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by pjc50 2585 days ago
> more interesting research environments generally are beyond the scale of academia

I think the real impairment to OS research is deployment. If your idea isn't compatible with one of the existing OSs, in such a way that it can run a web browser, then nobody's going to use it. Heck, even Windows Phone couldn't get adoption. OS ideas that require people to completely rewrite applications and interaction paradigms are non-starters no matter what benefits they offer - unless they can fulfil a need that can't be fulfilled any other way. So quite a lot of work goes into bypassing the OS entirely for hardware-specific single-program networking applications, and everyone else has to keep with their existing paradigms.
1 comments
theamk 2585 days ago
It's important to remember that consumer-facing apps is just a part of the market; and even with consumer-facing apps, the user interface is often only a small part of it.

Even totally plain-looking device could be full of innovative research: a network router which uses completely new kernel. A new network protocol or a compression algorithm. New programming language. Automatic verification and/or fuzzing tools. A network of internet of things devices which share no code with any of the existing OSs.

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pjc50 2585 days ago
> Even totally plain-looking device could be full of innovative research: a network router which uses completely new kernel.

True. Although all those kinds of devices tend to prefer "free" over "innovative", and to keep the OS layer as thin as possible.

> A new network protocol or a compression algorithm. New programming language. Automatic verification and/or fuzzing tools.

To me those aren't really systems software, but that may be a matter of opinion?

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