kernels are just "one big mess!"

    8. Re:Wait a second... by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2, Funny

      Andy said at LCA2007 it was a 30% hit, I don't see a 30% performance hit being 'slightly' slower.

      Yeah. Moore says [1] you'd have to wait an extra six months for hardware to catch up.

      [1] Don't get all pedantic on me. I know what he really said.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    9. Re:Wait a second... by xouumalperxe · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, I think the key point here is what we understand as secure. "Secure" is "easy" to define in terms of a system, but, to me, seems a remarkably nebulous concept when applied to a language. While it's very easy to screw up in C, that isn't a matter of "barbed wire and armed security guards", but rather "flying trapeze and safety nets".

    10. Re:Wait a second... by Ant+P. · · Score: 2, Funny

      I thought Windows was secure. Why not use that? *cough* *cough*

      I thought OpenBSD was secure. Why not use that?

      I thought DOS was secure. Why not use that?

      I thought stone tablets were secure. Why not use them?

      Because none of these suggestions is compatable with my abacus.

      Ah. Another NetBSD user.

  2. Linux is Obsolete! by fishexe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now that Minix 3 is here, Linus can take his monolithic kernel and stuff it! Microkernels are the wave of the future, man!

    --
    "I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
  3. Re:Linux is obsolete by fishexe · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Of course 5 years from now that will be different, but 5 years from now everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5."

    Man, remember back in '96 when we all got SPARCstations? Those were the days.

    --
    "I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
  4. Re:Tanenbaum? by Ragzouken · · Score: 5, Funny

    Actually he said: "Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design :-)" the :-) is important.

  5. Re:A very good question by aliquis · · Score: 1, Funny

    The question is, can you make a system that actually works very well?

    I'm glad someone finally got to asking this question.

    The answer is, it seems: Yes!

  6. Re:A very good question by aliquis · · Score: 2, Funny

    10 print "no"
    20 goto 10

  7. Hooray! by Cornwallis · · Score: 5, Funny

    2009 will finally be the Year of the Minix Desktop!

  8. Why would you think Minix was dead? by jonaskoelker · · Score: 5, Funny

    I though Minix was dead for some 15 years....

    Did netcraft confirm it?

  9. Re:The 1980s called... by stsp · · Score: 4, Funny

    When I first heard about Linux, I had incorrectly assumed it was an evolution of Linux.

    No no no, your assumption was correct!