On Sat, 2013-02-02 at 10:49 +0800, Daniel Hartwig wrote: > [Hello l4-hurd, I see you have been quiet lately.] > > On 2 February 2013 01:28, Nala Ginrut <nalagin...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Fri, 2013-02-01 at 16:40 +0000, Ian Price wrote: > >> Heh, reimplementing coreutils in Scheme has been a plan of mine for a > >> while, as part of justifying my Iteratees library, but that has taken a > >> sideline to newer and shinier projects. > >> > > > > Maybe another new project, say, rewrite GNU with Guile, include part of > > HURD, heh? I even get the name, GoG, GNU on Guile. ;-P > > > > Something I have thought about for some time. Next on the TODO list :-) > > > There is a paper by Rees, _A Security Kernel Based on the > Lambda-Calculus_. It discusses a Lisp dialect, Scheme¯, similar to > Scheme but with certain operations removed; in there place are some > logical guarantees with implications for security for any code written > in the dialect. This is used to construct a security kernel, W7, > which becomes the basis for Scheme48 (a language supporting R5RS). > > I don't want to get in to the details of the paper, I think that many > on this list will be familiar with it. Suffice to say that the > security kernel provides concepts that closely map to a capability > model. Also, verified processes can run within the same machine > process and I wonder if this has implications for the communication > overhead that microkernel systems tend to get labelled with. In > theory the security kernel, core services, and any Scheme (and other) > language programs should be able to reside in the same process without > having to implement access restrictions beyond those implicit in the > language. > > After bootstrapping my current pet project, I intend to explore the > ideas in this paper as they relate to the Hurd. As I am quite fond of > Guile I plan to proceed roughly as follows: > - port Scheme¯ to the Guile language stack; > - get W7 or something similar running on this; > - implement required Hurd interfaces; > - port some of the current Hurd servers and userland to the Scheme in > this stack; > - … > - profit! > > Maybe bypassing the first stages and use Scheme48 instead. > > I believe having some sort of system running in Scheme would be very > useful for exploring design and architectural issues, regardless of > whether it is a practical or fast performing implementation. > > Anyone interested in collaborating on such a project, or have comments > regarding the paper and the implications for the Hurd? Nala, you > sound interested, and we will certainly benefit from some of the > userland being ported as part of the Guile 100 Programs Project. >
Yes, I'm definitely interested on it. Several years ago, I decided to become an OS hacker and I want to research OS design, but then I became a language/compiler hacker after I read SICP, I don't know how it is... Actually, I planed to implement MiG with Guile, but I delayed that since I need to read many papers about Hurd which is worthy for the hack. Now this kind of OS, I can't find a good entrance for it, maybe this GNU Hurd on $scheme project is a good way to start. Anyway, count me in! ;-P > Regards
