Welcome to the Tunes project

"To make an apple pie from scratch,
   you must first create the universe"
-- Carl Sagan
You should read this Warning before you
learn what the Tunes project is,
read papers and articles about Tunes,
see the current project Status, or
follow Pointers to more Tunes topics...

If you already know the Tunes project, you might want to see What's New on the WWW pages.


What is Tunes ?

Actually, this is the first of many Frequently Asked Questions (a.k.a. FAQs) about Tunes.
To sum up in technical terms, Tunes is a project to replace existing Operating Systems, Languages, and User Interfaces by a completely rethough Computing System, based on a correctness-proof-secure higher-order reflective self-extensible fine-grained distributed persistent fault-tolerant version-aware decentralized (no-kernel) object system.
We want to implement such a system because we know all these are required for the computing industry to compete fairly, which is not currently possible. Even if Tunes itself does not become a world-wide OS, we hope the TUNES experience can speed up the appearance of such an OS that would fulfill our requirements.

Tunes is a recursive acronym for: "Tunes is a Useful, Not Expedient, System".
It is a project to provide both design and implemention of a computing system, based upon a paradigm of total computing freedom. Such a system encompasses all computing software, from the lowest-level hardware layers of an operating system, up to the highest-level layers of computer logic, and including friendly user interfaces, computer languages, distributed computing management.

Its scope is the whole computing world; it aims at absolutely all kinds of users, (we make no arbitrary racial or other distinction among them), from newbies to gurus, humans or machines, all kinds of computing, from video games to professional expert systems, on all kind of platforms, from pocket calculators to mainframe computer.
Its approach is based on a permanent, serious, deep reflection about how the computing world could be, how it should be, and why it should be so, including both theoretical and practical considerations, which we invite you to share with us. We believe that both theory without practice and practice without theory lead to deeply flawed systems. Thus this project is neither a purely philosophical nor a purely experimental project: it's an ethical project.
Since the project is in an early development stage, we're currently looking for the guru (or would-be guru) type of collaborator. Don't be modest; if you're ready to work, you can easily become a guru. The project is currently not funded, and lives on the spare time of its collaborators.
The project will freely distribute all its code over this world, but will reserve the right to offer non-free support for it. Code will be copyrighted so that it will stay freely distributable, but the project will stay in control of commercial use, distribution, and support of any code produced.

The project is divided recursively into subprojects each having its own maintainer, according to the Tunes Charter. This page is the root project of the above hierarchy.


Papers about Tunes


Tunes project status

The Tunes project is currently in early development stage. Current release is 0.0.0.17. But if you access this page through the WWW, it already has changed a bit since the release.


Contributing to Tunes

Now you can help us, and we beg you do so, be it "merely" by sending us feedback or pointers to other people's work. What did you understand/misunderstand, like/dislike, agree/disagree with? What improvements could be done, in the contents or style of this page? What gross or subtle mistakes are we doing, that you can point us to? What other subjects would you like the project to cover, even though you might not be able to actively help us cover it ?


Tunes addresses

In any case, don't forget to send us any kind of feeback !


To Do in the root project


Project Coordinator:
Faré -- rideau@clipper.ens.fr