186 lines
7.6 KiB
Plaintext
186 lines
7.6 KiB
Plaintext
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========
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Road Map
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========
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Herein, we lay out our plans for evolving Genode. Progress in addition to this
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planning will very much depend on the degree of community support the project
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will receive. The
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[http:/about/challenges - Challenges] page collects some of our ideas to
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advance Genode in various further directions.
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The road map is not fixed. If there is commercial interest of pushing the
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Genode technology to a certain direction, we are willing to revisit our plans.
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Review of 2016
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##############
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We originally started the year 2016 with the ambition to expand the Genode
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community by improving the project's appeal towards system builders and
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privacy cautious users. Hence, we started the year with the resolution to
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increase our engagement with the wider community, i.e., in the form of
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publishing tutorial-like articles. Over the course of the year, however, we
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increasingly shifted our focus to architectural and deeply technical topics
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instead.
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We ultimately prioritized the concerns of the existing Genode users over
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extending our user base. The existing users - ourself included - are primarily
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interested in API stability and maturity. So we made it our priority to free
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Genode from legacies and known architectural limitations. Over the year, we
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introduced and cultivated the new framework API that is designed for safety,
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achieved cross-kernel binary compatibility, and revised the framework's most
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fundamental protocols. Now that the time of sweeping architectural changes
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lies behind us, we feel much more confident to approach new users.
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Apart from the architectural foundations, among the many other construction
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sites of 2016 were the support for the RISC-V architecture, hosting Genode on
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top of the Muen separation kernel and the seL4 microkernel, huge device driver
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improvements (wifi, graphics, USB, ACPI), VirtualBox 5, virtual networking,
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TOR, Rust and many others. Even though we largely deviated from our original
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ambition, we are proud of the outcome of the past year.
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Big picture for 2017
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####################
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Our principle direction as declared at he beginning of 2016 remains unchanged
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for 2017: Making Genode accessible to the world outside the inner circle
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of us enthusiasts. But rather than making this direction the top priority for
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now, let us first push the bounds of what the current users and
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developers can do with Genode. Hence, for the overall theme of 2017, we
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picked: *stability and scalability*. Once Genode reaches the point where it is
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routinely used and stressed for various purposes by the "inner circle", a
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growing user base will follow naturally and organically.
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During our seasonal road-map discussion on our mailing list, we identified the
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following topics to address in 2017:
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:Application binary interfaces and package management:
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By mid 2016, we attained binary compatibility across the various OS
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kernels supported by Genode, which cleared the way to introduce the notion
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of a Genode application binary interface (ABI). This, in turn, is a
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prerequisite for a scalable handling of binary packages. In 2017, we
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will leverage these foundations in two ways: Allowing the easy creation
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of Genode systems out of packages, and realizing a system-update mechanism
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that allows us to automatically use (and thereby test) the latest versions
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of Genode components on our machines.
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:Dynamically reconfigurable subsystems:
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Until now, Genode subsystems were either static (using the init component to
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define them) or relied on a scenario-specific dynamic runtime environment
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(like CLI monitor). By enhancing init to dynamically apply configuration
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changes, the need for special-purpose runtime environments will
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disappear. Scenarios like multi-stage booting, boot-medium detection, or
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a dynamic desktop environment will become dramatically easier to realize.
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:Pruning the boot chain:
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Today, Genode on x86 machines still relies on the legacy BIOS boot
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mechanism. We will explore alternatives such as UEFI boot and
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coreboot.
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:Asynchronous I/O:
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With Genode 16.11, we successfully removed the last blocking inter-component
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interfaces from the base framework. Still, other parts of the user-level
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infrastructure, in particular the libc still relies on blocking operations. Even
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though we have to offer blocking I/O to user applications for POSIX
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compatibility, the mechanisms used behind the scenes will be changed to leverage
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Genode's asynchronous I/O primitives.
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:VirtualBox 5:
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Currently, we maintain a fully-featured version of VirtualBox 4 (including
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USB pass-through, audio, shared folders, clipboard, dynamic desktop resizing)
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and a pretty basic version of VirtualBox 5 (without those integration
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features). In 2017, we will replace VirtualBox 4 by a fully featured
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version of VirtualBox 5.
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:Updated tool chain and Qt5:
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With version 17.05, we want to experiment with the idea of providing a
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long-term supportable version of the framework in addition to the quarterly
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releases. Consequently, at the time of its release, this version should use
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a modern tool chain that will remain current for the foreseeable future of
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Genode's regular development. The same holds true for Qt5.
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:Hardware-accelerated graphics on Intel:
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Graphics is an important element for many use cases for Genode on x86-based
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platforms. Even though we experimented with hardware-accelerated 3D
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graphics
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[http://genode.org/documentation/release-notes/10.08#Gallium3D_and_Intel_s_Graphics_Execution_Manager - many years ago],
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the current GUI stack is still based on software-based rendering.
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We want to overcome this limitation this year.
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:Native work flows:
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In the regularly used "Turmvilla" scenarios, most work flows require the
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use of Linux in a virtual machine. Over the course of the year, we want
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to move the most important work flows (namely software development and
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the work with emails) to Genode natively. As a precondition,
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we need to improve the usability of our GUI infrastructure by adding
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support for tiled and tabbed windows, and virtual desktops.
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:Storage:
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There are several storage-related topics that need our attention to
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realize the goals stated above to our satisfaction. This includes the
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performance and stability of the used file-system stack, and the provision
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of file-based backup and cryptographic functionality.
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:Genode-based cloud appliances:
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We want to widen the application scope of Genode by enabling users to
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easily deploy Genode scenarios on Xen-based cloud platforms.
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Milestones for 2017
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###################
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In the following, we present a rough schedule of the planned work. As usual,
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it is not set in stone. If you are interested in a particular line of work,
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please get in touch.
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February - Release 17.02
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========================
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* Application binary interfaces (ABI)
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* Dynamic init
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* VFS: asynchronous I/O
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May - Release 17.05
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===================
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* Removal of deprecated APIs
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* Updated tool chain
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* Updated Qt5
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* Easy creation of Genode systems out of packages
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* Feature-complete VirtualBox 5
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* Update of the Genode Foundations book
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August - Release 17.08
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======================
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* Hardware-accelerated graphics on Intel-based platforms
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* Support for the seL4 kernel on x86_64 and ARM
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* Use of Genode for cloud-computing appliances (deployment, virtio)
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* GUI: tiled and tabbed window management, virtual desktops
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November - Release 17.11
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========================
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* Revised boot concept (UEFI, trimming the boot chain)
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* Storage: backup, improved file-system support
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* Native work flows for email and development work
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* Test automation for interactive system scenarios
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