[cap-talk] Midori in The Register

[Toby Murray]

On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 21:47 -0400, Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote: 
> On Thu, 2008-07-31 at 00:17 +0100, Toby Murray wrote:
> > Plash and the OLPC system demonstrate that one can
> > virtualise standard POSIX APIs on top of a capability-like least
> > privilege system...
> 
> You miss my point. There is no question that the API can be virtualized.
> That isn't the problem. The question is whether, at the UI level, you
> can make things like cut&paste and program launch operate transparently
> enough that the user never realizes that multiple worlds are present.
> 
> The filesystem alone seems hugely problematic.
> 
> Remember Workplace Shell:
> 
>   Fleisch, The Failure of Personalities to Generalize.
> 

No (well before my time) but I just got 'round to reading the paper.

The failures of the Workplace project don't seem to necessarily preclude
the possibility of implementing a seamless UI. Indeed, VMWare seem to
have made some good progress here, as has much of the work on Windows X
servers like Xming, etc.

> The filesystem alone seems hugely problematic.

Could you elaborate on your concerns here?

Cheers 

Toby