Roadmap 2016

[Emery Hemingway]

Hello list,

For this next year I would personally like to see Genode host more network
services, so more library support, more configuration idiom, and better
support for virtual hosting environments. This is because I would like to
migrate a few services that I manage myself, and to make Genode binary
distribution self-hosted. Competing with Linux and BSD on performance is
quite literally an uphill battle, but I feel there will be some great
benefits hidden in Genode's IP stack isolation.

On the subject of configuration, perhaps components could export an XML
description of their configuration options over a report session, and then
a generic Qt GUI could dynamicly generate a configuration dialog? I am
imagining that there could be a nice library to handle both configuration
declaration, documentation, and retrieval.

I of course want to polish up Nix and make it a pratical tool for other
people to start using. My first priority is to modify the Make build system
to build arbitrary library targets and to link components against external
objects (actually just those library targets, but at arbitrary locations).
The second priority will be to fetch binaries over the network. I am sort of
working on the second right now, and the second can supplant the first, but
robust self hosting is something that I want to be done by early next year.

My only Linux experience has been with Gento and NixOS, and I really don't
want to accidentally create a distribution with unwilling maintainers (like
me), so as we go forward I want to do my best to optimize for some sort of
modular and anarchistic distribution model.

On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 02:08:17PM -0800, Peter Lindener wrote:
>    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.

If a Nix generated Genode system is going to be embeddable in another OS, I
would want to make the interface sharply defined and not integrated, that is
there would be minimal crosstalk between the two. I don't know much about what
is going on with containerisation but I think want to try and make something
that is easy to wrap, not externally integrated, if that makes any sense.

On that point, when I was at NixCon this year I there was some talk of fixing
.NET DLL hell and better Windows deployment support, so if all that Windows
goop can be tolerated then it will be easy to wiggle Genode in.


Anyway, good hacking to you all next year,
Emery
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