Abolish Runtime Systems: Operating Systems Should Control the Execution

Singularity [1] is a research project in Microsoft Research that started with a question: what would a software platform look like if it was designed from scratch with the primary goal of dependability? Singularity is working to answer this question by building on advances in programming languages and tools to develop a new system architecture and operating system (named Singularity), with the aim of producing a more robust and dependable software platform.Singularity made some design decisions that distinguish it from other systems. First, Singularity is written, for the most part, in safe, managed code and it will only run verifiably safe programs. Second, the system is the runtime; there is no separate JVM or CLR. Third, each process's execution environment is independent, with its own, distinct runtime, garbage collector, and libraries. As a consequence, Singularity uses control of the execution environment as a mechanism to enforce system policy and enhance system dependability.This talk will describe Singularity and then explain why conventional runtime systems, such as the JVM and CLR, should go away, like punch cards, teletypes, time sharing, etc.