Re: Reinventing the wheel... for what purpose?
> Reinventing the wheel... for what purpose?
Mate, the wheels we use today are absolute garbage. They are prone to punctures, get stolen, and often fall off the cart completely. That is to say, the computing devices we use today are liable to be hacked, despite the huge cost, effort and inconvenience spent trying to thwart the bad guys. Oh yeah, and sometimes kit just crashes by itself.
That's very not good as computing devices are used in ever more parts of our lives. In cars, pacemakers, video doorbells, military drones...
So, back in 2006 work started on a microkernel, seL4, that could be formally verified to do what it is specified to do, that is, proven exactly as a mathematical theorem is proved. That was just the first step though, and this approach is hard. Very hard, but very necessary.
A Google are building an OS atop this secure microkernel, a feat the developers of seL4 said was beyond themselves.
Google want it run on in open source silicon, too. Since what's the point of a secure software stack if you can't trust the chip its running on?
So, Google say it's for embedded devices with machine learning. Medical devices spring to mind. User authentication modules. Any bit of gear you need to have learn about you and don't want the information sent home to the mothership. Things like Apple's T2 chip are based on similar thinking.