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FOSDEM PWA

Microkernels: The last 15 years in retrospective

K.4.201 | Day 2 | 16:30 - 17:00 | Speakers: Martin Decky

Microkernels: The last 15 years in retrospective
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Notes

Abstract

Since the first Microkernel OS Devroom at FOSDEM 2012 and culminating today, there have been exactly 15 devrooms in 15 years dedicated to microkernel-based operating systems at each FOSDEM. As surprising or shocking this may sound to somebody who has been there all along, this time period already constitutes a small piece of history. While the computing world of today is not dramatically different or unrecognizable compared to 2012, maybe except for a few "minor" technologies such as HTML5 and LLMs ;), there have definitively been some changes and shifts of priorities.

Let us take this opportunity for a small retrospective of the last 15 years in the context of open-source microkernel-based operating systems. What problems have we been facing back then and how do they relate to the problems we face today? What have been the ups and downs? What are the important lessons learned?

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Speakers

Martin Decky

Martin Děcký is a life-long operating systems enthusiast and a passionate programmer, enjoying everything from bare metal programming and fixing bugs in the Linux kernel to designing the HelenOS microkernel multiserver operating system. After spending 10 years in academia as a computer science researcher at Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, he switched to a role of senior research engineer at Huawei Technologies, Munich, Germany in 2017. In 2019, he co-founded the Dresden Research Center of Huawei Technologies and continued his work there as a principal research engineer. In 2021, he joined Kernkonzept GmbH and is currently working on the L4Re microkernel remotely from Prague. He has been working on HelenOS since 2004.

Brief biography: contributing to HelenOS since 2004, computer science researcher since 2008, Ph.D. in computer science (software systems) in 2015, senior research engineer at Huawei Technologies Munich since 2017, principal research engineer at Huawei Technologies Dresden since 2019, senior software engineer at Kernkonzept GmbH since 2021, Google Summer of Code organization administrator in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2017

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