109 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
109 lines
4.0 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 2014
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##############
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Most of the progress in 2014 was motivated by our goal to use
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Genode as general-purpose OS on x86-based platforms. To highlight a
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few achievements, we started to use [http://rumpkernel.org/ - Rump kernels]
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as file-system providers, enabled VirtualBox on NOVA, pulled off the
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engineering feat to run the Intel Wireless stack natively on microkernels, and
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came up with a new GUI architecture. We regard these features as the
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groundwork to make Genode a feasible platform for day-to-day computing.
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That said, even though we are proud about the progress, we are still not there
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yet. So what keeps us back? The answer is actually not technical. Most
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developments over the past years were concerned with individual features or
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technical challenges. But the integration of sophisticated system scenarios
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was a rare occurrence. For the most part, such integration activities were
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solely triggered by a particular project or by a presentation. In order to
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make Genode fit for regular use, we need to make the composing of advanced
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systems a habit for most of the regular developers.
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Big picture for 2015
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####################
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On the account of this realization, the overall theme of 2015 will be the
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consolidation and cultivation of the existing feature set rather than the
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conquering of new grounds. This implies the following topics:
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* Advancing our automated test and integration infrastructure towards
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the continuous integration of real-world system scenarios,
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* Fostering good-quality documentation,
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* Optimization of performance and stability,
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* Improvement of our tooling
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Furthermore, we have to address outstanding limitations of the most
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commonly used base platforms, namely base-hw and NOVA. I.e., only
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with kernel-protected capabilities, base-hw can be considered as a viable
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base platform for security-critical systems, and only with proper
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kernel-resource management, NOVA can be recommended as a kernel for
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general-purpose computing.
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Besides the cultivation of the existing feature set, there will still be room
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for new things. We are particularly excited about the prospect of combining
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Genode with the [http://sel4.systems - seL4 kernel] and
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the [http://nixos.org/nix/ - Nix package manager]. Furthermore, we desire to
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continue the work on our new GUI architecture towards a capability-based
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desktop environment.
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Milestones for 2015
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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 15.02
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========================
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* ARM virtualization on top of the base-hw kernel
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* Modularized tooling for automated tests
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May - Release 15.05
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===================
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* Comprehensive documentation of the Genode foundations
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* Kernel-protected capabilities for the base-hw kernel
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* seL4 microkernel as base platform
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* Refined platform-driver architecture (support for MSIs, assignment of
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I/O resources to drivers, standardized configuration)
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August - Release 15.08
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======================
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* Capability-based desktop environment allowing the interactive installation
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and management of Genode subsystems and the interaction with files
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* Accommodation of typical desktop-computing tasks (e.g., email)
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* Interactive tools for observing the system behavior
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* NOVA kernel-resource management
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November - Release 15.11
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========================
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* Achieving cross-kernel binary compatibility
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* Package management
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* Modern web browser
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