Re: Progress on AdaOS

[Richard Riehle <richard@adaworks.com>]

Samuel Tardieu wrote:

> You need to *trust* your OS. That's why I love when it is
> small. If a particular package fails to suit my needs or is
> buggy, I just replace it. If a part of the OS fails to suit
> my needs or is buggy, either I am stuck with it or it is
> unpractical to use a replacement.

Overheard at Izzy's Bagel Shop on California Avenue in  Palo Alto:

Paraphrased:    "I consider my decision to stop using Microsoft
                          products whenever possible to be an act of
                          patriotism."

There are many reasons why people choose operating systems.   Most
choose Microsoft because it is the path of least resistance not because
it is the best product.  We all know it is not the best product.
However,
few will choose a different operating system unless they have some
passion for doing so.

The person overheard at Izzy's had evidently just completed at purchase
at the nearby Apple dealer across the street.  In his view, Microsoft
has
become the equivalent of an "evil empire" and a danger to the entire
national security, not to mention the economy.   He believes in his
viewpoint
enough to go against the dominant trend.

I am old enough to remember when the phrase, "Nobody ever got fired for
buying IBM," was the near equivalent of revealed truth.  Now, we can
say,
"Nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft."    Just as IBM lost its
dominance through a series of hubris-induced blunders, so too Microsoft,

with its arrogance toward the consumers that depend on its products, can

eventually implode unless it someday begins to understand that consumers

want a wider range of choices, more reliable products, and a better
commitment
to service, none of which seem forthcoming in current or projected
Microsoft
product offerings.

An AdaOS, if one is to be developed, needs to focus on a specific
marketplace.
One of Ada's particular strengths is in the real-time and embedded
systems
marketplace.   The language already is a model for consistency and
continuity
that could evolve into a well-formed operating system for that market
segment.
The difficulty will be getting compiler publishers to agree on the
creation of
such a product.    Each Ada compiler publisher prides itself on the
special
qualities of of its RTE, and this is as it should be.    If someone were
to define
a common set of properties for an embedded, concurrent, real-time OS
that
could be written in Ada, support Ada, guarantee efficiency and
reliability,
that OS would not have to compete against Microsoft or Linux or
whatever.

In some ways, I find myself in agreement with the man who claimed he was

doing a patriotic service by abandoning Microsoft products.  I find it
increasingly
scary that our DoD organizations are becoming dependent on this single
source for software.    In fact, Microsoft has now become the one
organization,
among all others, in which there is no need for a competing bid in the
purchase
of software products.    Novell has no voice.   Linux publishers have no
voice.
BeOS, an excellent design, has no voice.   Apple's voice has long ago
been
silenced in most DoD organizations.   Perhaps the man in Izzy's was
right.
Perhaps a decision to dump Microsoft products in favor of some equally
effective alternative really is an act of patriotism.   I found his
comment
intriguing, even if it is a bit unrealistic in our current technological
climate.

Perhaps there is a place for an AdaOS.

Richard Riehle
richard@adaworks.com