Concept proposals for a better operating system

Here I list the various ideas and concepts which I have collected into what I consider to be the necessary operating system to subsane the current security and productivity flaws on modern operating systems' design and implementation.

This list is preliminary, Q&D and subject to debate, as it is intended to be a catalysis for the creation of new projects that address today's problems, and not a mere exercise of brainstorming for the sake of ego and fun (right?). All of the ideas shown below have not been put into strict thought, and it has not been considered deeply whenever they are wrong or in contradiction with others. I am, after all, not an operating systems designer, and got yet to read even a single Tanenbaum book. Sorry.

Please help by contributing to this list and debating about its virtues and failures, as well as completing and extending it, and considering its potential appliance into the real, desperate world ruled by vulnerable Windows and Linux installations that can't stop breaking and DDoSing stuff because it's so cool. Hopefully you may even manage to make it formal and presentable!

Proposed ideas

• Microkernel (modular) with an integrated virtual machine
  • Unopinionated microkernel, would handle very little tasks
  • By "integration" then we mean "both come tightly bundled together"
  • To heavily consider: JVM, V8, Servo
    • Java bytecode or WebAssembly?
  • Designed for 64 and 128 bits processors from the start
    • And yes, little and big endian processors
• Native isolation via virtual machine
  • Spawns a VM per process
    • Hopefully this will be cheap enough
  • Compatible with AOT compilation
    • JIT compilation probably won't hurt either
  • Would also support (LXC-style?) containers
• Kernel / virtual machine programmed on Rust
  • Systems language with high-level abstractions
  • Designed to meet the current and future needs
  • Warranty against memory races and segfaults (essential)
  • Already targets all of Intel and ARM processors
  • It's already perfect and no other language can be an improvement
    • Biased? Meh, who cares.
• Permissions layer integrated along with VM isolation
• Authentication system via system-level cryptography
  • Probably PGP being the best choice
    • PGP is the Major Key to Success!™
    • Should allow switching to any other trustable system
  • For storing data
  • For signing binaries, repositories, drivers, etc.
  • For identifying people, including contacts
  • For protecting sent information
• Native support for multiple programming languages
• Virtualization support
  • Via containers
  • Should also be designed to be contained
  • Useful for (indirectly) supporting other OSes
  • Useful for safely running binaries
• Net-distributed resource management
  • Device management a la Plan 9 / Hurd
    • Would everything be a file?
      • Redox has URLs instead, for instance
  • Own filesystem
    • Non-hierarchical, if possible
    • Organized by metadata, a la BeFS
    • Search-oriented
      • Could replace Google in a future!
    • With edition history a la Git / Nix
    • Distributed
  • Support for other distributed filesystems, such as IPFS
  • Multiple origins' software management
    • Allows making changes depending on available permissons a la Nix
    • Integration with metadata filesystems
      • In order to better organize the userland
    • Integration with distributed filesystems
      • In order to better support third-party repositories
      • In order to support network-shared software (intranet)
    • Support for package scripts
      • Support for a community-driven repository a la AUR
        • "If it's not at the AUR, it doesn't exist!"
• Dynamic user interface
  • Without a default, kernel-level way of interacting
  • Preferably a graphical server, even for text input
    • Instead of a text terminal session, a graphical one
      • No need to make it this way, just saying (???)
  • Out-of-the-box 3D support
    • Vulkan would be great - imagine this thing on game consoles!
  • Out-of-the-box support for touch input
    • Modular, capable of adapting to currently non-invented input methods
  • "Convergent", adaptable to the device in which is being used
  • Workflow based in transactions that do transformations
    • Functional programming would be essential
      • (statement ((for (verbose (lisp (parenthesis))) (no (need))) (tho)))
        • (Not personally against them. But some people are.)
  • User applications integrated into the user interface
    • Hope this could be possible without sacrificing any portability
  • Integrated support for running remote applications

Design influences

While making this list, I was inspired by the following awesome tech. Thank you all for helping to make the world a better place!

• Rust, Go and D, for opening the path towards new, safer software.
• Java and JavaScript, for introducing virtual machines into our daily lifes.
• Plan 9, Minix and GNU Hurd, for teaching us that microkernel-based, distributed systems are lit.
• IPFS and ZeroNet, for teaching us that distributed networks are lit.
• BeOS and its son Haiku, for showing us there's life beyond hierarchical filesystems.
• PGP and Bitcoin, for giving control back to people.
• Git, Étoilé and Nix, for so many bytes of data that have been and will be rescued.
  • Git is lit, indeed.
  • Also please check out Étoilé, really nice project!
• Lisp, Haskell and Guix, for teaching me the goods of functional programming.
• Pacman and the Arch User Repository, for rocking so much.

Post Scriptum

Thank you to all at /r/osdev, especially @mpasteven, for your contributions!