MS Singularity causes a sensation (and open source puzzle)

In today's IT Blogwatch, we look at Microsoft's Singularity OS research project. Not to mention an open source LED puzzle-blocks game, which "brings the flexibility inherent in digital software to a physical tile that people can touch and interact with." Eh?

Is MS Singularity going to be a Linux killer? We've heard about MS trying to recruit Linux people before, was this what it was all about? Mary Jo Foley's Microsoft Watch reported on Friday, "Microsoft Research has developed a prototype of a microkernel operating system, code-named 'Singularity.' Its most surprising feature: It has nothing to do with Windows ... 'What would a software platform look like if it was designed from scratch with the primary goal of dependability?' reads the opening of the Microsoft research report ... Singularity also could, hypothetically, act as the host operating system for something like Microsoft BigTop. BigTop is the code-name for a still-unannounced internal Microsoft distributed-systems infrastructure project ... Already, however, the Singularity work is generating ideas for the architectural team inside Microsoft's Core Operating System Division (COSD), and the Microsoft security team." [So not just "pure" research then, eh?]

» Dan Farber:  "The operating system, called Singularity, focuses on advances in programming languages and tools to replace the current complex, less than reliable architectures and operating systems built in the 128K memory and pre-Internet eras ... With the tyranny of the installed base, operating systems evolve, improve and become more unwieldy, adding on new layers to hide complexity in other layers."

» NetRAVEN5000:  "MS [isn't] stupid ... Now they're probably hoping to keep people from switching to Linux with a 'we'll make it better. . . we promise!' kind of thing."

» Trewornan responds: 'You're spot on ... They've switched to the vapourware tactic ... if they make a system that's secure, stable, etc then it'll break all the Windows Apps that are out there. Then if you've got to go through a major migration anyway most rational people would consider what options were available. It changes the question 'Which is cheaper, upgrade windows or migrate to linux' to 'Which is cheaper migrate to Singularity or migrate to linux' ... The more I hear from Microsoft the more desperate they seem lately. "

» RedLaggedTeut breaks it down further: "Results are mixed;  According to the benchmarks published there, at most OS jobs like threading/process creation, Singularity is at least twice as fast as linux, Linux is very fast at process creation, while XP is good at threads; in File Operations FreeBSD and Linux beat XP and Singularity at random reads; in File Operations XP beats Linux and Singularity at sequential reads, with the exception of FreeBSD being fastest if blocksize is high(and very bad for small blocksize); linux executable size are larger than these of the other OSes, (whatever that means, more good coding, or less bad code SCNR). Please bear in mind that a benchmark does not it tell whether the "slower" OS actually invested more time in doing some smart stuff that pays off in some other way."

» Roy Schestowitz:  "If Microsoft pursue a research O/S, then so be it, but researchers are largely not fond of Windows, especially in scientific research domains. Windows is simply too restrictive and insufficiently flexible (unless one pays). The move to Singularity is absurd, in my opinion, as people do not want to completely separate research environments from other activities."

» Matthi Lässig: "One thing’s for sure: I would sure like to intensively test this new OS as I never like BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) or an app instantly falling to death just before I save my work of the last few hours." [We can ALL relate to this scenario, unfortunately.]

» Cloudy Thinking by Ron K. Jeffries: "Working from the ultimate clean sheet of paper, they’ve also invented a new language, not to mention a new run-time environment. We should all feel good that our Microsoft Monopoly Tax is funding interesting computer science work."

Buffer overflow:

• Lockergnome:  SuSE Users' Panic Unfounded
  
• Nicholas Carr: HITs for HAL
• Richi Jennings: Mobile phone operator subsidies will decline
• Arstechnica: Google Print goes live, publishers and authors go ballistic
• Schneier on Security: Oracle's Password Hashing
• Martin MC Brown: Proprietary over open source virus software
• Alex Scoble: Microsoft Technet blogcasts on migrating from Exchange 5.5 to 2003
• Adam Margosis' Weblog: All about NOT running as admin
• Mitch Betts: Get in touch with your inner Luddite
• Robert L. Mitchell: Cool Ideas for Hot Servers
• Douglas Schweitzer: A tale of two techs?

And finally...  Open-source LED puzzle-blocks

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk. Also contributing to today's post: Judi Dey, our very own Antipodean.