Misters,
Let me introduce myself : Guillaume FORTAINE, French Engineer in
Computer Science. Some people know me and some other don't. In all the
cases, it's an honour for me to send to you this mail. I am currently
doing researches about FPGAs engineering and Functional Programming
Languages.
I am currently involved in the OpenFlightLinux project :
http://openflightlinux.org/
“The Open FlightLinux Project is an open source paragon that strives to
provide sustainable technology through superior engineering,
next-generation design concepts, and open standards.”
and I am currently thinking about the design of a true next-gen
Operating Sytem. After many thoughts, I believe that it could be of
interest for
everybody to have a common basis for Next-Generation Systems to promote
research and to skip reinventing the wheel every time. As you are the
main leaders of the most promising functional stuff research, I decided
to contact you. Here is the starting point of my reflexion :
http://lists.tunes.org/archives/tunes/2007-July/004097.html
I have to say I'm impressed with Ubuntu Linux... it was painless to
install, and it just works. I won't be thinking about how to improve
Linux anymore, just looking forward to its successor... which just might
be Tunes. (Doubtful 
One challenge remains : to obtain FAA Flight Certification, the highest
degree of reliability in software verification at the current time (
EAL7 can't be tested on the "field", or in the sky ;) ! ).
http://www.ghs.com/linux/security.html
Until Linux is certified to DO-178B Level A, our soldiers, sailors,
airmen and marines should not be asked to trust their lives with it.
Here is my proposal for a functional way of thinking computers from the
gound up ! :)
*Hardware Design*
http://funhdl.org/wiki/doku.php/atom
Atom is a high-level hardware description language embedded in the
functional language Haskell. Inspired by the work of Arvind and his
students at MIT, Atom compiles conditional term rewriting systems into
Verilog and VHDL for ASIC and FPGA synthesis.
*Programming Language*
http://www.e-pig.org/
*Processor*
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~mfn/reduceron/index.html
The Reduceron is a processor for executing Haskell programs on FPGA with
the aim of exploring how custom architectural features can improve the
speed in which Haskell functions are evaluated. Being described entirely
in Haskell (using Lava), the Reduceron also serves as an interesting
application of functional languages to the design of complex control
circuits such as processors.
*Operating System Design*
-Basis :
http://www.ninj4.net/kinetic/
Project Summary
Kinetic is an operating system which is written primarily in Haskell, a
purely-functional programming language.
Kinetic is not the first operating system to be developed in Haskell;
however, to my knowledge all previous efforts in this direction have had
seriously limited scope (mostly academic and proof-of-concept systems).
The long-term intention is for Kinetic to be a serious, useful operating
system.
-Future :
http://tunes.org/
TUNES is a worldwide, loose-knit group of computer enthusiasts working
toward a new vision of computing, based on these principles:
* All users are programmers... more or less
* Computing Freedom - open source, re-usability & extendability
* Integration & Consolidation of programming languages & tools
* High-level programming: Automate what can be automated
Our work is focused on programming language design, compiler techniques,
development tools, and user interfaces.
I look forward to your answer,
Best Regards,
Guillaume FORTAINE
--
"I consider life itself instinct for growth, for durability, for accumulation of forces, for power : where
the will to power is lacking there is decline"
Friedrich Nietzsche
"Knowledge is Power."
Sir Francis Bacon
| 
