In the Review subproject,
we inspect related software projects,
particularly about OSes and
Languages.
We also compare
compares Tunes to them.
What is Tunes ?
Actually, this is the one
Frequently Asked Question
(a.k.a. FAQ) about Tunes.
Current Computing Systems
are a source of both
great enthousiasm before their technical achievements,
and great deception before the barriers
that keep their potential underexploited.
Tunes is a cybernetical project,
to rethink how Computing Systems should be,
so as to fill this growing gap
Politically, Tunes is a project
to promote libertarian ideas in Computing Systems.
Technically, Tunes will build a system
around semantics-based reflectivity.
The main idea in our analysis of the failure of current Operating Systems
is that the goal of an Operating System should to promote
fair exchange of information between independent entities,
whereas current systems will provide
but untrustable raw data under centralized control.
The current Computing World is based on
centralized development,
racket on so-called "intellectual property",
information hiding, lack of expressiveness,
unsecure low-level communications,
and general noise.
Tunes will promote free decentralized development,
a fair market of services,
freely published software,
arbitrarily expressive information,
secure communications,
and meaningfulness.
A running system will have lots of features
that are just inimaginable on current systems (see below);
but semantics-based reflectivity is truely what allows these features,
and whatever the users will develop,
to be dynamically combined in a decentralized way,
freeing the world from existing rackets.
Politically, .....
To sum up in technical terms, Tunes is a project
to replace existing Operating Systems, Languages, and User Interfaces
by a completely rethought Computing System,
based on a
correctness-proof-secure
higher-order reflective self-extensible
fine-grained
distributed persistent fault-tolerant version-aware
decentralized (no-kernel)
dynamic high-level hardware-independent migratable
object system
(phew).
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 implementation of a
computing system,
based upon a paradigm of
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
(see our article Why a New OS)
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 essential portions of the OS, those needed to run most everything,
will be GNU copylefted, so everyone can be confident about freely using it.
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 0.0.0.30.
But if you access this page through the WWW,
it already has
changed
a bit since the release.
Look for the latest developments on the Tunes
mailing-list archive.
- We are concurrently and cooperatively developping on all fronts.
- Particularly we intend to co-develop the languages and applications
that will run on top of it, so that each feeds the other ones
with useful information.
- The general specifications for the various projects are well-settled.
Now is time to begin experimental coding.
- In the HLL subprojects,
the syntax of the language is still to be defined;
But many people in the project do not even understand the high-level
ideas, so there has to be some explanation first.
- As for the LLL, not much code exists: enough to boot a computer,
plus some (unfinished) generic code to produce a FORTH engine
on any common CPU mappings will have been defined for.
- The main problem currently is to find a few very active members,
who would work at least half-time to have TUNES running.
- Perhaps we should look for funding. Should we ? But then, inside
structure ? Tunes is currently a very much like a student's
personal project !
- And of course, we are always actively looking for
feedback and new collaborators;
e-mail us !
Tunes project Schedule