I feel projects like MirageOS[0], Qubes OS[1], and unikernels in general are laying a lot of groundwork for interesting new developments in operating systems. And as a bonus, there's a lot more automated work on security and safety!
[0] https://mirage.io (and cool sub projects like running Mirage on a ESP32 with reprocessing to make a homebrew gameboy-like platform [0.1])
[0.1] An operating system that can scale down to tiny platforms could be a lot of fun to homebrew tinkering https://twitter.com/cem2ran/status/1034879037758496772
I share the original post’s sentiment about the lack of exciting operating systems research around topics outside of the standard areas like file systems, memory management, and security. Especially since these issues, for many people, are secondary to the perceived features of operating systems (like drivers and widget toolkits). I’d love, for example, to see some truly fresh ideas for new or different system calls (in addition to Fuchsia and Haiku).
And no, I don't mourn CORBA.
I imagine the OS inside the Tamagotchi toy would be the prime example.
Don't worry; once they finish it in a few years, Google's new "Fuchsia" OS will let them take over the world (to an even greater extent than today).
There are a few of these. They're an "alternative to Windows" in the same sense that riding a penny farthing is an "alternative to travelling by bicycle" or sending a telegram is an "alternative to using the telephone". It's just nostalgia.
Whether these systems could attract the same development effort (and money, though what if anything Haiku Inc. does with the money is pretty unclear since they're lousy at basic organisational responsibilities of a charity) if they admitted they aren't a serious "alternative to Windows on the desktop" is an open question.
And most decisions are made in public, on the haiku-inc or haiku-sysadmin mailing lists.
One draft report for 2017, misfiled in the hopelessly mismanaged Haiku Inc. "website" after many years since the last one (in 2010) does not count as "yearly financial reports" and since this is a one page summary it can't be said to be "detailing financial transactions" either.
Mostly decisions aren't made at all, anywhere. That financial report you're calling "yearly" took months for the Haiku Inc. board not to agree. That's right, months, not for an agreement, but for the _lack_ of any response whatsoever to be taken as tacit permission to just publish it anyway.
Sarcasm aside, I don't know what decisions you're referring to which "aren't made at all, anywhere" -- the board agreed to a cost increase for server hosting earlier this year so we could switch providers.
You put "website" in scare quotes, and I don't know why -- in fact they deployed a new website last week, which is much better organized than the previous one was.
The point is, Haiku, Inc. is not as responsive as we'd like, indeed. But the money isn't going into a black hole, and they do pull together to get things done when we really need it.