Re:10 Years SeL4: Still the Best, Still Getting Better
by atombender on Wednesday August 07, 2019 @02:28PM
(#20637446)
Zircon, the Fuchsia kernel, is much bigger than seL4. For example, it provides a process model and syscall interface.
But Google may have other reasons to reinvent their kernel (though they're not starting from scratch; Zircon evolved from the Little Kernel by Travis Geiselbrecht). They may have decided that the flexibility of inventing a new microkernel for their exact requirements and moving fast with it would be more productive than reusing an existing one. Building on the careful verification process of seL4 is presumably quite time-consuming, and might get in the way.
When NeXT/Apple started using the Mach kernel, it ended up being heavily rewritten to support Apple's requirements, and they never adopted the microkernel design. Google may have seen a seL4 dependency as being a similar kind of burden.
seL4 is also GPLv2, I believe. Might also be a blocker for Google.
But Google may have other reasons to reinvent their kernel (though they're not starting from scratch; Zircon evolved from the Little Kernel by Travis Geiselbrecht). They may have decided that the flexibility of inventing a new microkernel for their exact requirements and moving fast with it would be more productive than reusing an existing one. Building on the careful verification process of seL4 is presumably quite time-consuming, and might get in the way.
When NeXT/Apple started using the Mach kernel, it ended up being heavily rewritten to support Apple's requirements, and they never adopted the microkernel design. Google may have seen a seL4 dependency as being a similar kind of burden.
seL4 is also GPLv2, I believe. Might also be a blocker for Google.