MOOSE project status

[Francois-Rene Rideau]

As I recall you, the MOOSE project is the project for a computing system
(not only what is commonly called operating system) with
* persistence (system life is permanent, state is conserved after shutdown),
* security (objects are typed, and even have specification),
* object-oriented-ness (types as first-order objects and depending on them),
* no-kernel (objects interact arbitrarily through optimally fit protocols),
* lazy partial evaluation (objects are evaluated and optimized on need),
* a built-in self-extensible dynamic language (no distinction between
 high-level development languages, shell, and scripting languages)
* an efficient portable low-level language (with needed interpreter/compiler
 back-ends, and trivial interface from high-level language)
* specifications open for a distributed implementation

The critical points are
* the type system, which should be generic enough to allow *any* language to
 use directly system types; types must thus be parametrizable.
* the high-level language, which should allow full use and specification of the
 system resources.
* most basic protocols.


Well, the MOOSE project (as we still name it) has got (only)
four members; but I think we may join the PIOS project, which is some nine
more people, and perhaps the merlin project, which is one more.
Sorry for the delay, but the language choice is a really big problem.

In the MOOSE group, we have
Fare = Francois-Rene Rideau = rideau@clipper.ens.fr
Kyle = Kyle Hayes = kyle@putput.cs.wwu.edu
jvs = Johan Van Schalkwyk = jvs@iconz.co.nz
bkyee = Ban Keong Yee = bkyee@mtu.edu

For PIOS, contact Mike Prince (mprince@crl.com). 
Because of an address mistake, I've missed the PIOS discussion,
so I dunno if there's any incompatibility between the projects
(but it seemed there shouldn't be).

Merlin is Jecel Mattos de Assumpcao Jr. (jecel@lsi.usp.br). There's
a WWW page that I've not finished reading yet.


There are also a lot of people interested in MOOSE progress, who may
be future users or developpers if the system ever gets usable.


Current status is:
* only general goal settled
* ftp site: frmap711.mathp7.jussieu.fr:pub/scratch/rideau/moose/


Current schedule is:

Organization:
* See what if PIOS, MOOSE and/or Merlin will merge
* Settle a stable mailing list (ens.fr has got a daemon for such things)
* See how tight the team can be (i.e. irc meetings or only mail ? ftp sites ?)


Contents:
* See what existing language or OS to use or extend if any; thus study them
* See what platforms are current targets


Any suggestion welcome.

--    ,        	                                ,           _ v    ~  ^  --
-- Fare -- rideau@clipper.ens.fr -- Francois-Rene Rideau -- +)ang-Vu Ban --
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MOOSE project member. OSL developper.                     |   |   /
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