On 18/06/2017 22:04, Jose Marinez via dev-servo wrote:
So yes, there’s Redox as an alt-os in Rust and it’s quite early for
to start thinking this way, but perhaps not. A Servo based OS would
have many benefits. A browser engine based OS is where we should’ve
been in 1994 if we had more CS people aware of the true nature and
goals of the (I)nternet as imagined in the 60s and 70s.
With WebAssembly and competing technologies at its core, ServoOS
can come closer to a decentralized and scalable platform for all to
share, use and express on.
Again, from a technical perspective, what would this take to extend
Servo to a full OS?
Thanks
Hi,
You may have heard of Firefox OS, also known as Boot to Gecko (B2G).
It’s a lot like an hypothetical ServoOS in its core idea: “The Web is
the platform.”
Its components are split into three layers:
* Gonk is roughly half of Android: the kernel, device drivers, the
low-level rendering pipeline, etc. But not the Java VM, for example.
* Gecko, Firefox’s rendering engine. In the case of Firefox OS, running
directly on top of Gonk without the rest of a traditional operating system.
* Gaia, the user interface (home screen, status bar, base apps) written
in JavaScript/HTML/CSS and running on top of Gecko. All apps/websites
also run on Gecko.
Back in Servo land, a couple years ago we had an experiment called Boot
to Servo (B2S): make Servo run on top of Gonk, with the goal of
eventually being able to run Gaia and make Servo an alternative engine
for Firefox OS.
We got a prototype working on real hardware:
https://blog.servo.org/2015/02/10/twis-23/#screenshots
Last year, we removed the Gonk port from the Servo tree after Mozilla
effectively abandoned Firefox OS.
More background:
https://medium.com/@bfrancis/the-story-of-firefox-os-cb5bf796e8fb
--
Simon Sapin
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