SandStorm.io on Genode ?

[Norman Feske]

Hello Peter,

your enthusiasm about our projects is great to see.

Admittedly, I feel a bit uneasy about being urged to deliver a statement
about how both projects relate to each other. As I am not proficient in
the domain of web applications, an assessment from my side would be
shallow at best.

When I first stumbled upon Standstorm (on Hacker News), I could not spot
an obvious connection between Sandstorm and Genode. And still, I'm
somehow lacking the imagination to see it. Granted, both projects
facilitate capability-based security. But they are seemingly based on
different premises (i.e., with respect to the reliance on a monolithic
OS) and address different domains (web applications vs. OS services).

>    Good to hear that things are beginning to work well in Sandstorm Land..
> Norman and others at Genode Labs, have already brought up Virtual_Box
> under Genode, so perhaps, one might be able to alreay run a SandStorm
> server within Genode's Virual_Box ? ...

Sure, it is possible to run a guest OS on top of Genode. But what would
be the benefit for Sandstorm users?

>   It would be great if Genode were to adopt Capt'n_Proto.. as part of
> it's next Gen RPC support... but my hunch is that both might learn a few
> tricks from the other...

On Genode, we don't delegate capabilities over the network. In your
previous email, you mentioned Genode's "Server API" in the context of
Capt'n'Proto. The ambiguous terminology may misguided you a bit. Our
server API is not related to networking. In the context of Genode, a
server is simply a software component living in a dedicated address
space (think of a process on Unix) that provides a service to another
software component running on the same machine.

> ..so I'm hopping that the Technical exchange between the teams at Genode
> Labs and Sandstorm turns out to be a gold mine for architecting the next
> generation of significant innovation in both.

You obviously see opportunities worth exploring. I encourage you to get
your hands dirty, e.g., by building a prototype. Once someone like you
who has a natural interest in both projects steps up and pursues the
actual integration work, your vision may become more tangible to all of us.

Cheers
Norman

-- 
Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske
Genode Labs

http://www.genode-labs.com · http://genode.org

Genode Labs GmbH · Amtsgericht Dresden · HRB 28424 · Sitz Dresden
Geschäftsführer: Dr.-Ing. Norman Feske, Christian Helmuth