Re: GNU Hurd on $scheme (was: [ANN] the Guile 100 Programs Project)

[Nala Ginrut]

On Sat, 2013-02-02 at 10:49 +0800, Daniel Hartwig wrote:
> [Hello l4-hurd, I see you have been quiet lately.]
> 
> On 2 February 2013 01:28, Nala Ginrut <address@hidden> wrote:
> > On Fri, 2013-02-01 at 16:40 +0000, Ian Price wrote:
> >> Heh, reimplementing coreutils in Scheme has been a plan of mine for a
> >> while, as part of justifying my Iteratees library, but that has taken a
> >> sideline to newer and shinier projects.
> >>
> >
> > Maybe another new project, say, rewrite GNU with Guile, include part of
> > HURD, heh? I even get the name, GoG, GNU on Guile. ;-P
> >
> 
> Something I have thought about for some time.  Next on the TODO list :-)
> 
> 
> There is a paper by Rees, _A Security Kernel Based on the
> Lambda-Calculus_.  It discusses a Lisp dialect, Scheme¯, similar to
> Scheme but with certain operations removed; in there place are some
> logical guarantees with implications for security for any code written
> in the dialect.  This is used to construct a security kernel, W7,
> which becomes the basis for Scheme48 (a language supporting R5RS).
> 
> I don't want to get in to the details of the paper, I think that many
> on this list will be familiar with it.  Suffice to say that the
> security kernel provides concepts that closely map to a capability
> model.  Also, verified processes can run within the same machine
> process and I wonder if this has implications for the communication
> overhead that microkernel systems tend to get labelled with.  In
> theory the security kernel, core services, and any Scheme (and other)
> language programs should be able to reside in the same process without
> having to implement access restrictions beyond those implicit in the
> language.
> 
> After bootstrapping my current pet project, I intend to explore the
> ideas in this paper as they relate to the Hurd.  As I am quite fond of
> Guile I plan to proceed roughly as follows:
> - port Scheme¯ to the Guile language stack;
> - get W7 or something similar running on this;
> - implement required Hurd interfaces;
> - port some of the current Hurd servers and userland to the Scheme in
> this stack;
> - …
> - profit!
> 
> Maybe bypassing the first stages and use Scheme48 instead.
> 
> I believe having some sort of system running in Scheme would be very
> useful for exploring design and architectural issues, regardless of
> whether it is a practical or fast performing implementation.
> 
> Anyone interested in collaborating on such a project, or have comments
> regarding the paper and the implications for the Hurd?  Nala, you
> sound interested, and we will certainly benefit from some of the
> userland being ported as part of the Guile 100 Programs Project.
> 

Yes, I'm definitely interested on it. Several years ago, I decided to
become an OS hacker and I want to research OS design, but then I became
a language/compiler hacker after I read SICP, I don't know how it is...
Actually, I planed to implement MiG with Guile, but I delayed that since
I need to read many papers about Hurd which is worthy for the hack. 
Now this kind of OS, I can't find a good entrance for it, maybe this GNU
Hurd on $scheme project is a good way to start.
Anyway, count me in! ;-P

> Regards