OSDev.org

Hi.
I want to create an desktop OS, that (in a distant future) I could use as everyday OS. I thought I can never do it alone from scratch. So, I'm looking for a OS to join, that has similar ideas to me and is open to contributors. Or if there's no such OS, then I'm looking to fork (but contributing patches that might be useful) an OS that has somewhat similar ideas and author is okay with a fork.
My current overall design is:

• Simple microkernel written in C.
• Use CDI or UDI as driver interface.
• Use as much as portable interfaces(for example POSIX) as possible(but no more) and port many 3rd party libraries(for example Webkit).
• GUI would be simplistic (even minimalistic maybe) and integrated with rest of system.
• Free license (I personally prefer MIT license)
• Mainly for x86_64 (but ports should be possible)

I am aware of Beginner Mistakes article in the wiki, so I know that it's very possible that I'll never reach my goal. Also, I have slowly coded my own kernel for over a year, so I think I know the basics of osdev.

Why don't you just stick with your own kernel, if you have been working on it for a year?

You could take a look at my project's kernel for forking purposes: it's not stable yet, although it's decently reliable. It's a microkernel in C (no extensions, no warnings ) with an ISC license (basically simplified 2-clause BSD) and it supports threading, but it's 32 bit x86 and the userspace contains neither CDI/UDI nor POSIX extensions: however, if you are just interested in the kernel, the fact that its a microkernel makes those design decisions pretty orthogonal.

If you are interested in forking the kernel, just be wary that it's still alpha and some "non-critical" portions are stubbed: the kernel will simply panic when it runs out of physical memory, there are security holes (just DoS, in theory) in the IPC method, and driver processes simply run with IOPL=3. About two thirds of it is well documented, but the rest is barely documented at all, and there isn't much in the way of documentation for the overarching design, because I often change large parts on a whim. It suits my needs right now, but it will probably be nice and polished by the end of this year when I attempt a beta release for the whole system.

Join #valix at irc.freenode.net and we'll talk.

We're not compatible at all but I honestly think my project might be interesting enough for you to change your mind

tyndur could be a relatively close match, except for being i386 primarily and the x86_64 port hasn't really taken off yet. Also, the microkernel is kind of evolving into a hybrid as we take the VFS into the kernel.

I'm not sure, though, if there was another implicit requirement "developers communicate mainly in English". We would fail on that one. Understanding German would be very helpful for a contributor, to say the least.

Merlin wrote:Why don't you just stick with your own kernel, if you have been working on it for a year?

There's still too much to do.

NickJohnson wrote:You could take a look at my project's kernel for forking purposes

I would prefer joining a project. But your OS seems quite good choice if I should decide to fork. And difference between x86 and x86_64 is not so important for me.

xvedejas wrote:Join #valix at irc.freenode.net and we'll talk.

We're not compatible at all but I honestly think my project might be interesting enough for you to change your mind

I still think that our ideas are too incompatible.

Kevin wrote:I'm not sure, though, if there was another implicit requirement "developers communicate mainly in English". We would fail on that one. Understanding German would be very helpful for a contributor, to say the least.

Yeah, English (or Estonian ) is requirement for me.

Unfortunately, the only Estonian words I know are üks, kaks and kolm. It's already some years ago that a German quiz show asked for these, but obviously they sounded funny enough to actually memorize them.

When you can't really be a part of the community it's probably not much fun, so it doesn't make sense. Hope to see you in CDI land instead!