Re: Ada Operating System

["Pam Kelly" <al@adalinux.org>]

Hard to know which post to reply to but for what it's worth ...

Linux has a huge following because it's free, there are masses of GPL
applications available for it and there are increasingly a very significant
number of heavy duty commercial applications available.

So rewrite the Linux kernel in Ada. People might try it as a curiosity since
they'll be able to use all their existing applications. It won't be
frightening.

Pick some applications with a long track record of vulnerabilities such as
sendmail or bind. Rewrite them in Ada. There'll be more vulnerabilities
reported and the Ada versions will be immune. Publicise it.

The security community will start taking an interest. Because it is
compatible with existing applications it's a viable os as it stands. They
start to recommend an incremental move to applications written in Ada.

Then you can substitute a new improved kernel.

We're working on it. If you're interested let me know.


"Wes Groleau" <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message
news:3C88E0D1.89161C16@despammed.com...
>
> A pessimist's viewpoint:
>
> To make an operating system successful, you need
> at least one of
>
>  - sufficient quantity of useful applications
>
>  - sufficient geek appeal to attract developers.
>
>  - sufficent robustness/power/features to overcome
>    the lack of either of the others.
>
> To get people to write applications that run on it,
> it must have enough users to make people want to
> write apps for it.  So you have a chicken/egg problem
> for the first point.
>
> For the second, you have the prevailing distaste for
> Ada against you ("Us" if you will).
>
> On the robustness/power/features point, obviously
> Ada has a significant advantage over C/C++/Java.
>
> BUT, when you multiply the language potential
> by the number of developers, Linux still comes
> out ahead.  In spite of its implementation language,
> Linux is quite robust, and it has hundreds of
> developers for every AdaOS developer to keep it
> that way.  Shift the target to features, and
> Microsoft will always have you beat there.
> They will always sacrifice security/robustness
> to beat any competition in features.  And their
> "if you can't beat 'em, steal 'em" technique
> also applies.
>
> So on the third point, you have say a hundred
> developers and a language that scores ten on
> some arbitrary rating scale vs. several thousand
> developers and a language that scores one or two.
>
> Do the math and Ada loses.  Unfortunately.
>
> --
> Wes Groleau
> http://freepages.rootsweb.com/~wgroleau