Tim Rowledge <tim at sumeru.stanford.edu> wrote:
> > I am kinda inunndated by trafik on this list, There should be a focused
> > list for hacking the VM into a full modern OS, and for creating the
> > objects and modules for OS services...
> Been there, done that, got the layoff letter. Not worth the time; plenty
> of other people are playing with OS's (although it does seem they are
> mostly just repeating stuff from thirty years ago, badly) so just make
> use of any good results. There are better  uses of ones time.
> 
> 

There are two senses of OS floating around.  On the part about talking
to device drivers, I agree with Tim: it's cool, but it won't be better than what's
already there.  However, there's another sense of OS: the fundamental
organization of the software on a computer.  That is, the OS as viewed
from above by a user, instead of as viewed from below by a device.

On that angle, there is *plenty* of room to improve, and I can hardly
imagine a better way to spend one's time.  I don't care if XWindows is
sitting underneath Squeak to handle the device drivers, but I really
care that the fundamamental organization approach on my system is still
files instead of objects.

-Lex