Google Summer of Code 2012

[Norman Feske]

Hello Taru,

> I might be tempted to apply as a student to GSoC for Genode.

great to know there is actual interest in having us participate. So we
should definitely go for it! .-)

> That is actually quite feasible. The hard issue is interfacing with
> Genode specific interfaces done in C++ since there is little support for
> C++ integration in Go. But porting the basic runtime should be fairly
> easy.
> 
> There are two runtimes the gccgo one which requires libpthreads for
> goroutines and the gc one which is more popular but also more
> eccentric.
> 
> There are ports of the gccgo runtime to L4 side of things by Daniel
> Mueller and myself, and I have done some porting of gc to Plan9.
> 
> If one needs just a higher level language on top of Genode then using
> Lua is trivial (if someone wants it please mail me) and there are
> multiple solutions to Lua<->C++ interfacing.

To have a safer systems language (something that Julian may have had in
mind) is a quite different topic than having a scripting facility. If we
go for a particular runtime, it would help to sketch its designated use
within Genode beforehand.

With regard to safe systems languages, I am personally inclined towards
the D programming language. But Go and Rust are certainly also
interesting topics to explore. Each of those may attract a different
user base.

BTW, speaking of safe systems languages, there is already a certain
degree of ADA/Spark support in Genode:


http://genode.org/documentation/release-notes/9.11#Zero-footprint_runtime_for_Ada/Spark

> Block device encryption is very interesting and important. I think that
> especially a solution that would combine logical volume management 
> (like lvm) with encryption would be interesting. (i.e. different keys
> for different logical volumes and also encrypt the metadata).

Sounds interesting. Good that the topic is deemed relevant to Genode
users outside Genode Labs as well.

Thanks for your feedback! It is very much appreciated.

Norman