Messages in this thread | | | From | shapj@us ... | Date | Tue, 22 Jun 1999 14:53:52 -0400 | Subject | Re: Some very thought-provoking ideas about OS architecture. |
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Ted writes:
>The one challenge with using >them, though, is that it completely guts your hope of being POSIX.1 >compatible. For example, the open() system call must now take a new >argument, which is the capability. So does unlink(), and rename(), and >bind(), and accept().....
Actually, *these* system calls aren't the problem, as most of them take file descriptors, which are capabilities.
The question comes down to: do you want to facilitate secure collaboration, or do you want to run POSIX apps. Pick one, because you cannot do both.
>On the flip side, the lack of compatibility means that lose all of the >Unix utilities (the GNU suite of utilities, the X window system, etc.).
It's surprising how well a compatibility box works. The truth is that most of your day to day environment can stay in POSIX without much of a problem. Especially when your compatibility box is about the same speed as the real POSIX system.
Jonathan S. Shapiro, Ph. D. IBM T.J. Watson Research Center Email: shapj@us.ibm.com Phone: +1 914 784 7085 (Tieline: 863) Fax: +1 914 784 7595
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