here are a few reflection's following Norman's call for discussion:
* Norman wrote: " Supplementing Genode with user-friendly means to configure...Right now, I use Vim as configuration front end, which is cool..."
My thought: One can certainly get a lot of configuration usability out of a basic, potentially colored, 2D ASCII text document. Not to mention how much lighter and more portable the (potentially remote) terminal display can be.
So while GUI tool kits are great for some things, I'd like it if little headless nodes running Genode (Snickerdoodle) would be just as easy to re/configure. Thus I vote that Genode's next generation of [ASCII] configuration files are both very easy to read, in addition to edit with a (potentially augmented) terminal emulation program... i.e. lets not prematurely jump on the GUI bandwagon, before Genode achieves a similar ease of configuration using a significantly lighter level of display / keyboard interaction...
given the goal stated above, why not at the same time provide a very nice set of terminal interaction API's within the Genode framework, that one can count on as a lower level system resource, such that other light weight apps that run on Genode can also count that this terminal interaction API might be made available as shared resource.
* Norman writes: "bringing forward Emery's work on the Nix package manager."
My thought: the Nix pure function based package management system looks interesting.. but I do have some concern that the Genode project might in some way mange to align it self with the emerging standards for application container management... Now I'm not saying that Nix/Genode would not have something say as it joins the container standardization party.. This may be all the more reason to make the effort toward fully functional integration with the emerging OS (potentially bootable) and Application container standards.
* Yes auto mounting USB thumb drives (using a fully protected USB driver stack) would be great...
* Yes, a state machine based perspective makes a great foundation for the design of Genode API's... Yes..Yes bring it on!!
* Norman bring up the seL4 formally verified micro kernel..
In similar directions, I would like to see Genode development explore the potentials of working relationships with LowRisc, as well as BERI and BERI2 (formaly verifyed) CPU projects ... these are all security oriented, open source CPU hardware design research projects... where I gather the perspective of those at the top of there game designing the Genode OS would be more than welcomed.... I'll be happy if I can keep up with the innovation that is likely to result from such a collaboration...