hakerton // hakers retreat at Queens Collective from 1.- 8. march 2017

 

 

We use computers widely for various tasks which they never intended to do.

The last decades of advancements on the technology sector were impressive, from mechanical calculators to real-time video conferencesfor everybody.

While there is lots of research in software engineering, programming languages, and operating systems, contemporary operating systems - the heart of the computer - still use 70s technology - on the programming language and on the software engineering side.

 

MirageOS is an operating system using programming language technology from the 90s instead of the 70s, and cuts off all legacy layers by adapting to modern hardware features.

The result are virtual machine images with two orders of magnitude less binary size, security by design and choice of the high-level functional programming language OCaml.

 

A long shot goal of MirageOS and other research projects is to enable people to take control over their personal data (instead of google or facebook having control over your data) http://nymote.org/http://www.databoxproject.uk/

 

MirageOS is a research project at University of Cambridge, where it was started 2007 (or even earlier). Around 35 people are involved who meet (some for the first time in person), talk, relax, and hack at the QUEENS Collective from March 1st-8th. We're also celebrating our MirageOS 3 release with many improvements, which we released a week ago.

 

More information on MirageOS at https://mirage.io/